The municipality of Ivančna Gorica was successful in the tender of the ADRION INTERREG program, as one of the partners in the EMOUNDERGROUNDS project (Emotional technologies for the cultural heritage valorisation within cross-border undergrounds). The project includes municipalities from the countries of Italy, where the project's leading partner, the Municipality of Nardo, Greece, Croatia, Slovenia, Albania, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina comes from. The implementation of the EMOUNDERGROUNDS project will contribute to the development of exceptional wealth and potentially targeted cultural assets in the ADRION area (Adriatic-Ionian Sea), which would enable sustainable, smart and inclusive development of the entire ADRION area.
The municipality of Ivančna Gorica saw the potential in the project for the development of smart tourism, which would contribute a new product to the broad tourist offer. The offer is focused on exploiting and innovating the cultural heritage with the aim of increasing the attractiveness and competitiveness of the municipality of Ivančna Gorica. The project offers innovative solutions that would offer visitors a unique experience through virtual reality, smart mobile applications, holographic presentations and interactive screen projections.
With the help of the project, the municipality of Ivančna Gorica will introduce the history of Podsmreka Castle to the public and tourists. With the use of new interactive and innovative tools, a presentation of the castle and the stories that took place in it in history will be made. The presentation of Podsmreka Castle will be on view as part of the Carniolan Bee House. Thus, in the Carniolan Bee House, we will comprehensively present to tourists the history of one of the most widespread species of bees in the world, which comes from Podsmreka Castle.
As part of the EMOUNDERGROUNDS project, the Municipality of Ivančna Gorica will take care of the implementation of the promotion work package. The value of the EMOUNDERGROUNDS project of all involved partners is EUR 2,605,497.06. The share of the Municipality of Ivančna Gorica in the project is EUR 216,266.47, 85% of which will be co-financed from the European Regional Development Fund.
The first so-called The "kick-off" meeting will take place in March 2020 and will be organized by the EMOUNDERGROUNDS project holder, the municipality of Nardo in Italy.
A beekeeping company operated at Podsmreka Castle, which distributed beekeeping tools and hives with Carniola bees all over Europe. From Podsmreka Castle, more than 100,000 live hives with the Carniola bee were sent around the world and thus had a key influence on preserving the purity of the breed. It was founded in 1866. It received prestigious awards, including a silver medal at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1878, which will be remembered for the construction of the famous Eiffel Tower. The company published advertising catalogs in German, French, Hungarian, Polish, Croatian and Czech. The circulation reached 285,000 copies.
The enterprise of Baron Rithschutz, who in 1859, at the age of twenty-three, married the eighteen-year-old Antonia Cecilia, Countess Filomena von Lichtenberg and took over the administration of the Podsmreka estate, exceeded the standards of the time. Packages with tools and bees were sent to Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Spain and even the European part of Turkey. The list of public institutions that bought the Carniola bee from Podsmreka, given in the advertising catalog, is surprising even for the conditions of today's global trade. In particular, Emil Rothschütz made a decisive contribution to its recognition with his numerous professional publications about the Carniola bee. He was a co-founder of the Carniola Society for Intelligent Beekeeping, which he chaired in the years 1873 - 1875. He also wanted to establish a beekeeping school at the castle, but he was not granted the requested funds for it.
The family history was not equally successful. The son changed his surname to von Ravenegg. It was Rožič for Slovenian employees and locals. Son Franc then sold the manor house, forests and fields due to debts. The castle thus changed quite a few owners over the course of the century. Podsmreka Castle is entered in the register of immovable cultural heritage and has the status of a cultural monument.
