HISTORY AND TOURIST VALORIZATION OF THE RUSCHIȚA MARBLE QUARRY (CARAȘ-SEVERIN COUNTY, ROMANIA)

History and Tourist Valorization of the Ruschița Marble Quarry (Caraș-Severin County, Romania). With an area of over 40 ha, the marble quarry located north of Ruschița village, Rusca Montană commune, Caraș-Severin County is the largest exploitation perimeter of this kind on the territory of Romania and one of the largest in Europe. Many works were written about the Ruschița marble quarry across time, especially regarding geology, but very little was talked about its tourism potential. If generally, the vast majority of the extractive areas are not at all attractive from the tourist point of view, having rather a repulsive appearance, the marble quarry from Ruschița proves the contrary, both by the greatness and sizes of exploitation and by the surrounding area, constituted of a very diversified mountain relief and an abundant forest vegetation. That is why, we consider useful an attraction and integration in the tourist circuit of this spectacular anthropogenic monument, unique in Romania, comparable to the Carrara (Italy) marble quarries. This paper makes a pleading in this respect.