Kavčnik Homestead

Kavčnik Homestead is an incredible outdoor museum of folk architecture. The central room in one of the oldest wood buildings in Slovenia is a more than 300-year-old smoke room with an open fireplace, which served for cooking and heating. The smoke room was both a working and living room, and they often had animals in it, too. The Kavčnik Homestead is the southernmost preserved Alpine smokehouse and is the only building of its kind in Slovenia that has been transformed into a museum.

The Kavčnik Homestead in Zavodnje is a pearl of Slovenian folk architecture and the southernmost preserved Alpine smokehouse in the European Alpine space. Such buildings mostly dominated this area from the 11th to the end of the 18th century, when the authorities started to decisively persecute them as dangerous dwellings due to frequent fires and replaced them with more modern designed buildings with the so-called “black kitchen”.
The building emerged as a result of various conversions and extensions and consists of a row of autonomous rooms. The oldest part of the homestead is a smoke room, which is around 400 years old. The owners called it “kuhna” (kitchen), which was also its function. The small windows in a smoke cell, the sliding mechanism and even the details on wooden hinges of the entry door to the shed testify to the fact that the core of the building with the shed was probably created in the 17th century. Back then the preserved smoke cell was the only dwelling room in the Kavčnik Homestead.
There are at least two reasons why the Kavčnik Homestead was largely preserved until this day: When a new route via Mislinja to Carinthia was opened in the 19th century, Zavodnje was placed increasingly more on the edge of the populated world. Even laws and measures did not reach it as fast and as thoroughly as the valley. So the homestead, despite the legal prohibition by the Austrian authorities, was never converted or rearranged, but instead remained what it was in its core from the very beginning – an Alpine smokehouse. Another, just as important reason, should be sought in the fact that the house remained populated for a very long time – all until 1983, when it was left by its last inhabitant, Ferdo Kavčnik, who lived there without electricity and water, in a house that was furnished in the same manner as it is today.

Working hours

Velenje Museum at Velenje Castle

Summer working hours (1 April–31 October):

Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 AM to 6 PM. In August open from Monday to Sunday from 10 AM to 6 PM. 

Closed on Mondays.

Winter working hours (1 November–31 March):

Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Closed on Mondays.

Museum of the Leather Industry in Slovenia

Summer working hours (1 April–31 October):

Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 9 AM to 5 PM.

Closed on Mondays.

Winter working hours (1 November–31 March):

Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Closed on Mondays.

Kavčnik homestead

In summer from 1 July to 31 August: 

Sundays from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Open also by arrangement for pre-announced groups.

Gril Homestead

In summer from 1 June to 31 August:

Saturdays from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Open also by arrangement for pre-announced groups.

House of Minerals

Summer working hours (1 April–31 October):

Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 AM to 6 PM. In August open from Monday to Sunday from 10 AM to 6 PM. 

Closed on Mondays.

Winter working hours (1 November–31 March):

Open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10 AM to 5 PM.

Closed on Mondays.

Monday 7 PM–9 PM

Tuesday 7 PM–9 PM

Wednesday 9 AM–11 AM

Thursday 7 PM–9 PM

Friday 7 PM–9 PM

Saturday 9 AM–11 AM

The gallery is closed on Sundays and holidays.

The F-Bunker Gallery is open also by arrangement for pre-announced visitors.

Memorial Centre 1991

Open by arrangement for pre-announced groups.

Memorial Room “Topolšica on 9th May 1945”

The memorial room is arranged in such a way that it can be visited 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Memorial Park and Memorial Room "The Fourteenth Division"

The key to the memorial room is available at:

Štumpfel Homestead

Plešivec 62

Telephone: 041-983-424 (Branka Štumpfel) or arrange a visit via

e-mail: natalija.stumpfel@gmail.com.

You may also arrange a visit with Velenje Museum by calling: 03-898-26-30 or by e-mail: info@muzej-velenje.si.

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