Sorry, kids. Mom and dad have decided the family's not going to Disneyland this year. Instead, we're Transylvania-bound, mwah ha ha ha!Transylania's Salina Turda salt mine has been around long before Disney — some 2,000 years, in fact — but it's only been operating as an amusement park and spa since 1992. As photographer Richard John Seymour's new batch of striking images of the eccentric site show, however, this is no ordinary playground.
For one thing, it's all underground. The park's Echoes Room, for instance, is approximately 367 feet deep. Vertical shafts transport tourists down to the attraction, which includes a miniature golf course, bowling lanes, lake, salt mining museum, spa, and swimming pool.
Seymour, who has shared his bewitching photos with Refinery29, started shooting the space after winning a grant from the Romanian Cultural Institute in 2015, which prompted him to research the local countryside. Here, he shares the story behind this rather trippy tourist attraction.
Prints of Seymour's work are available to purchase on his website.
"The Salina itself feels like a huge, empty hall," Seymour tells Refinery29 of the place's scope. "For the size of the space, there were relatively few people and the sounds of the bowling, shouts, and laughter echo throughout the whole space."
"There is a mixture between the old mining infrastructure — elevated walkways, staircases, etc. — and the more modern interventions. At times, it felt genuinely quite risky, which is ironically not part of the theme park experience at all," Seymour explains.
Foosball, in a room of decidedly smaller scope, keeps shorter visitors entertained.
The mines were used to produce salt, a valuable commodity, for centuries.
"Salina Turda was one of the most difficult spaces I’ve ever had to photograph, purely because of the fact that it is so dark inside. I wanted to capture the way that people were using the space and some shots were even taken from on a boat to get particularly interesting angles. Capturing movement and moving subjects in such a dark space was very difficult, but I am happy with how the images turned out," Seymour tells us of this aquatic shot.
Shafts transport visitors to subterranean attractions.
"The place is very dark, but for an subterranean space, the air quality is really quite good. It feels quite fresh inside, which was definitely unexpected," Seymour says.
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