Žatec will continue to strive for registration with UNESCO and will modify the documentation

Žatec - Žatec will continue to strive for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List. It will revise the nomination documentation based on the comments from experts of the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS). A delegation from ICOMOS visited the city in May and recommended that the city expand the nomination documentation to include the hop-growing landscape or the activities of the Hop Institute, said Žatec's mayor Zdeňka Hamousová (ANO) to reporters today.

"We should describe the impact of the crop and hop fields on the landscape, on the inhabitants, on life, on the shaping of both the city and the countryside. This was a new aspect for us that we hadn't noticed or recorded before. We will further reconsider the individual recorded assets and will seek their recommendations," said Hamousová. Conversely, the Dreher Brewery or some hop-growing structures in the heritage reserve could be excluded from the nomination.

Experts from ICOMOS also recommended that Žatec shorten certain technical sections of the nomination and focus more on the story of hops and hop-growing itself. The interest of the commissioners in the Hop Institute was a surprise for the city, which considered it a recent development. "The institute has been established since 1925. It deals with cultivation, breeding, and plant protection. Hop congresses are organized here, and it also preserves the gene pool," described the significance of the institute the mayor.

The decision on Žatec's inscription on the UNESCO list was originally supposed to be made last summer, but the institution postponed the decision. Žatec would now like to complete the nomination documentation entirely by 2021, with UNESCO expected to make a decision on acceptance in 2022. However, it will also depend on whether another Czech heritage site will be simultaneously pursuing inscription. Currently, European spa towns with a joint nomination of Great Spas of Europe, which includes Karlovy Vary, Františkovy Lázně, and Mariánské Lázně in the Czech Republic, are preparing for a visit from UNESCO commissioners.