Save the ruins of a Slovak monastery - Katarinka

The fall season of Project Katarinka was filled with celebrations and also competitions – we feel very thankful for the appreciation that was given to our project from both public and expert committees.

We felt very honoured when we were chosen as one of four winners  of the special award called Fénix - Monument of the Year 2017. The restored tower of the Church and Monastery of St. Catherine, which was opened to public last year, won in this acclaimed competition which appreciates  the reconstructed historical monuments.

Our project was praised as an example of the great cooperation between young volunteers from a non-ptogit organisaton and experts from various fields  –all the conservation and restoration work was performed under the supervision of historical researcher Jaroslava Zuffová, structural engineer Vladimír Kohút, archaeologist Ivana Kvetánová and Michal Slivka, as well as the carpenter Miroslav Cársky and Michal Hrcka. The restoration of the tower was carried out between 2010 and 2017 and it was performed by hundreds of volunteers from all over Slovakia with the use of traditional techniques, which were used by our ancestors during its original construction in the years 1700-1714.

We felt very moved and thankful, when theMinister of Culture Lubica Laššáková presented the statue of Fénix to the representatives from project Katarinka –  to the founder of the project Peter Herceg, as well as the mentioned experts. Moreover, at the same time NGO Katarínka also won a additional public vote award - we received the highest number of likes in the online competition organized by SPP together with the SPP Foundation and became the winner.

In November 2018 we continued in the celebrations  of the 400th anniversary of the foundation of the Monastery of St. Catherine. Public celebrations took place on 5 July during the Day of Open Doors on Katarínka. Another part of the festivities took place on 17th of November in the historical chateau in Chtelnica, which was owned by Count Kristof Erdödy and his wife Barbora Thurzova and where they also issued the founding charter of the monastery in 1618. The festivities included an expert conference that summarized  the results of the profound research and expert work, which was done during the 24 years of project existence. The results of archaeological, historical, geophysical or anthropological research were presented by the invited experts, who dedicated a lot of their time to the work on this project and have a close bond with Katarinka.