Prague, April 5 (CTK) – The Czech Republic sent three nominations, of Zatec, the town of hops, north Bohemia, Christmas decorations and the blueprint method, for listing among the world heritage to the UNESCO committee this year, Culture Ministry spokeswoman Simona Cigankova told CTK on Wednesday.
Since 2003, no Czech immovable assets have entered the UNESCO list, but the Czech Republic has succeeded in listing cultural traditions.
Along with Zatec, which prides itself on many sights connected with hops growing, Prague has nominated the traditional manual production of blown glass Christmas decorations.
It also participates in a supranational nomination of the unique blueprint method, a resistant hand-print and indigo dying used in Europe. This is a joint nomination of the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and Slovakia where blueprint fabrics have had a long tradition.
Zatec has tried to enter the UNESCO list for several years. The hundreds of years of hops growing and processing is reflected in many buildings, including storehouses, drying kilns, packing halls and hops stamping stations, which gradually developed into one of the world’s most important centres of hops processing and trading.
The Culture Ministry will be informed whether the evaluators will recommend Zatec’s nomination to the UNESCO committee at the earliest in the spring of 2018, Cigankova said.
The Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage should decide on the latter two nominations at its meeting at the end of 2018.
The Czech Republic has also prepared some international nominations. The UNESCO committee has preferred them to purely national nominations of late. However, their preparation is more complex and long as it requires coordination of several countries.
A total of 12 Czech monuments have entered the UNESCO list of world heritage so far, the last one in 2003. They are situated in nine of the country’s 14 regions.
The first ones were the historical centres of Prague, Cesky Krumlov, south Bohemia, and Telc, south Moravia, all listed in 1992, followed by the Renaissance chateau in Litomysl, east Bohemia, the south Bohemian village of Holasovice, the chateau and gardens in Kromeriz, south Moravia, the centre of Kutna Hora together with St Barbara Cathedral, central Bohemia, the pilgrim church of St John Nepomucen at Zelena hora at Zdar nad Sazavou, south Moravia, the chateau and garden complex of Lednice and Valtice, south Moravia, the Trinity baroque column in Olomouc, north Moravia, the villa Tugendhat in Brno, south Moravia, listed in 2001 and the Jewish Quarter and St Prokopius Basilica in Trebic, south Moravia.
Apart from real estate, some Czech items have entered the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage, such as verbunk, a folk dance from south Moravia dating back to the 18th century, the Ride of the Kings annual folklore festival in south-east Moravia, the Shrovetide masks and traditions from the Hlinsko area, east Bohemia, and the Czech and Slovak puppetry.
The Czech Republic has also five items in the UNESCO’ Memory of the World Register that was established to save the most valuable documents and make them accessible to the public.
