Ossuary Czech Republic how to get from Prague. Great and terrible bone in the Czech Republic. Ossuary in the Czech Republic: where is it located, how to get from Prague

Not far from the Czech Prague there is a small town - Kutna Hora. As in any European town, there is a town hall, a church and a square. It seems to be nothing special, but buses full of tourists arrive there daily. Despite the proximity of the magnificent Czech capital, Kutná Hora is an attractive place for travelers. The main reason is the Church of All Saints, located in the Sedlice area.

Outwardly, this building is not very remarkable: strict Gothic lines, turrets tending upwards, arched windows. The uniqueness of this church is hidden inside, in its crypt. There is the largest ossuary in the Czech Republic - a place for storing skeletal remains. The ossuaries themselves are a creepy phenomenon, but quite common. The peculiarity of the temple in Kutna Hora is that there the human remains do not just rest peacefully - the main part of the interior is made of them. Looks intimidating and bewitching. And it all began in the XIII century.

Brief history of the ossuary in Kutna Hora

In 1278, there was a monastery of the Cistercians, a Catholic order that branched off from the Benedictines. The abbot of this monastery, Heinrich, was sent by the then King of Bohemia Otakar II to Palestine. From a business trip, the minister brought some land from Golgotha, where, according to the New Testament, Jesus Christ was crucified. Heinrich scattered this land around the monastery cemetery, laying the foundation for the popularity of this place. It was believed that thanks to the particles of Jerusalem soil, miracles happen here.

Even a small amount of holy land was enough to attract believers not only from all over the Czech Republic, but also from other countries of Central and even Western Europe. People dreamed of being buried in the Sedlice cemetery in order to be closer to the resurrection, and their dreams came true. The cemetery grew.

The continuous and large flow of the dead in Kutna Hora was ensured by the historical events of the next century. The endless medieval wars, the plague, and then the Hussite wars - all this claimed countless thousands of lives. People brought the bodies of their dead and murdered relatives to be buried next to bits of Palestinian land. The place became less and less, so the practice of the so-called secondary burials began to be used: the bones were dug out, folded into chapels, which therefore became known as ossuaries, and new dead were buried in their place.

In 1400, a church was erected on the churchyard, the tomb of which was used as a bone for the remains from burials in the cemetery in Sedlice. The vacated areas were intended for construction and, of course, for the new dead. During the first century of the existence of the Church of All Saints, so many bones had accumulated that there was nowhere to go.

Bones as decoration

It was then, at the beginning of the 16th century, that the first interior items from the remains appeared there. The use of skeletons as a material and design element, according to legend, was invented by a half-blind Cistercian monk who was instructed to extract bones from graves and store them in a tomb. Even if he really had bad eyesight, this deficiency was more than compensated for by a fantasy, albeit a rather peculiar one. By bleaching the skeletons in a bleach solution, he built six pyramids from them - two in the center and one in each corner.

Later, the pyramids were crowned with crowns, which symbolized the kingdom of heaven, and were placed there by the architect Jan Santini. The master worked in the Baroque style and thanks to him the Church of All Saints acquired its final appearance, having received a new entrance and a Baroque upper tier.

At the end of the 18th century, by order of the emperor, the monastery was closed. The ossuary, cemetery and land were acquired by the Schwarzenberg family, large Bohemian landowners. They hired a wood carver, František Rint, to put the heaps of remains in order. It is not known how they imagined this order, but Rint seems to have an extraordinary sense of beauty and creativity that knows no obstacles. Now he would certainly be a successful and fashionable interior designer and would have access to any materials - then he had only bones at his disposal. And he gave them a second life, glorifying himself, and the church, and the city.

The interior of the church

The first thing that attracts the visitor's attention is a huge candelabrum hanging from the middle of the nave. This is a monumental chandelier made of bones that contains at least one instance of every human bone, and there are just over two hundred of them in the skeleton of an adult. The chandelier is decorated with garlands of skulls, and the chandelier is attached to the ceiling with the help of jaws.

Rint paid tribute to his employers as well. One of the walls of the room is decorated with a large family coat of arms of the Schwarzenbergs, for which thousands of bones were used. The author managed to convey every detail of the coat of arms, the bones are laid out symmetrically and perfectly - it is clear what was done with love and passion. The master did not forget himself either, laying out his autograph from his favorite material.

The vaults and walls of the cathedral are also laid with skulls and crossbones, the bones are hung throughout the room, they are all around. Vases, garlands, arches, gifts near the altar, ceiling decor, an iconostasis and even the main Christian symbol - the cross - everything is made from newly bleached and carefully processed parts of human skeletons.

The skill of the woodcarver, who became famous for his skillful work with bones, is amazing. The atmosphere created in this way completely captures every visitor, penetrating right into the soul. The aesthetic merits of Frantisek Rint's creations make you completely forget about the moral side of the issue of using skeletons to decorate rooms. The gloomy beauty of the ossuary in Kutna Hora can make even the most frivolous tourist think about the eternal.

How to get to the main Czech ossuary

Kutna Hora is located just 60 kilometers east of the Czech capital Prague and is a popular tourist destination, so there will be no problems with transport. From the main Prague railway station, trains run there at intervals of two hours. The duration of such a trip is less than an hour, and a second-class ticket purchased in advance will cost about one hundred Czech crowns (about four euros). The first train leaves at six in the morning, the last one at ten in the evening.

In the opposite direction, these trains, of course, also run, and at a shorter interval. The first train from Kutna Hora to Prague leaves at 4:57, the last at 21:00.

You can also get to Kutna Hora by bus. You can get on it at the Florenc bus station, as well as at the Gae metro station (Czech. Haje) - the final one on the red line, which is also Line C. These buses depart daily from 6:00 to 22:00, and from Kutna- Mountains in Prague you can return to them from 4:50 to 20:22. Some bus routes involve transfers, in which case you will have to travel at least 1 hour and 40 minutes. But this way you will save some money: a direct flight will cost a hundred crowns, with transfers - 89.

If you visit the Czech Republic by car or rent a car in Prague, then the road to Kutná Hora from the center of the capital will take about an hour, the distance is 80 kilometers. This method will allow you to see the sights along the way - for example, the magnificent cathedral in the city of Kolin.

Opening hours of the ossuary in Kutna Hora and ticket prices

You can visit the ossuary on almost any day, including Sundays. The exception is Catholic Christmas. Opening hours depend on the season:

From April to September inclusive - 08:00-18:00;
In October and March - 09:00-17:00;
From November to February - 09:00-17:00.

The entrance fee for an ordinary adult is 90 CZK. Reduced admission will cost 60 crowns and is available to schoolchildren, students, pensioners and people with disabilities. Bones and skulls are not very associated with family vacations, but this stereotype is apparently misleading. At least the main ossuary in the Czech Republic offers special family tickets: two adults and up to four children can enter this terribly beautiful place for 240 kroons, and if there are more children (up to eight), then the entrance will cost 300 kroons.

In addition, there are group tickets for companies from eight people. A full ticket in this case will cost you 75 kroons, a reduced ticket - 50.

What else to see in Kutna Hora

If you have enough bones already, and there are still a couple of hours before the train, then you will find something to do in the city. There you can just walk aimlessly through the streets: the city center is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List, and this is the best recommendation, a kind of quality mark.

Separately worthy of mention are the Cathedral of St. Barbara - the second in size and status in the country - as well as the Vlachsky yard. The latter performed many functions, but went down in history as a mint, where the Czech penny was produced. Now you can see how coins are minted there, and look into the basement, where the instruments of torture are exhibited.

Ossuary in the Czech Republic (Czech Republic) - description, history, location. Exact address and website. Reviews of tourists, photos and videos.

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What is the suburb of the once financial center of the Czech Republic Kutná Hora, Sedlece, best known for? That's right, the famous church Kostnice v Sedlci. The Czech word "kostnice" easily guesses a common root with the Russian "bones", this, in general, is a chapel in which human remains are stored (this method of burial existed in the Middle Ages in Europe). But in Sedlec they are not just stored, but the whole church is decorated with them: chandeliers, decoration of arches and vaults, and even crosses - everything is made of human bones.

It is said that about 40,000 bones were used for finishing.

In a word, in order to think about the eternal, there is no better place than the Ossuary.

History paragraph

In the 13th century, there was a Cistercian monastery in Sedlec, whose abbot, Heinrich, was sent to the Holy Land in 1278 by King Otokar II. There, according to the tradition of that time, the monk collected some earth from Golgotha and, upon arrival home, scattered it over the monastery cemetery. Since then, the land of the abbey has become holy, and representatives of the most noble families not only of the Czech Republic, but also of other neighboring states, wanted to be buried in the monastery cemetery.

The cemetery expanded very quickly, besides, in the 15th century, the Black Death and religious wars raged in Europe, so after a while there were almost no burial places left. At that time, the practice of secondary burials became widespread - the bones were stacked in chapels (which were called ossuaries), and in their place the dead were buried again.

The Sedlec ossuary owes its fame largely to an obscure, half-blind monk who dug up skeletons from graves, after which he bleached the bones and stacked them in pyramids. As a result, six pyramids were built several meters high. When the monk died, the brothers did not destroy the bizarre structures, but the chapel with eerie "monuments" was closed. At the end of the eighteenth century, the noble family of Schwarzenberg became the owners of the ossuary and monastery lands, and in 1870 they instructed the carver Frantisek Rint to do something with this, ahem, pile of bones. The master whitened the bones again and began decorating the chapel with them, the result of which we can see to this day. Among other things, of particular interest to tourists is the chandelier, which uses all the bones of the human skeleton, the large Schwarzenberg coat of arms, monstrances and the signature of the author himself.

How to get there

You can get there by bus from Prague from the Florenc bus station to Kutna Hora, from there by minibus to Sedlec. Either by train from Prague to the main station of Kutná Hora, from where again by bus to Sedlice or on foot.

The most convenient way is by car, which will also allow you to see the sights along the way (for example: the city of Kolin with an amazing cathedral). From Prague, take the E67 highway, turn onto Kolin, then follow road 38.

Ossuary in Sedlec

Restrained, well-trained Prague in style resembles a prim student-excellent student. Not a single extra line and every brick in its place. The first week it delights, then unnerves. So much so that even according to the national tradition, you start to get bored hanging billboards advertising chips on historical monuments.

But the skeleton in the closet can be found in everyone. The Czech Republic decided not to limit itself to a wardrobe and took it under this business. It is there, in the Sedlec district, that the main ossuary of the country.

Come - here you are always welcome.

Every year 250,000 people come to see it. Would you dare to test yourself for endurance?

Ossuary. Entrance to the territory.
Inscription in four languages.

Ready to take selfies not in cafes and malls, but in a church made of bones? Then we declare the fees for the trip open!

Mosaic on the path says that
that you have come to the right address.
Czech humor.

A little bit of history (in order to nod understandingly to the guide, and not to faint), the cost of entry, addresses of souvenir shops ... Comparative characteristics of valerian and as an effective sedative and others nuances that are more pleasant to know BEFORE the tour.

What do thousands of travelers come to see every year?

The ossuary in Kutna Hora is a very peculiarly decorated church. To organize its interior decoration, it took 40,000 human skeletons.

At first glance, you will not suspect anything: a small church surrounded by a cemetery. Nothing remarkable.

You can even come here with children - but what?

But it's worth stepping inside...

Hi - why did you come?

Bones on the ceiling and along the walls. A chandelier, columns, crosses, vases, coats of arms, cups are made of bones... The author of this gloomy building even laid out his signature with bones.

The hall with the main exposition is a semi-basement.
We go down the stairs...

Chlorine-bleached skulls and shoulder blades, disinfected ribs and vertebrae, humerus and tibia… You can take an anatomy textbook with you and make a mini-inventory: you will find both os coccygis (from Latin - coccyx) and os sacrum (from Latin - sacrum) . Perhaps you did not even know that each of us has so many bones.

Who thought of building something like this instead of sophisticated palaces? Why abused the remains of people? By the way, whose bones are these?!

Many, very many…

Victoria (37 years old, Vladimir):

“I didn’t want to go there, not my format. But the husband argued that it was necessary to see it, and the son was also interested. I was frankly afraid that I would faint or something like that. In fact, pictures on the Internet are more scary. And there, inside, you think about other things. It's not scary, but very sad and calm. Children, especially those who are younger, do not seem to feel anything at all: they run, scream, everyone is trying to steal or pick something up ... I never fainted, but I didn’t take pictures, and I don’t want to go back there again, although, I've been there, I don't regret it."

Human life, what are you?
Who is looking into your face?

It's easy to tell a story, but it's not easy to build a ossuary

The history of the Ossuary (or ossuary: from the Latin "os" - bone) was started by the king of the Czech Republic, Otakar II. He sent one of the novices of the local monastery to Palestine. While on Golgotha, the monk took some sacred land. He brought this earth to the Czech Republic and on a windy day scattered it over the cemetery, which after that was also considered sacred land.

Influential families of the Czech Republic and neighboring countries wished to bury their relatives at such a cemetery. The cemetery has become more popular. But after the difficult year of 1318, when the plague raged with might and main, there was no room for new burials.

Enterprising Czechs got out gracefully. They removed all the old bones and built a cathedral and a crypt nearby for them. And the cemetery began to bury the new dead. The trick was done 6 times.

Now the cemetery looks like this.
Seventh shift...

During this time, 40,000 people found their last refuge in Sedlec. Some monk even built pyramids from all these phalanges, vertebrae and ribs.

But the church was brought to its present form by Frantisek Rint. He was invited by the Schwarzenbergs when they got these lands. Rint designed and created the interior of the Ossuary. His main masterpiece a chandelier in which every (!) bone of the human body was used.

The science of bones is osteology.
And this is an osteological chandelier.

In gratitude for the trust shown, Rint formed from the clavicles, shoulder blades, humerus, radius and ulna not only his initials, but also the coat of arms of the Schwarzenbergs.

The Schwarzenbergs weren't shy...

According to the legend, a visit to the Ossuary can bring a lot of money. To do this, you need to throw a coin in front of the altar. And if sometime in the future the person who performed such a ritual will be in poverty, then fate will throw him sudden wealth.

Timofey (32 years old, Moscow):

"Amazing place! Who do you have to be to do something like this? But it was worth the trip. This needs to be seen once. You immediately think about different things that you usually don’t have time to remember. It's beautifully done, albeit creepy. Especially when you imagine that each bone belonged to some person who is like us: he lived, thought about something, dreamed about something ... By the way, I didn’t feel any smell. I was more embarrassed by the perky selfies that other tourists took.”

Next to the cemetery is a playground.
Ordinary. Not gothic at all.

How to get to the Ossuary, so as not to disappear along the way?

Kutná Hora is located 66 km from the Czech capital. The famous ossuary stands on its very outskirts, in the Sedlec area. This area is separated from the center by about 3-3.5 km.

There are two ways to get to the bone deposits:

On one's own

A self-guided trip is suitable for those who:

does not want to get up early and run to Wenceslas Square by 8:00;
knows how to drive, is ready to rent a car or get acquainted with Czech public transport alone;
makes friends with maps, navigators and is not afraid to get lost on the road;
does not like to live on a schedule and wants to change the route all the time, because “Look, what a colorful building, let's stop and take a picture!”

Price - from 220 CZK (the cost of railway tickets from Prague to Kutna Hora and back).

It is not difficult to get from Prague: you can rent a car, or you can take an hour's nap on the bus or train "Prague - Kutná Hora".

Renting a car is a good option.
There are no problems with parking.

A bus ride will cost 68 CZK. We choose the bus.
The train ticket costs 110 CZK. We check the schedule.

Do you want to plan your trip well? Would you go…. There you will find a number of clues: addresses of trusted restaurants, coordinates of interesting locations that you can visit along the way, etc.

With a group tour

This voyage is an option for those who:

can't drive;
does not know Czech or English;
wants to take a break from searching for attractions on the Internet;
wants to be sure that by the dinner of this day (!) will be again.

Cost: €30 per person. Duration: 8 hours.

Mikhail (21 years old, Volgograd):

“We decided to go to the Ossuary without fail. When you go inside, there is such a strange feeling ... It's not scary, no. Just remember that no one is forever. There is some kind of respect for death, or something ... I don’t know how to describe it. But there is something to think about, even when he has already left. As for the bones... Everything is done so carefully and precisely that it is quite possible to abstract from the fact that you are surrounded by human remains.

Abstract...
and all will be well.

Reconstruction, work schedule, prices and other org. questions

Cost of tickets to the ossuary:

Full (for adults) - 90 CZK;
Preferential (for students, disabled people, children) - 60 CZK.

Opening hours:

Other days:

November - February: 9:00 - 16:00;
April - September: 8:00 - 18:00 (during this period on Sundays - from 9:00);
October, March: 9:00 - 17:00.

Now in Kostice undergoing reconstruction. The church is surrounded by scaffolding: they put the roof in order and refresh the facade of the building. The renovation will take 5 years. All this time the ossuary in the Czech Republic was and will be open for visitors.

In July 2015, the church looked like this. Side and rear - scaffolding. Reconstruction.

Fables periodically appear on the Internet that the ossuary is closed, but this is incorrect information. The city is run by stupid people. They are able to imagine how many losses Kutna Hora will suffer if its main asset ceases to function for 5 years. Therefore, management will not take such measures.

Are you still nervous and afraid to ride for nothing? Information can always be checked on the official website, in a travel agency or according to the reviews of recently returned tourists.

Photography is allowed, but no flash.

Both beautiful and scary...
Take pictures ... then reflect.

Souvenirs

There is a gift shop in the Ossuary itself, near it and near the Cathedral of St. Barbarians.

Souvenir shop in the ossuary.
The most popular souvenir is a skull.

Here you can buy both standard souvenirs (magnets, T-shirts, etc.) and more specific ones (figurines of knights, key rings, magnets, postcards, cups with skulls and bones, ceramics, etc.).

Another souvenir is a T-shirt for her and for him on an impromptu display case.
350 CZK.

This is ... that one, but can everyone go there?

Particularly impressionable people who lose consciousness from the word "turd" have nothing to do there. The rest will not have nightmares or phobias. No one will go there every year, and one visit for general development can be endured.

If you are a believer and you are worried about how the church treats such places, then you should talk about it with your confessor. He will tell you about the mores of your denomination.

Rita was somehow not at ease here.

In the past, the bones were buried according to the rules, the church still holds services in memory of the dead. Anyone can light a candle. This is hardly an insult to the dead.

But less than ten years later, Rita came here again - already with the children.

Now your wallet and psyche are ready for anything. While other tourists will groan, gasp and try to stay conscious, you can competently count all the clavicles with sternum and take a couple of epic photos. And there you look, and you will be able to snatch the most pretty skulls from the souvenir shop.

This church, completely unremarkable from the outside, is located near the town of Kutná Hora, about 70 kilometers from the capital of the Czech Republic.

From the inside, the hall is an amazing and at the same time shocking architectural monument in which all the main design elements are made of human bones. At the sight of all this masterpiece, dual feelings begin to fill the soul. Reverent horror and vivid delight merge in a single dance of the most secret emotions.

In 1218, a plague epidemic swept across Europe. When the cemeteries could no longer accommodate such a huge number of the dead, the beginning of secondary burials was laid. Old bones were stacked in chapels-ossuaries, and the dead were buried again in their former places.

Several times the cemetery was resold, and as a result, the remains of more than 40,000 people were collected on the site of the ossuary of the Sedlec Monastery. In 1511, a half-blind monk, having bleached all the bones, began to put them into six pyramids. Each pyramid was 2-3 meters high.

When the monk died, the pyramids were not destroyed, but the church of bones was closed for 350 years and tens of thousands of skulls, phalanges, ribs and hip joints were left to wait in the wings.

In the 18th century, Prince Schwarzenberg, who was then the owner of the land of the monastery, gave the order to create what people later called the "church of the bones." This unusual case was placed under the care of a local woodcarver named Frantisek Rint. The designer decided to sacrifice moral principles and create something special.

He soaked the bones in bleach, and gradually created his creations. One of the most unusual was the chandelier, where the master used absolutely all parts of the human skeleton. In gratitude to the employer, Rint also made the coat of arms of the Schwarzenbergs out of bones.

Human remains are not subject to restoration. In the 70s of the last century, they tried to strengthen the bones with cement, but then they considered this to be disrespectful to the memory of the dead. As a result, it was decided that the interior would be stored until it crumbled to dust - this is approximately another three centuries.

It is difficult to find a more vivid and tragic work than a church of bones. The Czech Republic annually receives thousands of guests from all over the world who want to see the unique creation of human hands. The ossuary is a kind of reminder of the coming apocalypse and death that is slowly walking behind each of us.