Beneficial event for the Chotěšov monastery aims to help a valuable monument

Chotěšov (Plzeň Region) - On August 7th, the benefit event Evening for the Chotěšov Monastery will take place for the eighth time at the Chotěšov Monastery in southern Plzeň. The event, organized by the civic association Chotěšovská vlna, aims to raise awareness about the endangered monument and draw attention to its poor condition. The monastery was newly classified as a national cultural monument this year. Visitors can expect a musical program, a historical battle, lectures, and guided tours of the monastery, said Pavel Říha, chairman of the civic association Chotěšovská vlna, to ČTK.
    During the past regime, the dilapidated monastery is slowly being repaired by the municipality of Chotěšov, which owns it, with state subsidies and its own funds. The total repair costs are estimated at around one billion Czech crowns.
    The event primarily aims to familiarize visitors with the extensive complex of the building. The convent will be freely accessible throughout the day, and people will also have the chance to see otherwise inaccessible Gothic and Baroque cellars, which are the oldest part of the monastery. The lower gardens with the old monastic cemetery and, for the very first time, the gamekeeper's lodge will be open. There will also be evening and night tours. Expert lectures will cover the architecture of the building and the consequences of the monastery's dissolution during the Josephine reforms.
    "The proceeds will be used to support volunteer brigades that take place throughout the year at the monastery, and for the campaign Buy Your Window, which the municipality of Chotěšov has been holding long-term for the gradual reconstruction of historical windows," added Říha. There are as many windows as there are days in a year - 365. A new window costs about 27,000 crowns.
    One of the highlights of the program, which is scheduled from 2:00 PM to midnight, will be a grand reconstruction of a battle from the Thirty Years' War with more than a hundred participants in the northern garden of the monastery. The musical program will offer a mix of genres. For example, folk-rock band Slepá kolej, alternative rock band Nebylo nás pět, and the Irish music band Cashel will perform. In the monastery church, a vocal quintet Hlasoplet from the opera of the Plzeň theater J. K. Tyla and the trio Ad Hoc Consort with Baroque sacred music will perform.
    The monastery celebrates this year 800 years since its establishment by the patron of the Plzeň diocese, Hroznata, between 1202 and 1210 for the Premonstratensian nuns. In recent years, the monument has been receiving about one to two million crowns annually from the state for emergency repairs, especially for roof repairs. The municipality must add its own funds to that.