Szadvar castle project and youth camp, Hungary

Thank you! - Friends of Szadvar Awarded

We proudly report that our association was honored with the Gyula Forster Memorial Medal by the Hungarian Government in Sept. 2013. Gyula Forster played a significant role in the beginnings of historic preservation in Hungary. This award is a great recognition of the contribution the members of the association and the several volunteers have been doing for the past 6 years. We really appreciate and thank you for all the donations which were essential to our achievements in historic preservation that the government recognized with this award.

In 2013 the members and volunteers were really active not only in contributing with their hard work but also after that: they have submitted 14 narratives about their experience during the summer excavations. We proudly shared these memoirs on our website (in Hungarian). All of them were reporting about good atmosphere and a pleasant activity on a nice event providing an opportunity to help which was a positive experience and left warm memories. Some of them actually reported finding interesting artifacts such as coins, animal bones or even a canon ball.

The summer activities concluded with the completion of the conservation of the still 40 feet high walls of the Csonka (Truncated) tower. Despite its name this building was the only tower of the castle which was not demolished by the Austrian forces in the 17^th century and it survived the last 300+ years in quite good condition. It was named after the damages during the siege of 1567. ( See No. 14 on the layout for the location of the tower. ) Preserving and partly rebuilding the Csonka tower gives us a possibility to have a locked and safe place where the tools and essential construction materials can be locked and kept so the volunteers will not have to carry everything to the top of the mountain every time we climb up to the castle.

The main event during the fall was the traditional 15^th ‘Save the Castle’ days in October. There were 30 volunteers working together to clean all the shrubs and twigs off the walls and cut the bushes which keep growing back inside the castle baileys evey year. This time the weather was perfect and the view from the castle hill filled the people with colorful autumn mood.

In December, 2013 we started an online magazine called ‘Varjaro Magazin’ (Castle Tour Magazine) on our website to draw some attention to the medieval castles and to our activity as well. The articles are issued monthly and are written by some members of the association or archeology and architecture experts who are willing to support us with their thoughts and writings. (Sorry, only available in Hungarian for the time being.)

During the winter months the castle is a beautiful place to visit but there are no organized activities. This is the time of the year we can prepare for this year’s events. Our next event is the 16^th ‘Save the Castle’ days in March 2014. We plan to do some cleanup and finish removal of the remaining stones from the Csonka Tower so the summer excavations can be started with less effort.

Links:

• Friends of Szadvar Association website