Rejvíz (; german: Reihwiesen) is a village and administrative part of Zlaté Hory in

Jeseník District Jeseník District ( cs, okres Jeseník) is a district ('' okres'') in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. Its seat is the town of Jeseník. With approximately 38,000 inhabitants it is the least populated district of the Czech Republic. The a ...

in the Olomouc Region of the Czech Republic. It is a popular tourist destination.

Geography

Rejvíz lies in the Zlatohorská Highlands and also extends into the Hrubý Jeseník mountain range in the south. It is located in the Jeseníky Protected Landscape Area. At an altitude of above sea level, it is the highest village of Czech Silesia.

Nature

Rejvíz is also name of a national nature reserve, which was officially founded in 1955 and covers 3.97 km². It is composed of the largest peat bog in Moravia and Czech Silesia with small lakes of glacial origin. Recent studies have found the Rejvíz bog to be one of the best preserved woody raised bog complexes in Central Europe as core sampling reveals its organic deposit started to accumulate nine thousands years ago or even earlier. An educational trail was opened in 1970 and leads from the Rejvíz Guesthouse to Velké mechové Lake in the western part of the nature reserve. It is 1.5 km long and there are six stops with information boards. Rejviz velke mechove jezirko

The area of Velké mechové Lake is 1,692 m². It is 68.5 m long and 41 m wide. Its depth is 2.95 m. Another lake, Malé mechové Lake, lies in the north-eastern part of the nature reserve. However, it is now completely overgrown with plants. The thickness of the peat layer is 6.6 m in this area, twice more than at Velké mechové Lake. Malé mechové Lake is not accessible to the public. The peat bog is very rich in spiders. Other species living here include alpine newt,

Carpathian newt The Carpathian newt, or Montandon’s newt, (''Lissotriton montandoni'') is a species of salamander in the family Salamandridae found in Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine. The total length of adults of this species is around ...

and

moor frog The moor frog (''Rana arvalis'') is a slim, reddish-brown, semiaquatic amphibian native to Europe and Asia. Moor frogs are known for their ability to freeze solid and survive thawing. The frog makes use of various cryoprotectants i.e. antifreeze ...

Moorland clouded yellow ''Colias palaeno'', known by the common names moorland clouded yellow, palaeno sulphur, and pale Arctic clouded yellow, is a butterfly in the family Pieridae. Subspecies Subspecies include: – northern North America *''Colias palaeno chippewa ...

and

subarctic hawker The subarctic zone is a region in the Northern Hemisphere immediately south of the true Arctic, north of humid continental regions and covering much of Alaska, Canada, Iceland, the north of Scandinavia, Siberia, and the Cairngorms. Ge ...

are glacial relicts. When the last ice age ended many species moved to northern territories of Europe, but peat bogs provided good conditions for some of them here too. The area is surrounded with woods consisting mainly of

spruce A spruce is a tree of the genus ''Picea'' (), a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. ''Picea'' is the sole genus in the subfami ...

s, which are replaced with mountain pines towards the centre. The meadows are very rich in species of various plants. Among the most common ones there are horsetails, wood club-rush, ''

Cirsium rivulare ''Cirsium rivulare'' is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to eastern and western Europe, adventive in Britain, and naturalised in Sweden and Belgium. Growing to tall, this erect herbaceous perennial is a clump-fo ...

'' and meadowsweet. There are also a lot of rare species, such as few-flower sedge,

fibrous tussock-sedge ''Carex appropinquata'', known as fibrous tussock-sedge, is a species of flowering plant in the family Cyperaceae, commonly known as sedge The Cyperaceae are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as ...

, flea sedge,

tufted loosestrife ''Lysimachia thyrsiflora'', the tufted loosestrife, is a plant in the genus ''Lysimachia''. It is native to large sections of the northern Northern Hemisphere, including Eurasia and North America. It often grows in marshes, shorelines of lakes an ...

or '' Gladiolus imbricatus''. Many other plants can be seen at the moss lakes, for example '' Sphagnum'' moss,

cotton-grass ''Eriophorum'' (cottongrass, cotton-grass or cottonsedge) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cyperaceae, the sedge family. They are found throughout the arctic, subarctic, and temperate portions of the Northern Hemisphere in acid bog ha ...

marsh Labrador tea ''Rhododendron tomentosum'' (syn. ''Ledum palustre''), commonly known as marsh Labrador tea, northern Labrador tea or wild rosemary, is a flowering plant in the subsection ''Ledum'' of the large genus ''Rhododendron'' in the family Ericaceae. D ...

and

carnivorous A carnivore , or meat-eater (Latin, ''caro'', genitive ''carnis'', meaning meat or "flesh" and ''vorare'' meaning "to devour"), is an animal or plant whose food and energy requirements derive from animal tissues (mainly muscle, fat and other sof ...

common sundew ''Drosera rotundifolia'', the round-leaved sundew, roundleaf sundew, or common sundew, is a carnivorous species of flowering plant that grows in bogs, marshes and fens. One of the most widespread sundew species, it has a circumboreal distribution ...

History

During World War II, the German occupiers operated the E781

forced labour Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...

subcamp of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner-of-war camp for

Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

POWs in the village.

Sights

The Rejvíz Guesthouse is a popular sight because of its wooden interior from the early 20th century, carved by its owners, the Brauner brothers. Its part are also chairs with carved faces of regular customers of that time. In the time of the communist regime it was called Nosek Cottage, after the first Czechoslovak communist Minister of Interior

Václav Nosek Václav Nosek (26 September 1892 in Velká Dobrá – 22 July 1955 in Prague) was a Czechoslovak Communist politician who served as Minister of the Interior from 4 April 1945 to 14 September 1953. Despite the fact that Nosek never hid his Comm ...

References

External links

Rejvíz educational trailRejvíz Guesthouse
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rejviz Neighbourhoods in the Czech Republic Populated places in Jeseník District National nature reserves in the Czech Republic Bogs of the Czech Republic Tourist attractions in the Olomouc Region