Most (German Brüx, Latin Pons) is a statutory town in northwestern Bohemia (Ústí nad Labem Region). Approximately 66,000 people live here. The historic city was almost completely demolished in the 1970s and 1980s due to coal mining. The most valuable building and tourist attraction is the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, moved to its current location in 1975, and Hněvín Castle on the hill above the town. The bridge is the second largest city in the Ústí Region.
The first historical mentions of the settlement of the
place where the town of Most stands today come from the Latin Kosma
Chronicle of the Czech Republic from the 11th century, when a path
led over wooden bridges through the local swampy landscape. Hence
the name of the city. The trail was used mainly by buyers traveling
between Prague and Freiberg in Saxony and back. On this trade route,
Hněva of the Hrabišice family founded a fortress and an adjoining
settlement called Pons Gnevin in Latin.
This family
controlled the settlement until 1228, when its last owner from the
Hrabišice family, Kojata IV, died. Hrabišic. According to the will
of the childless Kojata, written in 1227, it became the property of
the Monastery of the Crusaders of the Holy Sepulcher in Zderaz near
Prague. However, records from 1238 show that at that time the
settlement was already the property of the Přemyslids. During their
reign, Most became a city (city privileges were granted to it
gradually by Přemysl Otakar II., John of Luxembourg and Charles
IV.), Which became rich not only through trade, but also by growing
vines in vineyards established around the city in the early 13th
century. The oldest town seal dating from 1257 has also been
preserved from the reign of the Přemyslids.
After a wave of
devastating fires between 1455 and 1515, the city center was rebuilt
and modernized. The Renaissance town hall or the late Gothic dean's
church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, whose architect was
Jakub Heilmann from Schweinfurt, dates from this period.
During the Thirty Years' War, the town and castle of Hněvín were
conquered by the Swedes. The castle was then besieged by the
imperial troops for a year and a half, but it was not possible to
reconquer it. This event evoked in the locals the feeling that the
castle, which by its significance has always attracted the attention
of the enemy, is the source of all their suffering. At their
request, therefore, in 1651, Emperor Ferdinand III. allowed the
castle to be demolished. The city, damaged by the Thirty Years' War
and its own inhabitants, lost its economic and political
significance in the second half of the 17th century.
It was
not until two hundred years later that a new stage in the city's
development began when huge coal reserves were discovered in its
vicinity. Since 1850, Most has been the seat of the regional court.
In 1870, a railway was brought to the town, a sugar factory, a
porcelain factory, a steelworks, a brewery and a town museum were
built. The population has risen sharply. In 1895, the city was hit
by a natural disaster - smoking (liquid sands). Several houses and
their inhabitants fell underground. However, this disaster did not
seriously disrupt the development of the city. In 1901, an electric
street railway was put into operation, which connected the town of
Most with Kopisty, Litvínov and Janov. In 1911, the town theater was
opened. Between 1911 and 1913, a dam was built at Křížatky, which
provided Most with drinking water. According to the 1921 census, the
city had 27,402 inhabitants in 1,402 houses, of which 17,014 (62.5%)
declared German nationality and 8,802 (32.3%) declared Czechoslovak
nationality.
During World War II, the city was severely
damaged by air raids by American bombers during their inaccurate
attacks on the refinery in Záluží near Litvínov. After the war, most
of the original inhabitants were displaced.
1954–1965,
expansion of coal mining
The year 1954 brought the first
elections to national committees and the first chairman of the local
national committee became a postal employee and member of the
Communist Party Václav Vágner. In the same year, Kopisty and Souš
also separated from Most. The argument was the poor connection with
Most and the size of the municipalities, which at that time was
5,200 inhabitants. Václav Vágner was re-elected in 1957, when there
was an idealistic crisis and great unrest in Poland and Hungary. New
elections and pressure on the growth of coal mining had an impact on
the overall further development of the city. Over the last 12 years,
mining has increased fivefold to 50 million tons of coal per year,
and soil extraction has risen even more from 10 million to 120
million cubic meters of soil. It was thus decided to build new
modern housing for workers and miners, as the city allegedly did not
keep pace with economic development. At this time, it was not yet a
question of liquidating the old town, only the construction of new
housing estates.
A new housing estate began to emerge between
today's Československé armády Street, Budovatelů Street and Josef
Skupa Street. The architectural competition announced in 1959 by the
council of the Regional National Committee in Ústí nad Labem already
provided for the construction of the city center at the intersection
of Budovatelů Street and Skupovy Street. The main material became
cast concrete and panels, which were produced directly in the Most
panel plant on the site of today's Tesco hypermarket. The first
house was completed in November 1959.
March 1961 was marked by a district-wide asset of miners, which
took place in Most, and which was also attended by President Antonín
Novotný. In the same month, a tram line to a new part of the city
was also put into operation. In July, the rough construction of the
tallest building in the district at that time was completed - a
fifteen-storey dormitory (now the Domino Hotel). At the end of 1962,
the city already had six ten-storey prefabricated houses, each with
more than seventy apartments. The forestry-technical land
reclamation plant in Teplice started afforestation of the Šibeník
hill and planted 80,000 seedlings. Afforestation was a necessity as
the surrounding settlement was without greenery and the population
began to complain.
In August 1963, fateful negotiations on
the liquidation of the city took place, which came into force by
Government Resolution No. 180 of 26 March 1964. With the demolition
and liquidation of the city over coal deposits, the state demolition
of the old profit of over one billion crowns. The first stage
included the demolition of buildings at the foot of Hněvín Hill,
which was to continue to Šmeral Square. The second stage was to be
led from the outskirts with a gradual continuation to the city
center.
In 1964, after another election, Miroslav Fleišer,
director of the Transport Company of the Cities of Most and
Litvínov, became the new chairman of the MNV, and together with his
team he was to make the biggest changes in the city's history. The
plan was the reconstruction of Hněvín Castle, the construction of a
cable car (eventually not carried out), as well as the construction
of a corridor into which the Bílina River, a railway, a tram line to
Litvínov and an expressway were led. The specific form of
liquidation of the old town and division of the new one was solved.
The steelworks, the brewery and the North Bohemian Ceramic Works
ceased to exist. The construction of the corridor also included the
construction of a new railway station (August 1977). In addition to
the central park Šibeník, recreation was also provided by Lajsník
and Velebudická výsypka. The then Benedikt quarry was to become a
recreational flood zone.
1965–1987, demolition of the
historic Bridge and construction of a new town
In 1965, the
demolition of the old Bridge began, and the city, which today could
boldly compete with any monument reserve in the country, was
gradually demolished for more than two decades by explosives. The
oldest parts of the city were destroyed during the first ten years
of demolition. In the old town, many valuable houses have been
preserved until its demolition, including more than twenty Gothic
buildings, while more of them were in such a small space only in
Prague.
The first inhabitants moved to the new Most from
January 1965 to Podžatecká Street. In the same year, the Department
of the Chief Architect was established, which had the task of
coordinating the construction of the now new city in the style of
modernist architecture. In the same year, it was decided to move the
Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary along an artificial
track (plans were completed in early 1967) and construction of the
hospital began (opened on March 1, 1975, cost 677 million crowns).
In February 1967, the first North Bohemian youth event was opened in
Most, the "Neprakta Club", which still operates today. Later, this
club became a place of anti-communist activists, where concerts and
performances took place outside the concept of the socialist regime.
The total investment in buildings in 1967 amounted to 344
million crowns so far. The largest construction companies included
Building Constructions Ústí nad Labem - Most Construction
Administration, Road and Railway Construction Prague, Ústí nad Labem
Construction Administration and Konstruktiva Prague.
With
1968 came the liberation and in the town of Most more than anywhere
else, as the population was based on miners and workers, the whole
region had significant revolutionary traditions and the position of
the Communist Party was also very strong. Nevertheless, the August
occupation did not bring any significant incidents. The protests
were substantial, but were limited to posters, signs and organized
protests. The ONV Council and the MNV in Most finally negotiated
with the commanders of foreign troops to place combat equipment
outside the city, and the liaison officers were offered the area of
the exit center down on Široký vrch. Requirements were also
introduced not to interfere in the internal affairs of the city and
not to restrict the personal freedom of citizens. The military
headquarters in Most was finally abolished on October 21.
The Roma issue began to be solved after 1969, when it was
necessary to relocate 200 families (approximately 1,100 individuals)
to municipalities outside the old Most. First, the overall
relocation was considered, then the dispersion, in order to avoid
their high concentration and possible problems. However, many
citizens opposed this. The last solution was to build a new housing
estate on the outskirts of the city and isolate the problem
population from the rest of the city.
In 1970, the chief
architect Václav Krejčí submitted a plan for the completion of the
center and the appearance of new housing estates. The cultural house
and the large SHD headquarters were planned. The first cinema
(Kosmos cinema) was opened in 1971, in the same year the villages of
Velebudice and Souš were connected to the town. A year later, the
construction of the Prior department store began, which was to take
three years. In 1973, the flooding of the former Benedikt surface
mine was completed, and in 1976 the first swimming pool (now
Aquadrom) opened. In 1973, the first May Day parade took place and
the concrete area (formerly called "Plecháč") on today's First
Square suddenly acquired its inseparable character.
On July
19, 1974 at 20:09 there was an explosion in the premises of the
Chemical Plant in Záluží, which claimed 15 victims and 112 injured,
a large part of the victims were also in a tram car, which was just
passing near the accident. In the end, the whole event was disguised
for a long time and the public still does not know exactly what
happened.
In 1975, the chairman of the MNV, Miroslav Fleišer,
died, and František Lorenz did not become the new chairman until
September. On September 30, at 11:50, the relocation of the Dean's
Church started and ended on October 27 at 8:52 am. The same year
meant the end of the villages for Skyřice and a year later for the
Čepirohy, both villages belonged to the administration of Most.
In the next elections in 1976, Karel Šindelář was elected, who
settled in the completed building of the seat of the municipal and
district national committee in December 1977 (costs amounted to
approximately 82 million crowns). That same year, the building of
the secondary medical school was opened for 420 pupils with a
boarding school with a capacity of 180 seats and an indoor swimming
pool. On October 28, the fourteen-storey building (then the tallest
building in the region) of the National Security and Military
Administration (now the seat of the state police, cost 48 million
crowns) was opened. In December, a sports hall with a hostel
(capacity 56 beds) and a restaurant (total costs 44 million) was
opened to the public. A year later, it was decided to build a car
circuit (now Autodrom). In 1978, the construction of a cultural
house in the city center with a planetarium and a district library
(capacity 450,000 volumes) began, and a new city district was
created - Most 15 Rudolice-Chanov, where the Roma population from
the old Bridge, but the buildings were constantly devastated by the
inhabitants (one building even had to be demolished), so over time
it was decided to gradually disperse Roma families.
At the
end of 1979, the theater ended its activities in the old part (the
last play Fox and Grapes, December) and the ensemble moved to the
May cultural center, but these spaces were only temporary and were
to serve only as a temporary refuge for the new theater building.
Rudolf Mooz was elected the new chairman in 1981, a secondary
industrial school for 650 full-time and 300 evening students was
completed, and the old building belonged to the University of Mining
in Ostrava, which set up its own consultation center. Today the seat
of the Regional Museum in Most. In April 1983, the largest hotel in
the district was opened, the Murom Hotel (cost 110 million) for 486
guests (now the Cascade Hotel). At the end of June, the race circuit
was christened and the premiere race took place on 14 August. In
1984 the district archive moved to the new building (the first
purpose-built archive building after 1945 in the Czech Republic), in
May the Regional House of Culture of Miners and Power Engineers (now
the Repre House of Culture) with a planetarium opened, and in August
another cinema, the Mír cinema. , in the library (opened in March
1985) with a capacity of 182 seats. The Workers' Theater opened on
November 8, 1985 and has become perhaps the only commendable
building in the new city. Another cultural stand opened to the
public on November 4, the then named Cultural Monument Most and
today the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Most still
had considerable reconstruction work ahead of it.
The
demolitions in Most ended on April 1, 1987, when nothing remained of
the original town, with the exception of the moved church and the
original Zahražany district.
The November revolutionary
period of 1989 did not have a significant effect on Most. In the
end, the supportive ambitions of the Prague revolutionaries began to
emerge. The forthcoming changes were confirmed by the visit of
President Václav Havel in February 1990.