Krempna
Krempna is the seat of the Magura National Park and a popular tourist centre famous for its beautiful Lemko Orthodox church, the unique wartime cemetery and a small reservoir that is to become a large lake.
Krempna is a bit over 40 kilometres away from Krosno, but it definitely should be visited. To get there, you drive on a winding switchback road through forests, which confirms Krempna’s suitability for the “capital” of the Magura National Park, established in 1994.
The village itself was established already in the 15th century, as part of the Żmigród estate owned by the Stadnicki family. Despite being founded as a farming village on German law (originally named Krummbach, that is crooked stream), Krempna soon filled with the Vlachs, who earned their living as shepherds, and became another Lemko village of the Beskid Niski. It is thought that since the middle of the 19th century the inhabitants of Krempna – though Greek Catholics – looked with longing towards the Orthodox Church and Moscow, which during the First World War induced the Imperial-Royal army to make them leave the village. They came back that time, but they never returned after the Operation Vistula in 1947.
A testament of Krempna’s place in the Lemko culture is mainly the Orthodox church of Saints Cosmas and Damian, either built in the 1770s or remodelled at that time form an older church. Like every traditional Lemko church, it consists of three parts with separate pyramid roofs and a sizeable tower over the front part. The building now functions as a Catholic church, but the magnificent iconostasis from 1835 has survived in its entirety, as well as the Deesis from the older, 17th century iconostasis.
The War Cemetery No. 6 is a reminder of the First World War. It is situated on the top of Łokieć hill to the south-west of Krempna, where the Imperial-Royal army had a defensive post in the winter of 1914-1915, defending against the Russian army trying to force their way to the southern side of the Carpathians. Soldiers who lay there fell during that time and during fights of the Gorlice Offensive on 5 and 6 May 1915. The central point of the cemetery is a round monument of six stone pillars crowned with a concrete wreath decorated with copper oak leaves, designed by the great cemetery architect Dušan Jurkovič.
When you visit Krempna, it is also worth visiting the building of the Magura National Park, which houses the Park authorities, the Jan Szafrański Education Centre, and the Magura National Park Museum. In the main exhibition room, you can see a multimedia show on the history of landscape and the four seasons in the forests of Beskid. After the show, you can learn more about the wealth of nature from the four multimedia information kiosks. They include texts about the Park, photographs, films and thematic maps. In the halls of the museum, you can also see the kinds of trees that grow in the Park and, upstairs, admire the collection of roe deer and red deer antlers and some mammal skulls. The Museum also organises various temporary exhibitions. It is worth seeing the exhibitions or taking part in a special quest or workshop.
The official website of Magura National Park
The village itself was established already in the 15th century, as part of the Żmigród estate owned by the Stadnicki family. Despite being founded as a farming village on German law (originally named Krummbach, that is crooked stream), Krempna soon filled with the Vlachs, who earned their living as shepherds, and became another Lemko village of the Beskid Niski. It is thought that since the middle of the 19th century the inhabitants of Krempna – though Greek Catholics – looked with longing towards the Orthodox Church and Moscow, which during the First World War induced the Imperial-Royal army to make them leave the village. They came back that time, but they never returned after the Operation Vistula in 1947.
A testament of Krempna’s place in the Lemko culture is mainly the Orthodox church of Saints Cosmas and Damian, either built in the 1770s or remodelled at that time form an older church. Like every traditional Lemko church, it consists of three parts with separate pyramid roofs and a sizeable tower over the front part. The building now functions as a Catholic church, but the magnificent iconostasis from 1835 has survived in its entirety, as well as the Deesis from the older, 17th century iconostasis.
The War Cemetery No. 6 is a reminder of the First World War. It is situated on the top of Łokieć hill to the south-west of Krempna, where the Imperial-Royal army had a defensive post in the winter of 1914-1915, defending against the Russian army trying to force their way to the southern side of the Carpathians. Soldiers who lay there fell during that time and during fights of the Gorlice Offensive on 5 and 6 May 1915. The central point of the cemetery is a round monument of six stone pillars crowned with a concrete wreath decorated with copper oak leaves, designed by the great cemetery architect Dušan Jurkovič.
When you visit Krempna, it is also worth visiting the building of the Magura National Park, which houses the Park authorities, the Jan Szafrański Education Centre, and the Magura National Park Museum. In the main exhibition room, you can see a multimedia show on the history of landscape and the four seasons in the forests of Beskid. After the show, you can learn more about the wealth of nature from the four multimedia information kiosks. They include texts about the Park, photographs, films and thematic maps. In the halls of the museum, you can also see the kinds of trees that grow in the Park and, upstairs, admire the collection of roe deer and red deer antlers and some mammal skulls. The Museum also organises various temporary exhibitions. It is worth seeing the exhibitions or taking part in a special quest or workshop.
The official website of Magura National Park