Monument “Vrata od krca”

“Here are blooming meadows of the noble people of Turopolje, which, over the course of five years, with joint work and commitment, the hardworking hands cleared. In 1774, they started clearing, and finally in 1779, they were distributed to all the brothers, who received equal parts here”.

The “Turopolje lug” forest was mentioned for the first time at the beginning of the 13th century as the Great Forest – Magna silva, which in its Turopolje part stretched from Velika Gorica to Lekenik. In 1249, ban Stjepan, on one issue of the right to use the forest – to let pigs go to pasture in them, determined the exact boundaries under the administration of the Turopolje people, which have remained unchanged to this day.

The lack of hay for the winter feeding of the livestock forced the prefect Ivan Plepelic from Pleso to propose at a meeting held on May 11, 1775, that the Lekenik part of The Great Forest be cleared in order to create new haystacks. It was concluded that each noble family house must provide one person to clear the forest, who would work for three full days. After the completion of the work in 1779, the people of Turopolje built the “Krčka vrata” (Doors of deforestation), a wooden triumphal arch, which still stands in that place today. The gate is a unique monument to human labor, the cleared forest has become a haymaker’s meadow, and the land is divided into equal plots according to authorized rights of noble families.

In honor of this joint success, on the border of the clearing and the rest of the forest, the “Gate of the deforestation” still stands today – two concrete pillars, once wooden, over which a large beam is stretched. During a big storm in 1914, the door was demolished, and it was rebuilt and installed again in 1916. Even during the 21st century, there was work on the restoration of the triumphal arch, and a sad fate befell the gate in 2016 as well, and in 2019, when they were damaged but fully restored.