Lázeňský park (Karviná) Park

The spa park in Karviná-Darkov is a natural landscape park founded in 1895. When it was laid out, the original vegetation was kept and supplemented with mature trees brought from the Beskids. The park forms the setting for the oldest surviving buildings of the Darkov spa, and since 25 March 1992 it has itself been entered in the Central List of Cultural Monuments under number 1000122138 (older register number 13116/8-3200).

It is not only the park itself that is protected. Three further buildings are listed as parts of the monument site: the sanatorium building, the Social House from 1900–1901 and the Chapel of Saint Anne. The spa part of Darkov is also included in the Karviná urban conservation zone, likewise declared in 1992 together with the historic core of Fryštát.

The history of the place begins earlier than the park. In 1862 Baron Jiří IV Bees of Chrostina drilled a trial borehole on his land between Darkov and Stonava. He wanted to keep up with his neighbour, Baron Larisch, who was already mining coal around Karviná — but instead of coal he struck an abundant spring of highly mineralised iodine-bromine brine. In 1865 Dr Anton Fiedler, a physician from Fryštát, first used it for treatment: he heated the water and regularly bathed his patients in it in wooden tubs. That same year the first spa building went up in the Darkov cadastral area, a glazed wooden structure in the Swiss style on a stone base, which was nicknamed the Glasshouse because of its many windows.

The Silesian provincial government in Opava issued the official permit to establish the spa in 1866, and the spa was founded in 1867. In the same year Bees had the spring examined by the Viennese university professor Redtenbacher. The analysis showed that the Darkov brine contained twice as much iodine as the springs in Hall in Upper Austria, until then the most effective — and that decided the further development of the spa. The park was not created until the end of the 19th century.

The 20th century in Darkov was shaped by coal mining. Subsidence destroyed most of the original buildings, and all that remained of historic Darkov were the old spa, the spa park and a few houses on the right bank of the Olše; across the river there are now only allotment gardens and a few last houses. The importance of the original spa also declined after a modern Rehabilitation Sanatorium was built at the other end of Karviná in the 1970s. The Glasshouse, the very first spa building, had already been demolished in 1936.

The park has its own sculptures. The bronze fountain Living Spring by the sculptor Jan Kodet from 1961 was stolen in 2022; in 2025 a replica returned to the park. A more recent work is the wooden sculpture Horse by Jan Voldán, made on the spot at the “Darkov Linden” woodcarving symposium in May 2002. Among the park’s trees you will also find a massive copper beech. The grounds also include spa villas, among them Jiřina, Maryčka and Staré lázně.

In 2025 the park underwent extensive renovation. Lázně Darkov had the park revitalised. The revitalisation included a new spa colonnade with water features, paved areas, flower beds, hedges and benches, and a new area with a fountain in front of the Social House. The first phase involved felling trees that a dendrological survey had found to be at real risk of falling. The colonnade was officially opened in August 2025. In June of the same year the government established by decree the spa town of Karviná, which also includes Darkov.