Juraj Pári, his sister Andrea and their families are future residents of the Beautiful Settlements.
They have been active on their lands throughout the whole previous year. When you enter their lands in the Beautiful Settlements through a large wooden gate, you find trees planted there, a large pile of compost heap and a small excavator.

The Pári family has bought two lands next to each other so that they can live together. It took them some time to find a place to build their houses and to live in touch with nature. Juraj has come across the Sloboda family through his work, they made him enthusiastic about the Beautiful Settlements project. “I am the city child generation that has grown up near the city centre, on the concrete yard, with a little bit of garden”, says Juraj Pári. Juraj is a skilled construction worker, doing his job for more than 15 years – he designs and makes interiors. He had worked for a garden company before becoming independent. “I was sitting in an office together with a well-known garden architect and I was responsible for designing the construction sections in the gardens. Instead of small gardens I suddenly had to deal with re-planting the trees on a place where a current motorway is standing. So, I found myself, a construction worker, standing by the tree, measuring and defining the age and social value of the tree which had to be cut down because of the motorway and the social value of which was meant to be replaced somewhere else,” Juraj remembers about his previous job. Designing and making interiors is work that makes him happy. Similarly to common life, at work as well he tries to recycle things. We work with various materials inside. Some time ago when we reconstructed a house, we used water pipes which were meant to be thrown away to make a shelf for a dining room.

He spends a lot of time on his land in the Beautiful Settlements. He observes the land, directions of the wind blowing, amount of water there. He has already planted trees around the land. “I have planted them according to the manual. I have also planted the forest of mainly coniferous trees and shrubs where I will interfere just a little in the future, the edible garden – fruit trees and shrubs. For instance, we know how much apples our family consumes, so we planted the corresponding number of trees. I want as many varieties as possible for everyone, as I have two small children. I did not intend to only plant early variety, or variety suitable for storage, but rather to ensure that we have apples all year round,” Juraj says and continues: “The first hole I dug for a tree filled with water the next day, so I can grow rise here. I just need to find the right type :-),” Juraj smiles. He has even planted three walnut trees. “I will see whether they survive or not. I keep fingers crossed for them, so they flourish on this field,” he says with a smile. He says that soil differs from place to place on the land. “Unfortunately, it has little to do with the soil yet, it is just a shell. They have been doing “punk stuff” on the land since socialism era, chemicals were spread and monoculture was grown here. I did not manage to find a single earthworm. I try to bring some life here. I have already driven here three trucks of what someone might consider “waste” – leaves from technical services from Tatras and wood chips. Our family is composting and I bring here all biological waste we produce. I aim to fertilize it here and to create a layer of humus. I currently bring coal to Newcastle, I throw decaying tree branches across the land with the aim to bring some nature on this field. Moss, fungi and anything that grows on this wood offers a place for beetles and animals to hide,” Juraj says. The Pári family has also moved forward with the preparation of the architectonic design of the house which was prepared by Jiří Zámečník. “The study is already prepared. It should be a wooden, round, cupola-shaped house,” finally says a construction worker and a new permaculture gardener.

Marcela Nováková