Where to Stay in Havířov, Moravskoslezský kraj

What is Havířov known for?

Havířov was drawn as one design in 1955, a mining city for the Karviná District, and its long avenues of ornamented blocks along Československé armády gave the Moravskoslezský kraj a wholly new town on old village ground. Older parishes survive inside it. The Church of Saint Anne, the Lutheran church in Dolní Bludovice and the Evangelical church in Prostřední Suchá stand among the flats, while the Castle in Havířov holds ground that predates the plan.

Sport fills the Městská sportovní hala Slavie.

What are the main landmarks in Havířov?

Four churches anchor the quarters. The Church of Saint Margaret and the Church of Saint Anne served the villages long before the miners' town rose around them, and the Lutheran church in Dolní Bludovice and the Evangelical church in Prostřední Suchá still keep their congregations. Older ground survives at the Castle in Havířov.

Memorials mark harder years: the Životice Tragedy Memorial, and the stones for Alois Kádura, Adolf Wajner and Jindřich Bujok. Sport and shopping have their own monuments in the Městská sportovní hala Slavie and the block called Labužník.

What is the history of Havířov?

Villages held this ground first. Dolní Bludovice, Prostřední Suchá, Životice and Šenov were farming parishes of the Karviná District, each with its own church, and their names still label the quarters that the twentieth century laid over them. The Church of Saint Margaret and the Church of Saint Anne date from that older order.

Coal changed the reckoning. Hard coal mining drew workers to the region in numbers the old villages could not house, and the answer was not another village but a city planned from nothing. The city dates from 1955.

That founding makes Havířov the youngest city in the Czech Republic, and it was built as a single act: long streets of ornamented blocks along Československé armády, shops such as Labužník set into their ground floors, and a sports hall, the Městská sportovní hala Slavie, for the miners' evenings. Hawirzow stands as its other recorded name. The Castle in Havířov stayed where it was.

Memory has its markers too: the Životice Tragedy Memorial, and the stones raised to Alois Kádura, Adolf Wajner and Jindřich Bujok. The Museum in Šenov and the educational trail there hold the older parish story, while the Moravskoslezský kraj counts Havířov as its second largest city.

Where is Havířov?

Havířov covers a broad stretch of the Karviná District. Its ground carried farming villages, Dolní Bludovice, Prostřední Suchá, Životice and neighbouring Šenov, until the plan of 1955 drew a city across them, and the old parish churches still mark where each of those settlements stood. Coal seams run below the surface.

The Moravskoslezský kraj reaches around it on every side.

What is the climate of Havířov?

Havířov lies inland in the temperate band. Seasons arrive with a full swing here: warm, thundery summers over the Karviná District give way to grey autumns and to winters that bring frost and snow to the streets of Prostřední Suchá and Dolní Bludovice. Snow lies through much of winter.

Warmth is slow to return each spring.

How do you get to Havířov?

Roads bring most people to Havířov. The city stands among the settlements of the Karviná District, and the ways in run through Šenov, Dolní Bludovice, Prostřední Suchá and Životice before reaching the long axis of Československé armády in the centre. Arrivals land in the middle of the plan.

Nothing about the approach is old: the streets were laid out together from 1955, so they run wide and straight, and the blocks stand back from them in even lines.