Vlkolínec
Interesting facts
- Vlkolínec stayed intact largely because of its isolation: until the mid-twentieth century it was reached only by field tracks and had no electricity.
- In October 1944, during the Slovak National Uprising, several houses at the upper end of the village burned after mortar fire and were never rebuilt.
- The log houses stand on tall stone plinths that level out the steep slope, and the gaps between their beams are packed with triangular timber battens and clay.
- Small openings in the plank gables, called dýmniky, let smoke from the hearth escape from houses that once had no chimneys.
- In the 1950s officials planned to move the villagers down to Ružomberok for better living conditions, but the resettlement never took place.
- Within the town administration of Ružomberok the village was represented by two elected spokesmen, first called elders and later senators.
- A stream rising on the slopes of Sidorovo runs straight through the middle of the village, past the belfry and the shingled well.
- Vlkolínec was declared a reserve of folk architecture in 1977, and it is one of ten Slovak villages that hold this status.
Why it is worth it
On a green slope of the Veľká Fatra mountains, a village of log houses climbs the hillside. Vlkolínec preserves some forty-five homesteads of traditional wooden buildings, houses of two or three rooms, alongside barns and outbuildings that still sit on their original plots. It is a rare intact example of a mountain village built entirely of wood, and it has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1993.
The village lies at 718 metres on the southern slope of a spur of the Veľká Fatra, sheltered to the north by the massif of Sidorovo, which rises to 1,099 metres. It probably began between the second half of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century as a settlement of woodcutters and charcoal burners, and it is first mentioned in writing in 1376. Its name comes from vlk, the Slovak word for wolf. For centuries it belonged to the lands of the town of Ružomberok and of Likava Castle, and it became part of Ružomberok itself in the late nineteenth century.
The centre of the village is marked by a wooden belfry of 1770, a log structure on a rectangular plan with a shingled roof, and a wooden well. The small Roman Catholic church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary was built in 1875 in a late classicist style. The village has been declared a protected reserve of folk architecture, and two of its houses, numbers 16 and 17, serve as a museum of rural life. Only a handful of people live here permanently.
Getting there
Vlkolínec is reached by a side road branching off the main road between Ružomberok and Banská Bystrica; Ružomberok is about 4 km away in a straight line. The nearest airport is Sliač Airport (SLD), about 46 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Vlkolínec is a village under the administration of the town of Ružomberok in Slovakia. Historically, however, it was a separate village. The first written mention of the village came from 1376 and after 1882 it became part of Ružomberok. Its name is probably derived from the Slovak word "vlk", i.e. wolf.
Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0
49.03970, 19.27840per Wikidata