The landscape of the stud farm in Kladruby will seek to be inscribed in UNESCO

Kladruby nad Labem - The Ministry of Culture will submit an application on Friday, September 29, for the inclusion of the cultural landscape of the National Stud Farm in Kladruby nad Labem on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The nomination proposal was signed today in Kladruby by the ministers of agriculture Marian Jurečka and culture Daniel Herman (both from KDU-ČSL). The aim of the proposal is to declare that the cultural landscape, the stud farm, and everything associated with horse breeding is a unique area within Europe, Jurečka told reporters.

The proposal is titled "Landscape for the Breeding of Ceremonial Carriage Horses in Kladruby nad Labem." "There is a valued landscape in terms of fields, meadows, pastures, forest growths, and park landscape elements. All of this has served for half a millennium for the breeding of the unique old Kladruber horse. This is something that the Czech Republic should protect, and it should also be protected within UNESCO,” Jurečka stated.

The landscape in Kladruby combines the influence of horse breeding and long-term farming and landscape modifications. In a total area of 1,310 hectares, several types of landscapes are represented. "Central to it is a belt of meadows and pastures; interestingly, the pastures are arranged strictly symmetrically,” said the director of the stud farm, Jiří Machek.

To the north, the area is bordered by a block of mixed forest, and to the south, by an ornamental park called Mošnice. This park was created in the place of former floodplain forests, as indicated by the blind arms of the Elbe River. The river also forms the southern boundary of the landscape. The Kladruby Canal, a branch of the Opatovice Canal, which is the main supply channel for the stud farm, flows through the area. Ancient alleys are a prominent landscape feature.

The stud farm has been a cultural monument since 1995, including the basic breeding stock of old Kladruber horses, and since 2002, it has been classified as a national cultural monument. In 2007, the cultural landscape of the stud farm was on UNESCO's indicative list.

After the submission of the proposal, there will be further processing of comments from representatives of the UNESCO center into the final document and other procedures, which should last until the beginning of next year. A decision on the inscription on the UNESCO list is expected to be made within two to three years.

In recent years, the Kladruby stud farm has undergone extensive reconstruction. The first phase of repairs was completed two years ago. For 350 million crowns, the stud farm renovated 17 buildings and three open spaces with sculptures, receiving 300 million crowns from European grants. It is now preparing another phase of restoration worth 180 million crowns.

In the last season, a record 60,000 visitors came to Kladruby and the stud farm in Slatiňany, as well as the training center in Heřmanův Městec, which is part of the National Stud Farm. According to estimates from the management of the stud farm, a potential inscription on the UNESCO list could bring up to ten times more visitors.

The stud farm in Kladruby is the oldest large stud farm in the world. Its foundations were laid by Emperor Maximilian II, who established the stud farm in 1563. Rudolf II then elevated the original horse park to an imperial court stud on April 4, 1579, which is considered the date of its founding. In 1918, the state took over the stud farm, and its new purpose became the breeding of breeding stallions for individual regional breeding programs. The breeding of old Kladruber horses had been nearly destroyed at that time. It was not until the 1940s that Professor František Bílek revived the breeding of old Kladruber black horses, which returned to the branch of the stud farm in Slatiňany. Currently, the stud farm is a contribution organization of the Ministry of Agriculture.