South Moravian Region announced a competition for the best-restored monument

Brno - Owners or managers of monuments in South Moravia can compete for the title of the best renovated castle, church, or other heritage-protected object this year. The competition was announced by the South Moravian Region. Experts and the public will decide on the most successful renovation. The winner will receive 150,000 crowns, said regional councilor Jiří Kadrnka today to ČTK.
    Entries for the competition can be submitted for monuments that have undergone some renovation or investment this year. Any owner, manager, or admirer can register them at the regional office until December 20. An expert committee will select 15 objects from the proposals. The public will then vote for the winner from these in an online poll. Awards for the most successful renovations will be presented by politicians next spring.
    The competition is intended to motivate owners of cultural monuments to undertake renovations and to do them properly. The region annually allocates subsidies for the renovation of monuments. However, it can only satisfy a portion of the applicants, and the funds distributed are a fraction of what would need to be invested in heritage-protected objects.
    This year, the region distributed nearly 20 million crowns, while monument owners requested more than four times that amount. However, the costs for repairing monuments in the region are much higher - for example, the restoration of the Tugendhat villa, the only Czech monument of modern art listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, will cost about 140 million crowns.
    There are over 5,000 properties in the region that have the status of a cultural monument. Among them are historically valuable houses, and there are also nearly 400 protected churches, 100 castles, and 750 statues in the region. Besides the Tugendhat villa in Brno, the Lednice-Valtice area is also on the UNESCO list.