They want to make the most leaning tower in the Czech Republic accessible. They choose the stairs, they are the last ones left

Step by step, or rather step by step, the unique plan to make it accessible for more than for half a century, the tower of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Ústí. In 1945, it was destroyed by the bombing of the Allied troops. Now the city has finally given the green light to the construction of the stairs, for preparatory work, the organizers of the collection from the Ústí Community Foundation (ÚKN) and the local museum want to sell the last six stairs to sponsors for 25,000 before Christmas.

In the past few days, the councilors signed a memorandum of cooperation, the representatives also approved an initiative for a new spatial plan. After the necessary legislative process, enthusiasts will request a binding opinion. Although they estimate that the preparations will take a few more years, the construction of the staircase itself will probably last only a few months.

The paperwork so far has cost more than a million, the organizers paid the bills thanks to a peculiar collection. They offered the Ústí patriots to immortalize their name on the future steps of the extension. "So far, 44 stairs have been sold," says Kateřina Valešová from ÚKN, adding that the last six will only be offered to people by the end of this year.

Those interested should contact her by e-mail at katka@komunitninadace.cz, they will receive a certificate of donation. The mayor, the bishop, the mayor and lesser-known people from the region and local companies have already contributed to the stairs. According to the proposal, there are to be 200 stairs in the new extension, and enthusiasts will start offering more before the construction itself. It can cost up to 25 million.

The design originated with a beer

Up the staircase in the shape of a double helix, people reach the apartment that was previously occupied by the bell ringer. The elevator used to pull the coal up was also preserved there. At the very top, visitors will physically feel the two-meter deviation of the tower from the vertical. "When you put the bottle there on one side, it rolls to the other corner," explains museum curator Martin Krsek.

From the windows in the bell ringer's apartment, people will have an unusual view of the three worlds. But they will have to be careful not to come here at high noon. The tower shakes with the jingle of several bells from the 16th century. "It's a very intense auditory experience," confirms the museum curator, who recklessly went here earlier around twelve o'clock.

The opening of the tower has been talked about since 2015. The organizers "lured" the well-known architect Martin Rajniš to Ústí for a beer. "He arrived, looked at the tower and then drew on a napkin how he imagined it," laughs Krsek, who has "climbed" dozens of towers in Central Europe. "By making the tower accessible with a modern self-supporting extension, Ústí will be unique," he is convinced.

The leaning tower of the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary deviates from the vertical by more than two meters in its sixty-meter height. It is the steepest tower in the Czech Republic and far beyond the borders of neighboring countries. She came to her handicap during the Second World War, after being hit by an aerial bomb, she tilted and cracked. At the time, it looked like it was about to fall. Later, however, the people of Ústí supported it with a wooden structure, and in the end it was secured with the help of concrete injection into the foundations and a reinforced concrete shell inside the tower. During the bombing, the original stair extension, which was used to go up to the tower, fell, it was not restored during the reconstruction. Today, it is only possible to reach the tower by a tortuous path through the attic of the nave. The reconstruction of the tower was designed in 1899 by the famous architect Josef Mocker, the author of the reconstruction of Karlštejn. After the bombing, the famous structural engineer Bedřich Hacar, who, for example, designed the completion of the damaged monastery in Prague's Emauzy, provided static support for the building. Source: Ústí community foundation

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