The reconstruction of the pre-war fortress Dobrošov will begin this month

Dobrošov - The reconstruction of the pre-war fortress Dobrošov is set to begin this June, with the completion of the work planned for 2021. The national cultural monument will be repaired by a consortium of firms Solid Care and Gemec-Union, which won the competition of three candidates with the lowest bid of 61.3 million CZK excluding VAT. The Hradec Králové region today signed a contract with the contractor for the repairs to the fortress, representatives of the regional office informed ČTK. The region managed to select the company only in the fourth round of the competition.

"In the second week of June, we will hand over the construction site to the contractor, and they will start the reconstruction within three days of the handover. The construction will last 106 weeks, and we anticipate the completion of all work in the summer of 2021," said the regional councilor for investments, Václav Řehoř (ODS).

The total investment in the Dobrošov fortress, including the purchase of the exhibition, furniture, and other interior equipment, should exceed 94 million CZK including VAT. The grant from the European IROP program will be 65.5 million CZK.

The fortress manager, Martin Měřinský, told ČTK that this year, tours of the underground will not be possible; only an educational trail between individual fortification structures on the surface will be accessible. The Dobrošov fortress otherwise offers visitors a 750-meter-long tour route in the underground from a total of about 2.5 kilometers of corridors. "We were last open before the repairs over the weekend. We expect that it will be closed this year. For the next season, we would like to agree with the contractor on some tour regime. We have two tour circuits, and we hope that at least part of the underground could be accessible next year," Měřinský told ČTK.

The Hradec Králové region received the Dobrošov fortress free of charge from the army in 2015, and the Náchod museum ensures tours for visitors. The fortress attracts around 30,000 visitors annually. "In the first phase, an elevator for wheelchair users should be built to the underground in the structure Zelený, which was the entrance, and also to restore the structure Jeřáb," Měřinský told ČTK.

The project includes construction modifications and restoration work on the fortress structures Zelený, Můstek, Jeřáb, and Polsko. Builders will also work in the underground of the fortress structures. The contract also includes the construction of sewage, water supply, communication routes, lighting, and water reservoirs. The project, in addition to construction modifications, includes the renewal of the existing exhibition and expansion with new exhibitions in the above-ground structures of the fortress. A modern barrier-free visitor center with social, technical, and technological facilities of the fortress is also to be created.

Construction of the Dobrošov fortress began in September 1937, but due to the Munich Agreement regarding the cession of Czechoslovakia’s border areas to Germany in September 1938, it was never completed. Workers managed to finish only three of the seven planned buildings. Only five similar fortifications were completed in former Czechoslovakia before World War II. The fortifications, which are systems of interconnected structures and corresponding separate heavy fortification bunkers, were supposed to be part of the Czechoslovak border fortifications built between 1935 and 1938 in the Hradec Králové region. During the Protectorate, the Dobrošov fortress was closed, abandoned after 1945 until the 1960s, and opened to visitors on May 1, 1969.