Hazards
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Sharp Objects, Floors: Always keep an eye on the ground for any hazardous objects. There's decades of filth laying all over the ground here, as well as holes in the floor which could be covered by foliage. ⠀
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Active Security: Some sections have security due to certain areas of some buildings still being in use. Be smart, avoid their dogs and explore freely.
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Plants: Lots of plants, it's extremely overgrown. Watch out for rosehips, the thorns can easily get stuck to your skin or clothes and may be expensive to repair :)
About this location
Combinatul de Utilaj Greu (Heavy Equipment Plant), also known as CUG, has been my most extensive explore so far. A massive, roughly 32 acre communist industrial site full of abandoned buildings and areas. As you can see from the map, I've labeled the buildings that I've explored (A, B, C, D, E) which signify which order I explored them in.
Most buildings were massive factories. Some are on the emptier side, others have more content, such as relics of the machinery and other symbols inside.
In buildings A and C, there is a small portion (a few rooms and only on one side) which are still in use. Just be wary of swcurity on that side as they go out to smoke at times. There are 2 dogs that will bark at you and chase you down by the main entrance of building C, though they are friendly and and appeared to be a bit scared. I saw the two men working at Building C walk around with those dogs elsewhere on the property. Yes, I gave them treats!
Oddly enough, there wasn't as much graffiti as I had thought, except for one or two of the buildings which seemed to have been more ran through.
One section in the CUG platform included some sort of waste or water treatment facility, which is my guess is since their work definitely produces a significant amount of waste.
The two little unexplored sections were not worth checking out in my opinion. One was being used as an extended parking lot (not very smart due to falling debris, plus the two men were walking the dogs there) and the other was filled with new scaffolding to prevent it from collapsing as a large portion of the structure was refurbished and in use now.
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From ChatGPT:
CUG (Combinatul de Utilaj Greu) in Cluj-Napoca was founded around 1970, during Romania’s communist industrial expansion, as a major state factory producing heavy industrial equipment—boilers, components for power plants, metallurgical and mechanical machinery. By the late 1970s–1980s it had grown into one of Cluj’s biggest employers, with 8,000+ workers, its own rail lines, foundries, and vast production halls, shaping the city’s identity as an industrial center. After 1989, the shift to a market economy hit it hard: in the early 1990s CUG was broken into multiple smaller companies, many underfunded and uncompetitive, leading to gradual shutdowns, asset sales, and decay. Through the 2000s–2020s, much of the platform became partially abandoned, known mainly as an industrial ruin with scattered surviving firms. In 2025, the roughly 32-hectare site was sold for over €20 million to the Hexagon group (Florin Mariș), which plans a large-scale mixed-use redevelopment—housing, services, green space—similar to other former industrial regenerations in Cluj, marking a full shift from heavy industry to urban redevelopment.
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