Tajchy

Tajchy (singular: tajch, from German Teich) are artificial water reservoirs in the Štiavnica Mountains, in central Slovakia.

Channels with the overall length of 72 km diverted water from the rain and melting snow to sixty reservoirs.

Due to the prohibitive costs, the Royal Court Chamber in Vienna decided to close the mines in Banská Štiavnica and its surroundings.

[6] But after their completion, tajchy proved capable of draining all the water from the flooded mines and they even provided enough energy for other booming industries.

[4] In 1782, Banská Štiavnica (Selmecbánya) was the third biggest town in the Kingdom of Hungary (with 23,192 or including suburbs 40,000 inhabitants), after Bratislava (Pozsony) and Debrecen.

In 1762, Queen Maria Theresa ordered the establishment of a Mining Academy in Banská Štiavnica, creating the first technical university in the world.

[6] Until the mid-19th century, the three tallest dams in Europe built for the mining industry had been tajchy in Slovakia: Rozgrund (30.2 m), Počúvadlo (29.6 m), and Veľká Richňava (23.4 m).

Some of the reservoirs are heavily frequented by tourists, while other, usually smaller lakes lie hidden in the forests of the Štiavnica Mountains.