Szalatnak
HUNGARY
Szalatnak is a picturesque village in a picturesque setting, accessible from the road connecting Komló to Szászvár. The name of the village is of Slavic origin, meaning a marshy, swampy area. Its name is first mentioned in a document of 1325 as a small village without a church. It was destroyed along with the nearby settlements during the Turkish occupation, although several houses were still built here in the mid-16th century. In the 1720s, the village, until then a wasteland, began to be repopulated. The Petrovszky family, who owned the estate, had Germans from Alsace and Franconia moved here, and they had to struggle with the wild, marshy and swampy land. According to local legends, the settlers were forced to remove the tops of the surrounding hills and fill in the lower, waterlogged parts... However, it happened, by the middle of the century the village was already actively farming, and the inhabitants were expanding. There was a long dispute with the nearby village of Kárász over the land of Kéthely, halfway between them, which had been destroyed in the Turkish era and was ideal for vineyards. The burgeoning community built a church in 1803, farming was bustling, and locals even burnt bricks on most of the porticos. The post-World War II evacuations were a major shock, which the village struggled to recover from. Since the turn of the millennium, Dutch and Belgian families have come to Szalatnak to live a more natural lifestyle and restore the traditional Swabian farmhouses to their original form. Farming has declined, with a few families farming and a small beef processing plant in the village.
Attractions in Szalatnak:
- Petting zoo
- A row of cellars at the entrance to the village
- Baroque Roman Catholic church: the chestnut orchard and grove park next to it commemorate the victims of the world wars and the displaced persons
- Fish pond
- The most important event in Salat is the summer village fete.
Organization
SINUM THEATRE