Darkoviche

Via the city Hlucin there is some confusement about our next destination; you’ve got Darkovicky and Darkoviche and we want to go to the latter. First we drive through "Darkovicky" and I suddenly see the sign with the bunkers on it - it must be really close now. The landscape here is sloping with forest here and there.

From the bus window I see the bunkers and Pete walks to the driver to ask if we can get out of here. Just before the village Darkoviche it is about one or two 2 kilometers away. The sun is shining and we decide to continue to the first house to ask for some water for tonight. Back at the crossroads we see that there are several bunkers to visit but follow the sign with museum. We can not resist taking a few photos of the tanks (T-34's) and the Katusja rocket that we see along the road.

First a piece along the barbed wire and dragon's teeth. We walk along the edge of the forest and rapeseed fields towards a piece of forest where there is certainly a good place for us for tonight. From our place we can see the main bunker, the road and we first put up the tent before it might rain again. Since we have already eaten, we make tea, I find a place to go to the toilet and then start our "cheap” supermarket wine. It is about ten o'clock when we both look for our tent and crawl into our sleeping bag.

It has been kinda chilly again last night and I even woke up a few times from the cold but also from the barking of dogs and deer. In the morning it is immediately jacket-time while the steam comes out of your mouth. Then it’s time to hang things outside to air. We eat breakfast quickly and we’re planning to visit the main bunker first that serves as a museum.

The old man armed with a hat points us to the other bunkers in the neighborhood. Don’t know exactly what he means but we decide then to walk past the many dragon's teeth, crosses, barbed wire barriers and a tankside to the other big bunker. After storing our large bags in the museum under some grenades, we walk across the road, along the busy car route to the grounds of this bunker that has not been renovated.

It is very quiet here and we see two benches in the sun with a beautiful view of the bunkers that the Czechoslovaks should have protected against the Nazis in 1938. Nothing was less true due to the Munich Conference and these bunkers were without blow or punch. When the Russians invaded Europe, the Nazis would use these strongholds against the invasion of the Bolsheviks.

The beautiful terrain here is surrounded by different sizes of dragon's teeth and the whole gives a mystical feeling. Pete and I know that we should have stayed here between these defenses, but it was late yesterday and our bags were heavy from the load. Walking down the road we see more and more bunkers - these are much smaller as you can see a lot for instance in the Dutch landscape.

Also here barbed wire and a tank wall. In addition to the small bunker that you can not see, a Russian monument is surrounded by pine trees. Near the parking lot we find a fully loaded garage with so-called barbed wire holders and different types of obstacles that are also used on the beaches of Normandy part of the Atlantic wall.

The Czech Defensive line

We take a look and walk back to the museum which is located in bunker MO-S 19 V Aleji which stands for the region. The old man speaks German fairly well and wants to give us a personal tour through the bunker. The man says that these bunkers are part of the Czechoslovakian defense line built on the border between 1935 and 1938. The main task of this line was to cope with a possible German or Hungarian invasion. 

This bunker has been completely renovated, consists of two floors and a kind of domes have been set up. We get a glimpse into the different rooms and spaces of the bunker starting with the rubbish bin that was put outside the bunker and where used ammunition ended up. By means of a peephole you could see everything that happened in that bin and beyond. We see the camouflaged windows where you could put a machine gun in, but could also close it with an armored-window. Two domes were for observation while one was used as a machine gunnest.

Our guide tells us that the bunkers were built in about 200 days (between 1935 and 1938) but that the concrete was poured in, in barely a week. Sleeping places, ammunition rooms, two large cannons, a water source and water containers, a supply room, a kitchenette and an original communication machine. In addition, we see the field telephone (and ordinary telephone). Around 19 Czech soldiers stayed here in peacetime while during wartime some 36 men were stationed here. We give the man a tip after we have taken some pictures, while this actually costs extra money and thank him for the good explanation. It’s time to go back to Ostrava.