Five restored paths, nearly 300 newly planted trees and shrubs, and three and a half kilometers of grass-seeded paths. That is just a fraction of what the Letorost association – a group of landscape and environmental stewards located in the small wine-growing village of Boleradice in South Moravia – has achieved since 2021. How have they been able to do so much so quickly? “We have a great community. When we were restoring the path to the Císařská studánka [a local spring called the “Emporers’ Spring”], 120 local people came to help. That’s quite an incredible number for a village with less than 1,000 inhabitants,” says Jiří Víteček of the Letorost association. Residents of Boleradice are already getting ready for their next project: restoring a small park, called the Parčík Pastýřská, on the eastern edge of the village. Thanks to support from Via Foundation and the Hornbach company, the park will become a place for the community to gather and will be connected to the path to the Císařská studánka.
Let’s start from the very beginning: why was the Letorost association founded?
At first, we were just a group of residents who wanted a way to walk from Boleradice into the surrounding countryside and neighboring villages other than the main asphalt road. We knew from old maps, aerial photographs and stories that people told us that there used to be many small field and forest paths around the village. These paths are still recorded in land registry maps. So we said to ourselves: Why not restore them? We thought and talked about the idea for about a year and then we founded the Letorost association.
When you talk about a group of residents – tell me, did it start with a group of friends or neighbors?
We are all from Boleradice, but we are a very diverse group. We have members of all ages. From small children who are in the association with their parents, to people in their 20s and 30s, middle-aged residents, and members who are now of retirement age.
I was intrigued by the fact that you operate in a relatively small village with only 950 inhabitants, but around 100 local people come to help with your events. How do you do it?
When we organize volunteer work, we always invite everyone from the village and the surrounding area, as well as our supporters. And it works: for example, when we were restoring the path to the spring Císařská studánka, 120 local residents came to help us. We simply have a great community, great people who have supported us from the beginning.
How did local residents support you in the beginning?
When we first started restoring one of the local paths n 2021, we needed to raise funds for materials, trees, surveying and so on. We organized a fundraising event, and local residents really contributed a lot. They saw that what we were doing was a great thing that would benefit everyone—children, tourists, cyclists, and so on. They supported us not only financially, but also by coming to help out. It also helped a lot that each tree has its own patron.
What does it mean that a tree has its own patron?
This is a very nice way for local residents to support us. Each tree has its own patron: sometimes it’s an individual, sometimes a whole family, sometimes another local association. We also have several trees that someone dedicated to a deceased relative. Each tree has its own story and a family or individual who helped plant it on one of our volunteer planting days, which builds a stronger connection to the place. I think this is a great idea that can inspire other associations or communities leading similar projects.
Since 2021, you have restored five sites in the village. That’s one project per year. What makes you so productive?
First and foremost, we enjoy it. We can see that what we are doing makes sense. Thanks to us, people can go out into nature, into the forest. Many of our trails lead to interesting places, such as protected areas or places associated with the Mrštík brothers, who were writers who lived and worked in the neighboring village of Diváky. The key thing is that we have the support of the municipal authorities, who own the land. And we’re happy that what we do helps both people and the local landscape. There are a lot of landscape issues here.
What issues are there with the landscape around Boleradice today?
The landscape suffers from problems associated with intensive agriculture, such as erosion. Every heavy rainfall washes fertile soil from the fields onto the roads and gardens, leaving the roads covered in mud. At the same time, biodiversity is steadily declining. We’ve heard from our grandparents how many animals used to live here: birds, insects, butterflies. Today, it is completely different; many species have disappeared altogether—quails, for example. We would like to help bring them back.
How can the Letorost association help the environment?
When we used to walk through the fields, we saw only a large expanse where nothing sang and nothing flew. Today, thanks to our planting of trees and shrubs, it is changing. We also help by carefully selecting specific compositions of tree species to plant in the area. For example, on the way to the Císařská studánka, we planted several dozen trees of a variety of deciduous fruit trees that is little known today.
You are currently working on another project – restoring a local park. If I’m not mistaken, the idea came from local residents?
Yes, with the Letorost association, we mostly restore paths outside the village, in the countryside. But some of our neighbors said that it would be great if we did something closer to home, something that would also be suitable for older people who can no longer get out into the hills or forests. We really liked the idea. We said to ourselves, since local residents support us so much, let’s do something for one year that isn’t our idea, but something that really came from them.
The park site is directly connected to the restored paths. It’s located at the edge of the village, just past the last house, and in this part of the village there is still no open space to gather, no playground or anything of that kind. So we thought it would be a great idea to spruce up and renovate the space a bit so that it could serve children, old residents and tourists alike. So that people could spend their free time here, sit down and relax, and children could play games and maybe even learn something.
Yes. Here in Boleradice, we have excellent craftsmen who have supported us from the very beginning. They helped us make signposts, informational boards and benches. Now we would like to work with them to make the informational boards and benches for the park. Coincidentally, the children’s beekeeping club is the patron of a hornbeam planted right on the park site, at the beginning of the path to the Císařská louka [Emporers’ meadow]. They come here from time to time to check on their tree and the other trees too, water them, and so on. We thought it would be a nice connection to make an informational board dedicated to beekeeping.
Where are you right now in the project?
We have already surveyed the park and have a plan for what we would like to do. And since we found out a few weeks ago that we have been awarded a Via grant, we will be able to plan all the details with the association and get started.
Do you already know when you want to officially open the park?
We would like to open it later this year.
What gives you the most joy with the Letorost association? You probably can’t speak for the whole association, but at least for yourself…
I love walking along the paths we’ve restored and meeting people who use them. I like that they spend time outdoors and start to take a little more interest in the landscape around the village. Thanks to our informational boards, they learn things they may not have known before – about the history of the place, what our association does and interesting facts about nature.
What are your plans for the future? What is your dream for Letorost?
We have had a dream in mind since we founded the association. It is to create an unpaved path to connect the two neighboring villages of Boleradice and Morkůvky so that people don’t have to walk on the asphalt road. It’s not exactly pleasant walking alongside all those cars. We know that the project has the support of the leadership of both villages; we’ve already had meetings with them. Residents would also be interested in this—our two villages are close to each other. But that would be a very, very difficult road to build and, above all, to maintain.
Speaking of maintenance, you are currently running a fundraising drive on our online giving portal, Darujme.cz, to raise money to buy a tractor, correct?
Yes, we would like to raise money to purchase equipment. The more paths we restore, the more maintenance work we have! This includes regularly watering the planted trees, pruning and pest control. We’ve been doing everything with our own equipment that we have at home, but it’s no longer enough for the kilometers of paths and many trees that we have planted. And we also know that we can’t implement further projects without purchasing this equipment because we just would not have time to take care of the paths. The equipment would help us immensely.
Even if you have the best equipment, you still have to devote your time to the projects. I’m interested in how you manage to combine your job with this relatively extensive community work?
It’s a hobby like any other. When you enjoy something, you just make time for it. I work as a software engineer in Brno. I spend a lot of time in front of the computer, so getting out into nature is relaxing for me, and I think that’s the case for a lot of people. When we see that our trees are growing beautifully, that there are lots of bees and insects flying around, that people are walking along our paths, that cyclists, children, and dog walkers are using them, it always gives us a real boost.
Jiří Víteček is a founding member of the Letorost association, which has restored a number of paths in the Boleradice area and planted nearly three dozen trees and shrubs. He is the author of Nebeské Boleradice (Heavenly Boleradice). He studied biomedical engineering and bioinformatics, and today he works on software for electron microscopes. In his free time, he enjoys traveling, photography, and spending time in nature.
The interview was prepared by Anna Slaninová.
