These articles were published in the Spectacular Slovakia travel guide, published annually by The Slovak Spectator since 1996. The latest editions can be obtained from our online shop.


Kolárovo: Floating flour country

By Howard Swains

    The floating mill at Kolárovo is a beautiful reminder of a previously flourishing industry.
 The floating mill at Kolárovo is a beautiful reminder of a previously flourishing industry.
 Photo by Howard Swains

If it didn't have such an obvious former application, you could be forgiven for thinking that the floating mill at Kolárovo was designed specifically to be photographed and put on the cover of guidebooks. Moored on a meandering cut-off near the confluence of the Little Danube and Váh rivers, this wooden structure is as delightful a sight as the region offers. It is nestled among multicoloured trees and the green plains of the lowland basin, and makes for a terrific rustic scene, especially as the sun shimmers off the water and nearby grazing goats begin bleating.

The mill is the only surviving example of what was once abundant on these waterways. Unlike similar land-based mills, the floating variety did not depend on the water running high in their particular location; it was possible for the miller/boatman to go drifting in search of the best current and keep his stones grinding at all times. A horse would then tow the mill back upstream whenever necessary.

A law issued in 1938 demanded that mills be powered by electricity, effectively halting this kind of industry and ending the life of most examples of these boats. The Kolárovo mill is actually a replica, built in the 1980s to the designs remembered by a former worker. On board is a small museum, with old sepia-tinged photographs of the mills in action as well as working reproductions of the mill's interior machines. There's no English explanations available as yet, but it's fairly easy to figure out the process: water turns wheel, wheel turns stones, grain becomes flour, flour collected in big wooden troughs.

On the banks of an island beside the mill is a small but well-presented folk museum (or skanzen), comprising thatched cottages and some old village street furniture (wells and the like), distinctive for its defence mechanisms against the flooding inevitable in riverside accommodation. The regular flooding is also responsible for bringing several artefacts from former settlements in the area and the skanzen is often used by archaeological students.

The island is linked to the mainland an 86-metre-long covered wooden bridge, the longest in Europe, another striking element in this most picturesque location.

These articles and related information were published in Spectacular Slovakia 2008, which you can obtain from our online shop.

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