"Salt of the earth"

English photographer Kirill Kalecki (Kirill Kuletski) visited the salt mines in the Ukrainian village of Solotvyno, where for 40 years was an underground asthma.

Salt mines in Solotvyno were discovered in the eighteenth century, in the 1970s on the basis of them opened Ukrainian Allergic hospital.

In addition to mines in Solotvyno is located karst salt lake, the salt content of which is higher than in the Dead sea.

Alternative therapy used in Solotvyno for the treatment of asthma and other respiratory diseases, known as speleotherapy.

Speleotherapy was opened in Poland in 1950‑ies, when the doctors noticed that the miners in the salt mines rarely suffered from tuberculosis.

Impregnated with salt air salt mines helps to remove phlegm from the lungs and kill the microorganisms that cause infections of the respiratory tract.

Salt in the air tunnels contains ten times less microorganisms than in the air, normal operating.

In addition to respiratory diseases, saturated salt air helps to fight against various skin diseases and the effects of burn disease.

Clinic in the village of Solotvyno was located in the tunnel at a depth of 300 meters from the surface of the earth. The temperature here lasts all year round on the same level 22 °C.

Solotvyno the hospital was the world's largest institution used speleotherapy as a primary method of treatment and rehabilitation after diseases of the respiratory system.

Every year in Solotvyno's salt mines was treated from 300 to 500 people — to get to the clinic, often had to join the waiting list.

The usual time of stay in hospital was 24 days. Patients all the time spent under the ground, for the therapy sessions they descended down the Elevator.

During the treatment sessions, patients lay on beds that are placed in the rock-cut niches and illuminated by fluorescent lamps. They were allowed to talk to each other or to read.

In addition to medical offices, underground building was situated a relaxation room and a library.

The extraction of salt in Solotvyno stopped in the early 2000s due to a sharp rise in the groundwater. Department of speleotherapy shut down in 2008 after the water breakthrough in the ventilation shaft.