*A circuit around the UNESCO listed mining area following the ‘Jáchymov Hell’ nature trail: 10 km*

• The mining town of Jáchymov is probably most famous (or notorious) today as the site of a number of forced labour camps, mostly established during the Communist era. As many as 75,000 prisoners passed through these camps and were forced to work in the brutal conditions of the world’s first operational uranium mines. The majority were political prisoners and many died as a result of their exposure to the radioactive conditions. The ‘hell of Jáchymov’ is memorialized in a 10 km educational trail which circles the otherwise very attractive countryside around the mining area. Various information boards describe the history and ecology of the region.
• Jáchymov’s mining story, however, goes back far earlier than the repressive times of the 1950’s. In the early 16th century, Jáchymov was one of the most important sources of silver in Central Europe. The town was founded in 1516 by Count Štěpán Šlik, who dug the first silver mines and built a protective castle on the slopes above the town – the unusual tower still stands today (see the picture below).
• In 1520, Šlik was controversially granted a license to mint coins by the Bohemian Parlianent, without the approval of the young monarch, King Louis Jagiellon. The silver coins became known as Joachimsthalers, taken from the German name for the Jáchymov valley. The coins became a European benchmark and circulated widely in Renaissance Europe – over a million ‘Jáchymov tolars’ were minted between 1520 and 1528. Dutch copies of the Jáchymov tolar made it to the newly established American colonies and became known to the English colonists as ‘dollars’. A global currency was therefore born from silver mined in the northwest Bohemian hills!
• The Šlik family became enormously wealthy as a result of their mining and minting enterprises. Jáchymov grew to become the second most populous city in Bohemia (after Prague) with nearly 20,000 inhabitants by 1534. Sadly, Štěpán Šlik was unable to enjoy his fortune for very long. In 1526, he was killed leading a detachment at the Battle of Moháč, where the forces of 20 year old Bohemian and Hungarian king, Louis Jagiellon, were defeated by the Ottoman army of Suleiman I. This was one of the most consequential battles in Central European history, leading to the Ottoman domination of the Balkan peninsular, at least until the end of the 17th century.
• For Bohemia, the consequences were equally dramatic. Louis Jagiellon drowned in a swamp during the chaotic retreat. This led directly to the accession to the Bohemian and Hungarian crowns, of Louis’ brother-in law, Archduke Ferdinand I of Habsburg. The Habsburg dynasty were set to control Bohemia and Hungary until the end of World War I.
• The Šlik family lost more than most under the new Habsburg rule. In 1528, Ferdinand I took control of the Jáchymov mint. In 1547, after the failure of various Bohemian Protestant Estates to support the Habsburg Catholic cause in the Schmalkaldic conflict, Ferdinand retaliated by revoking the Šlik family mining rights in Jáchymov. For a time, the Habsburg rulers enjoyed the considerable benefits of Jáchymov silver.
• However, by the beginning of the17th century, the Jáchymov silver mines were pretty much exhausted and the town declined in importance. Despite the decline, a small amount of mining of continued in the valley. And then, in 1789, the German chemist Martin Heinrich Klaproth discovered a completely new element in Jáchymov pitchblende ore. He named his discovery after the recently discovered planet, Uranus. The world met Uranium for the first time.
• Radioactive ore was extracted from the Jáchymov mines and investigated throughout the 19th century, most notably by the Polish scientist, Marie Curie, who discovered the new element radium in 1898. It was primarily for this discovery that Curie won both the Nobel Physics and Chemistry prizes. She was the first female scientist to be awarded a Nobel prize. To date, Marie Curie is the only person ever to win two Nobel prizes. .
• Radioactive pitchblende ore was primarily extracted during the 19th and 20th centuries from the Svornost mine, first opened some three hundred years previously to mine Šlik silver. The pitchblende was initially used by a local factory to make luminous paint, used most famously on watch and clock faces, until the practice was (unsurprisingly) discontinued in the 1960’s.
• In 1864, part of the Svornost mineshaft flooded after workers struck an underground spring. Stories then began circulating about the purported healing properties of the waters in the mine. Subsequent studies showed that the water contained quantities of the radioactive gas, radon. Radon arises naturally from the decay of the highly radioactive element, radium. In the early 20th century, there was a widespread belief in the broad health benefits of radioactive water. This resulted, in 1906, in the creation the world’s first radon spa treatment, right in the center of Jáchymov.
• In 1912, the Radium Palace Hotel opened, welcoming wealthy clients to experience the Jáchymov waters. The state-of-the-art hotel became one of the top ten in Europe, attracting the likes of Egypt’s King Fuad I and the composer Richard Strauss. Czechoslovak President, Tomáš Masaryk, spent his 80th birthday at the spa hotel in 1930. Today, the hotel (and the town as a whole) remains a popular spa destination. Remarkably, water for the treatments is still being pumped from the former silver mine, apparently making Svornost the oldest continuously operating mine in Europe.
• Despite all these famous visitors and historical ‘firsts’, Jáchymov still remains best known for its notorious labour camps. The first camps were constructed by the Nazi regime during World War II, eager to try to exploit the world-famous Jáchymov ore in the race to build a nuclear weapon. The Nazis conscripted to the mines captured Soviet prisoners of war and Czechoslovak citizens considered ‘inconvenient’ to the regime.
• At the end of the war, the mining camps were liberated by Soviet army, but it did not take long for the mines to be reopened. New mine workers were ‘recruited’ from the ranks of captured German prisoners of war and, initially, interned Sudeten Germans. It was only after 1949 that the camps started to be used to house political prisoners and other groups considered ‘undesirable’ by the (Communist) Czechoslovak government. Jáchymov became one of the most important sources of Uranium for the Soviet Union immediately after the war, as it desperately tried to catch up with the American nuclear program.
• Little remains from those times. The Svornost labour camp (at map point 5) has some reconstructed items, but otherwise the old mine workings and associated camps have already disappeared into the natural wilderness of the Krušné hory forests. The ponds which formerly used to power the mine workings are simply tranquil lakes today (as can be seen in the header photo). In the forest (at map point 8) there is, however, a poignant memorial to members of the Scout movement (which was banned by the Communist regime) who were imprisoned in the camps.
• The trail is a little less than 10 km in length, mostly on easy forest tracks. There is around 340m of height to ascend/descend, none of which is particularly steep. In winter, some of the trail become cross country ski tracks and the route is not appropriate at this time. For refreshments on the route, try the excellent Lesní restaurant a penzion Jezírko Jáchymov (map point 6). This is a Hejlík recommendation.

Note: click ‘Show on Mapy.com’  to go to a full screen version of the route directly on the mapy.com site. This can be used for on line navigation, saved or exported as a GPX file.

Directions

• Jáchymov is most conveniently reached by bus from Karlovy Vary. For drivers, there are various paid parking areas along the main street
• Starting from the Radnice bus stop/trail junction, join the YELLOW trail heading towards Důl Svornost, which is reached after 200m
• The cricular nature trail (occasionally marked with green/white diagonal markers) broadly follows the YELLOW hiking trail as far as the Nové Město – bus junction and from there back to town on the BLUE trail.
• If planning on visiting the Jezírko restaurant (map point 6), note that the footpath which leads to the restaurant does not have signage and it is best to use the mapy.com phone application to locate the branch off the main route