This month's World Heritage Site

The Slovakian Village of Vlkolinec
A Living Memory of the Past

By Toni Dabbs

The first written record of the Slovakian village of Vlkolinec is dated 1376, and a visitor might wonder whether the place has changed much since then.

Situated in the bucolic foothills of the Velka Fatra, 718 meters above sea level, Vlkolinec represents the kind of settlement with wooden architecture that once was widespread in the mountain regions of Central Slovakia. But it is the only such village still undisturbed by new development, and its remaining inhabitants oppose modernization.

The 45 items of folk architecture preserved in Vlkolinec were built between the 15th and 19th centuries for the use of farmers, dairy farmers, cattle breeders, shepherds and woodcutters. Most are simple houses with steeply pitched roofs and small windows.

Vlkolinec is tucked into the mountainside at the end of a narrow winding road, a few kilometers off the main highway between Ruzomberok and Banska Bystrika. It includes two rows of almost identical houses with long courtyards. The houses have stone foundations and log sides painted cream, pale blue or lime green. Some of the windows, trimmed in red or brown, sport flower boxes.

At the end of the 18th century, Vlkolinec had 280 inhabitants. Some 20 houses were lost in 1944, when the Nazis burned them during the Slovak National Uprising. Of the houses that still stand, about a third are permanently occupied by a total of 32 residents. Another third serve as summer homes for their owners. The final third are not inhabited.

For those who continue to live and even work in Vlkolinec, a small store stocks necessities. And for visitors, house No. 17, Rol’nicky Dom, has been converted into a museum, complete with souvenir shop and coffee stand. The three-room house, furnished as it would have been in 1910, includes a kitchen, a pantry, and a combination living room/dining room/bedroom.

None of the houses have running water, but a well is housed in a wooden shed next to the gravel road in the center of the village. There also is a tiny wooden church with a bell tower.

Vlkolinec has been called a living memory of the past. During the 1970s, it was designated an open-air museum by the Slovakian government. In 1993, it received UNESCO World Heritage Site status

Toni Dabbs is a regular contributor to The Cultured Traveler

Photo Copyright © Vladimir Linder 2004. Check out Slovak Heritage for more information on this and other sites.