Water wells of Križevci
The very legend of the name of the town of Križevci and the origin of the Church of the Holy Cross is related to the well and the vision of the cross. According to one, it was experienced by newly settled and unbaptized Croats, and according to another, a girl saw a golden cross of faith swimming in a well. Regardless of the legends, the church of Sv. Cross, built between 1090 and 1325, where it stands today.
Centuries later, the city gets a large number of public and private wells. Public wells still represent a specific decoration of the City of Križevci that adorns more than ten locations in the narrower and wider city center. Today’s preserved wells were created during the Art Nouveau, and were built for the purpose of supplying the population with drinking water. They were built during the 19th century, repaired after II. World War II and today represent a unique decoration of the city. The most famous city well stood on the main city square of Josip Juraj Strossmayer, not far from the building of the former Synagogue, but it was covered with renovations. On Zrinski (today Nemčić’s) square, as early as 1899, there is Nemčić’s bust by Rudolf Valdec, whose old fence was replaced in 1906 with a new one made of braided wire. The new well is being decorated by Zagreb tinsmith Aleksandar Maruzzi by placing a cast-iron candelabra on a stone pedestal.
Almost uniform in design, the wells are covered with a concrete slab lined with a stone wall, and from the middle rises a “trunk” drilled in the middle that enters the depth of the well. On the upper, visible part, a handle is attached for pumping over the lever, and on the left, somewhere around the half, a metal pipe comes out, finally bent downwards, through which water flows after pumping. Under the pipe is a concrete element – a drain into which water flows and drains if it has not been used. Numerous famous residents and visitors of the town of Križevci fortified themselves at public wells.
