The Slovan Housing Estate is a symbol of Kroměříž’s post-war development. It was intended to house employees of the PAL Magneton factory, the Military Administration, the National Security Corps, the Municipal Enterprise of Kroměříž, and other institutions and national enterprises. According to the 1950s design, it was to provide housing for roughly 3,800 residents, but the number was later expected to increase, so it is no surprise that its construction continued over the course of half a century, from 1947 to 1986.
Kroměříž Library and the Fallout Shelter
The construction of the Slovan housing estate concluded with the building of the cinema of the same name, today’s Kroměříž Library. An educational facility was already included in the 1953 plan, but construction did not begin until 1975. In strict secrecy, a civil defence headquarters fallout shelter with a capacity of up to a hundred prominent individuals was simultaneously built in the basement. The Slovan Cinema, with a hall for 284 viewers, opened in 1986, but after 1989 its purpose declined. Therefore, the cinema was renovated in the 1990s, and since 1997 it has housed the Kroměříž Library. The shelter has been preserved in its original state and is now open to the public as a technical curiosity.
Orthodox Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius
The Orthodox church was opened in 1948, at that time practically on the outskirts of Kroměříž. It is a building in the Byzantine style, constructed between 1946 and 1948 by Vsevolod Kolomacký as a memorial to those who fell in World War II, and also as a tribute to Orthodox Bishop Matěj Pavlík, who studied in Kroměříž and was executed in 1942 for assisting the paratroopers involved in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich.
