Legacies of the Cold War in Romania: The “Secret Uranium City” of Ștei and its hidden narratives

Stei, previously known as "Oras Dr. Petru Groza" (1958-1996), is a former industrial town built during the early 1950s as the headquarters of the Soviet uranium exploitation sites in Romania. It was constructed in only three years following the urban and architectural principles of Socialist Realism, the officially accepted style at the time in socialist Romania. Shortly, it became the “Russians’ town”, prohibited for the existing local community. This narrative that shifts from “them” (Russians) to “us” (Romanians) is linked to that of the uranium exploitation that occurred in Băița Plai mine, at 17 kilometres distance from Stei. However, throughout the communist period, the town enlarged the initial Soviet-built nucleus of the 1950s and further diversified its industrial production (i.e., the mechanic plant factory, the furniture factory, the textile factory for the female population, and the food industry). The closing of the uranium mine in 2008 led to its territorial, economic, and socio-cultural isolation while facing the issues of contamination and radon radiation of the built and natural environment. The disappearance of the production site in the brownfield regeneration projects left scars in the cultural identity of local communities, with theoretical, ethical, and practical questions on if, why, and how “toxic” hidden legacies should be maintained, acknowledged as heritage, and used as assets in the post-industrial revitalisation process. While these debates occupy the national narrative, the local community initiated a bottom-up process of self-recognition of its patrimonial value through its subscription to ATRIUM Route, eliminating the territorial environmental impact of the uranium extraction. Stei is currently the case study of an international and interdisciplinary research group (Politecnico di Milano, “Ion Mincu” University of Bucharest, ENSA Paris La Villette) that tries to understand how to study and analyse a built environment that lacks any official archival documentation, while trying to understand how to balance the patrimonial and ecological aspects. Architects, sociologists, historians, and photographers started from the investigation idea of the “monument as a document” to understand how the “Russians’ city” was built (i.e., architectural surveys of the buildings, construction materials and techniques), while simultaneously developing a recording process of the local memory through direct interactions with the local community (i.e., interviews, photographic recording). The project aims at connecting this isolated case study to the overall Romanian network of the hidden Cold War towns, built in strategic points for the Soviet or Romanian communist government during the late 1940s and early 1950s, about which very little is known, mainly due to a lack of access to official sources of documentation.