The China Mail - 'Not a museum': Slovak UNESCO village strains under tourism

"Are we in a zoo or something?" 68-year-old pensioner Anton Sabucha protested to AFP, nodding to the signs outside his house.

Tourists are "going wherever they want, taking pictures and peering around" every day, he complained.

He said he and other villagers felt like extras on a film set and he wanted Vlkolinec's UNESCO World Heritage status removed.

Sabucha, the oldest resident, is one of just 17 people who live year-round in the village, struggling to preserve its authenticity and its inhabitants' privacy in the face of the tourism boom.

Vlkolinec, which comprises some 45 wooden houses, attracts around 100,000 tourists a year according to official estimates.

They wander among the houses -- painted mostly in shades of white, yellow or brown -- and go biking or hiking in the surrounding hills of central Slovakia.

- Doctor Zhivago -

UNESCO recognised Vlkolinec in 1993. Two other sites with traditional log houses also have heritage status in neighbouring Hungary and Czech Republic.

Besides stopping at the church, belltower and the granary, tourists can visit the UNESCO centre which hosts small exhibitions on nature and history and showcases films shot in the village, including the 1965 classic "Doctor Zhivago".

For the tourists' benefit, Vlkolinec puts on traditional craft demonstrations, from sewing folk costumes and gingerbread decorating to mowing and haymaking.

It also stages harvest festivals and reenactments of traditional weddings.

But Sabucha said several of these customs were never genuinely even part of Vlkolinec's past and others were no longer practiced.

"They're showing them something that's no longer here," he grumbled.

While most residents are not lobbying for the UNESCO label to go, however, they do want their grievances addressed, according to Jan Ondrik, chairman of the Vlkolinec civic association.

"Locals feel the municipality is doing more for the tourists than for residents," he told AFP.

Vloklinec doesn't have adequate access roads, parking areas or public toilets needed to cater for the crowds that descend on it.

So some visitors may actually "relieve themselves in someone's garden", said Ondrik, who occasionally finds a tourist wandering into his own house.

- Living village -

Miroslav Parobek, 62, head of the cultural and tourism department of Ruzomberok city, which administers the site, rebuffed complaints that the village has lost the qualities for which it gained UNESCO status.

"This is not an open-air museum. It is a living village," he insisted.

He said there were no plans to seek a UNESCO delisting and Ruzomberok was trying to address residents' complaints.

Villagers get an annual 400-euro ($450) "animation contribution" to compensate for the disruption engendered by tourism, he added.

Vlkolinec's population has shrunk by more than 300 people over the past 150 years.

But two families have chosen to move to the village in the last decade, despite the excess tourism.

"It didn't matter. We were captivated by the countryside, the silence, the mountains," said 42‑year‑old billing specialist Lucia Hudecova.

- 'Too many' -

Ruzomberok is currently seeking international funds to repair and restore the church and other buildings, and to upgrade facilities such as adding more public toilets.

The money could also be used to set up a park-and-ride facility outside of the village.

Two coachloads of visitors arrived while AFP was visiting the village -- one of primary school children, the other of Polish tourists.

Peter Gries, whose green house is across the street from Sabucha's, said he also favoured having Vlkolinec removed from UNESCO.

The 63-year-old retiree said life in the village was now like dwelling in "a sewer".

Even some tourists agree the overcrowding is unpleasant.

"I find it difficult because there are too many (tourists)", said Kristina Ziahlhofstetter, a 52-year-old from Germany, picturing people constantly wandering around her own home and garden.

F.Brown--ThChM