Abandoned talc mine shaft site in the Poiana Ruscă hills of Hunedoara, with derelict surface buildings remaining after closure around 2010.
The Mina de Talc at Lelese, in the Poiana Ruscă hills of Hunedoara County, was one of Romania's principal talc-producing operations, working a significant deposit in the Munții Poiana Ruscă highlands. Talc occurrences in the area were recognised at the beginning of the twentieth century, and organised underground mining at Lelese began in the late 1920s alongside closely related workings at the nearby village of Cerișor. Extraction was conducted through hillside adits and vertical shafts.
In the 1930s, output was exported to Germany, Austria, and Hungary, though high transport costs constrained profitability. Communist-era expansion after World War II mechanised and extended the workings, and by the 1970s annual output from the Lelese commune mines reached approximately 40,000 tonnes. Talc was transported by road and rail — via Govâjdia — to a processing plant at Zlaști in Hunedoara.
The Cerișor open-cut closed in 1995 and its underground mine in 2005. The Mina de Talc at Lelese itself remained in production until approximately 2010, after which its surface buildings were abandoned and left to deteriorate.
Talc deposits in the villages of Lelese and Cerișor, within the commune of Lelese, Hunedoara County, were identified at the start of the twentieth century. Initial extraction was small-scale and surface-based; at Cerișor, talc could be observed outcropping at the surface, and early quarrying required no road access. At Lelese, lying in the Irimuș valley, the early lack of a cart track meant that ore was carried out in saddlebags to the village of Lelese above, then transported by cart to the Crăciuneasa railway station for onward rail shipment.
By the late 1920s, formal underground mining had been established at Lelese in parallel with the developing Cerișor workings. Two talc mines operated in Lelese village, using a combination of hillside adits and extraction shafts. During the early 1930s, talc from Lelese and Cerișor was being exported to Germany, Austria, and Hungary: in 1930 alone, forty-five wagons were exported and 105 used domestically.
However, Romanian transport costs made the product difficult to compete internationally, as the cost of rail freight from Govâjdia to Bucharest exceeded that of shipping French talc to the port of Constanța over the same distance. After World War II, the Communist regime nationalised and mechanised the Lelese workings. Investment in infrastructure allowed output to grow substantially.
Talc was transported from the mine to Govâjdia for drying and grinding, then loaded onto the narrow-gauge railway linking the Ținutul Pădurenilor to Hunedoara, before being distributed to factories across Romania for use in the pharmaceutical, cosmetics, chemical, paper, chalk, textile, and ceramics industries. By the 1970s the Lelese commune mines were producing approximately 40,000 tonnes of talc annually. Following the political changes of 1989–1990, the mines entered decline.
The Cerișor open-cut was closed in 1995 and the Cerișor underground mine in 2005. The Mina de Talc at Lelese continued operating somewhat longer, surviving until approximately 2010. In the mine's final years, three shifts of approximately four workers each extracted ore from a gallery of around 800 metres in length, with talc loaded into tipping wagons and brought to surface silos before road transport to Crăciuneasa station.
After closure, the mine's entrance galleries were sealed, though some were reportedly left unblocked. The surface buildings were abandoned and allowed to deteriorate within a wooded valley traversed by a track descending from Lelese village toward Runcu Mare and Govâjdia. As of the early 2020s the derelict pithead buildings remained standing.