Zvolen, Slovakia: Central Slovakia's Oldest Town

My then boyfriend Ivan and I had spent the day in Banska Bystrica while friends of ours attended a business meeting there. On the way out of Banska Bystrica and heading back to Borovce, we stopped in the former Communist and SNP stronghold of Zvolen for about 2 hours to take in some of the sights there.

Zvolen is a small city, but it has some important and nice historical sights. The most popular sights in Zvolen are the Namestie SNP, The Church of St. Elizabeth the Widow, the Lutheran (Anglican Church), and Hrad (Castle) Zvolen and its park with tanks and vehicles dating from World War II and the SNP (Slovak National Uprising).

We arrived in Zvolen after 6pm, so many sights were closed for the day, but we got to tour the castle's exterior and courtyard as well as seeing the Church of St. Elizabeth the Widow and the Lutheran Church.

Quick Tips:

Most of the sights are located around Zvolen's Namestie SNP and will not take long to see. It is a 1-2 hour stop on the way to or from Banska Bystrica and other towns in Slovakia. There are some hotels and restaurants in Zvolen, but I only stopped to go to the bathroom in one of them. It looked nice. Zvolen is a big wood working and Forestry center of Slovakia.

Best Way To Get Around:

Zvolen is easily reached from many of Slovakia's main cities by car, train, or bus. There is public transportation and taxis in Zvolen to take you around, but being such a small city, it is best to walk around in Zvolen to experience the sights and sounds of a once Communist stronghold during the latter part of the 20th century.

Slovakia is a very religious country. It is 60% Catholic and about 40% Protestant or Lutheran. There was a decent sized Jewish population in Slovakia before World War II, but almost 90% of Slovakia's Jews were killed in the Nazi death camps from May 1942-May 1945. After the war, only a tiny number of Jewish survivors returned to Slovakia to live, but anti-semitism and Communist rule drove many of them to emigrate to Israel, the United States, and other countries in Europe.

Lutheranism in Slovakia dates from the 16th Century when the Reformation arrived in the country, and several Lutheran or Protestant churches were built in Slovakia and the neighboring Czech Republic. But these churches were destroyed when Catholic persecutions of Protestants happened throughout Europe in the mid to late 16th Century.

Throughout Slovakia, Catholic churches outnumber the Lutheran churches, but most of the larger towns and cities have at least one Lutheran church, and Zvolen is no exception. Located in Namestie SNP and Zvolen's main drag is the Evangelical (Lutheran--Augsburg Confession) Church. Compared to most of the churches throughout Slovakia, Zvolen's Evangelical Church is rather young with construction only completed in 1923 in the neo-Gothic style of architecture. The new church is located on the grounds of an old 19th Century church and has three naves along with a projecting tower, which is leftover from 1850. Although we didn't get to go inside since it was after 5 p.m., we learned that the Evangelical Church's interior is in the Art Nouveau style of the 1920's.

When we visited Zvolen's Evangelical Church in May 2002, it had just gone under a new paint job, and the butter yellow paint glistened in the Slovakian twilight and cheered up a rather bleak looking main square that was dominated by post-World War II and communist architecture.

The Evangelical-Lutheran church is located south of Namestie SNP in downtown Zvolen and about a mile from Hrad Zvolen.

Zvolen's main street and center of business and sightseeing is the Namestie SNP (Slovak National Uprising Square), a square with many important churches and buildings dating from the 14th Century up until the 20th Century.

Zvolen, Slovakia along with its northern neighbor Banska Bystrica were important centers during the 1944 Slovak National Uprising (Slovak: SNP) and sustained a lot of damage after the Germans squashed the revolt in October 1944. Many of Zvolen's residents were either executed by the Nazis in reprisal or sent to concentration camps in Germany. After the Soviet liberation of Zvolen in 1945, the main square was renamed Namestie SNP (Slovak National Uprising Square), and a small statue commemorating the uprising was erected in the middle of the square, but is not an eyesore like some of Slovakia's other main squares dedicated to the Red Army liberation.

Namestie SNP is home to two important churches, The Church of St. Elizabeth the Widow, a Catholic church dating from 1381, and the 1923 Evangelical (Lutheran-Confession) Church. Hrad Zvolen is located south of Namestie SNP, and

Zvolen's main street is lined with several two-story townhouses that date from the late 17th Century in the Baroque style. After World War II, several of these houses were, unfortunately, destroyed by the communists to make room for administrative and commercial buildings that damaged the beauty of the town of Zvolen. Today, only a small amount of these Baroque and Renaissance homes and the remains of the town fortifications exist. The town houses 48 and 68 are still intact today.

Unfortunately during my visit in 2002, I didn't take any pictures of Namestie SNP and the old townhouses, so I am showing a picture from my Slovakia book that my friend Ivan gave me. One wishes that the heart of Zvolen can be restored to its Baroque glory.

After seeing and getting depressed over the sight of Banska Bystrica's deteriorating castle, it was a refreshing change to see that Hrad Zvolen has been kept in good condition during and after Communist rule in Slovakia.

Hrad Zvolen is located south of Namestie SNP in downtown Zvolen and dominates the landscape of the town and is a Slovak National Cultural Monument.

My friends and I arrived at Hrad Zvolen at about 5:30pm. Of course, it was too late to tour the castle's interior, but we stayed around about an hour to tour the castle's interesting exterior which dates from Renaissance times, but has several modern sculptures in its courtyard along with a few Russian tanks dating from World War II in a park east of the castle itself.

Hrad Zvolen was built by King Laslo the Great of Hungary from 1370-1382 as an Italian Gothic hunting lodge for Hungarian royalty. This original construction with its oblong ground plan was kept throughout centuries of renovations and remains there today. Hrad Zvolen has a chapel in the east side of the castle from the Gothic era complete with stone portals and stone ribbed vaults.

The first renovations of Hrad Zvolen took place from 1491-1510 when Count Jan Thurzo or Betlanovce took over as chief resident of the castle, and he had the castle redone in late-Gothic architecture. In 1548 during the Renaissance, Hrad Zvolen had another floor added to it along with the corner towers one sees today. The western bastion was completed in 1590.

From 1626 on, the Eszterhazys, another Hungarian royal family owned Hrad Zvolen and added their own touch to the castle by renovating it in the Baroque style of architecture throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries. The interior's west wing has a painted wood ceiling along with several other Baroque artifacts throughout the castle.

After World War II, Zvolen and the castle had sustained some damage since it was one of the main centers of the 1944 SNP. From 1956-1069, Hrad Zvolen went under another renovation in order to prepare it as the home of the Slovak National Gallery and house the collections of ancient Slovak Fine Arts.

After Jaro, Ivan, Maria, and I toured Hrad Zvolen's courtyard, we headed to the park where there are several Soviet and Czech tanks that were used during the SNP and Soviet liberation of Slovakia in 1945. There was a homeless drunk passed out on one of the park's benches, and that would be a common sight I saw during my visit of Slovakia in 2002.

Hrad Zvolen is open daily for tours until 5pm. Its oblong exterior and turrets along with the tank park are well worth your time if you are ever in the area.

After a short drive from Banska Bystrica, my friends, Jaro, Ivan, Maria, and I arrived in Zvolen, Slovakia for a short visit before returning to Ivan's home in Borovce in Western Slovakia. Jaro parked the car on one of Zvolen's side streets off of Namestie SNP, Ulica Trhova and right next to one of Zvolen's oldest and most popular churches, The Church of St. Elizabeth the Widow.

The Church of St. Elizabeth the Widow is located right in the middle of Namestie SNP in Downtown Zvolen and has the reputation of being one of the oldest churches in Slovakia. The Church of St. Elizabeth the Widow is a Roman Catholic church that was originally built in the Gothic style from 1381-1390. The church went under a Renaissance renovation around 1500, but the church has maintained a mostly Gothic facade for over 500 years with some minor repairs and renovations in the 18th, 19th, and 20th Centuries.

We didn't arrive in Zvolen until after 5 p.m., so the church was closed to visitors, but we got to tour around the church grounds and exterior which were going under more renovations during our visit, and some of the construction crew was still there. From the outside, we could see the pointed-arch Gothic windows that face Namestie SNP along with the Gothic one-nave. Inside we learned that there is a one-nave chapel with a 1650 Pieta in the southern part of the church along with a 1693 Baroque altar. The interior's architecture mostly dates from the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries.

As Jaro, Ivan, Maria, and I were walking around the church, we discovered that the construction crews had unearthed a skeleton and had barricaded it off so that tourists and parishioners would not intrude on it. "Who's skeleton is that?", I asked Jaro, and he thought it was the skeleton of a nun or priest who had been stationed at St. Elizabeth the Widow, but we never found out who it was definitely.

The Church of St. Elizabeth the Widow is open by appointment and for Sunday masses. Be sure to get there early if you decide to attend mass or you won't be able to get a seat. After my visit to The Church of St. Elizabeth the Widow, I made a drawing of the church that I am sharing with all of my IgoUgo friends and readers.