Karlovy Vary are looking for a use for the chapel of Drahowitz cemetery

Karlovy Vary - Karlovy Vary are looking for ways to utilize the chapel with a morgue at the Drahovice cemetery. The protected historical object of the former cemetery administration is in poor condition, and the city currently maintains it with grants for heritage protection. According to Deputy Mayor Michal Riška (CSSD), the city should decide what to do with the object in the future, he told ČTK.

"We receive funding for the cemetery administration from national sources for heritage protection, but it is not enough for the revitalization of the entire object. Therefore, I have asked the council to decide how to handle this object in the future. One option is to sell it, another is to repair it and operate it, which would be best if we could find a suitable model. The third option is to rent it out, but this option has not been very successful lately," Riško stated.

For basic repairs of the heritage site from the turn of the 19th and 20th century, the city received 170,000 crowns this year from funding provided by the Ministry of Culture through regional sources. However, the overall restoration would cost millions of crowns.

According to Deputy Mayor Jiří Klsák (KOA), the building could serve, for example, for social or cultural activities. However, the problem is that the original purpose of the building, a chapel with a morgue and autopsy room, also influenced the design of the structure, which was intentionally built to be cool inside.

The cemetery in Karlovy Vary's Drahovice has both Jewish and Christian sections. There are also tombs of families of significant personalities from the spa town.