ČR boasts 38 new cultural heritage sites

Prague, Feb 8 (CTK) - Basic data on the Czech national cultural heritage sites (NKP) of which 236 have been declared since 1962 and another 38 approved at the government's session Monday.

- The most valuable heritage sites on Czech soil are included in the NKP list. The decision on the addition of further immovable as well as movable items are made by the government.

- The spectrum of national cultural heritage sites ranges from a Celtic settlement at Zavist near Prague, to the site of important archaeological finds the most famous of which is Venus of Vestonice, a statuette of a naked woman made of burnt clay that was uncovered in Dolni Vestonice, south Moravia and that dates back to the period of 29 000-25 000 BC, to many medieval castles, such as Karlstejn, central Bohemia, and Vysehrad in Prague, to the inter-war functionalist Mueller villa built after the design of architect Adolf Loos in Prague. In 2008 a uranium ore mine tower was included in the NKP list as a reminder of the persecution of political prisoners.

- The Czech Republic now has 236 national cultural heritage sites and items, most of them being properties or sets of sculptures. They also include a few movables, such as the coronation jewels, a set of historical vehicles deposited in the National Technical Museum and a unique daguerrotype photograph from the chateau in Kynzvart, west Bohemia.

- The NKP list also includes a few technical heritage items, including the remnants of a former horse-drawn rail that used to connect Ceske Budejovice, south Bohemia, to Linz, Austria, closed black coal mines in the Ostrava vicinity, north Moravia, and a hydroelectric power plant in Trestina, north Moravia.

- Some of the items have also been included in the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage list.

- The first national cultural heritage sites were declared in 1962. According to the database of the National Heritage Conservation Institute, the most of them, 42, are in Prague.

- In the early 1990s the government deleted some of the items from the NKP list. They were , for instance, the native houses of communist presidents Klement Gottwald, Antonin Zapotocky and Ludvik Svoboda, and the U kastanu pub in Prague-Brevnov in which Social Democracy was established in 1878.

- The biggest number of new items was added to the list in 2001 when the government approved 56 of them. The inclusion in the list took effect in January 2002. The most recently the government added 29 new items to the list in April 2008 (valid as from July 2008).