Last Saturday, March 15, 2025, representatives of churches and municipalities, together with experts, gathered in Rimavský Brezov to work on a publication, which is to increase the readiness of guides in the churches of the Gothic Way to provide quality interpretation and a pleasant experience for visitors (not only) during the summer season.

The project Increasing quality of medieval heritage presentation by locals, funded by the Council of Europe and the European Commission grant scheme for the promotion of European Heritage Sites, has facilitated a broad collaboration between experts in the field of history and heritage presentation. The aim was to prepare educational material that will help local guides to get acquainted with the historical story not only of the particular church they are guiding, but also the broader context of architecture, the development of artistic styles, approaches to monument restoration and the historical story of Gemer and Malohont, which is essential for understanding the topic of sacral monuments in the region. The manual also includes recommended approaches to guiding, in particular the basic rules for working with different groups of people and examples from practice. The output is a “Manual for Guiding” which should make the quality of the presentation of European Heritage churches (not only) during the summer season as uniform as possible.

The tutoring manual is publicly available for any interested parties to download here (.pdf in Slovak language with English summary).

As part of the work on the project and the development of the Manual, Slovak representatives made a working trip to Olomouc and Czech experts made a field visit to our region, where presentations on the work of the Gothic Route and the Museum of Art Olomouc took place as part of the European Heritage Days in September. The cooperation of several entities and individual professionals from several countries proved to be beneficial in the protection and presentation of cultural heritage. The project involved the Evangelical Church Congregation in Slovakia Rimavské Brezovo as the main applicant, the Gothic Route Association as coordinator, the Museum of Art Olomouc and the Mining Museum in Rožňava as professional partners. At the same time we would like to thank everyone who cooperated on the project and of course our enthusiastic guides who are looking forward to the summer season and to meeting visitors with new knowledge.