1. Here it is - this Chakhtice castle, former Cheyt, on the top of the mountain …
2. We drive closer to him …
Meanwhile, if you know what it is, it turns out that you are looking at the ruins of the Chahtice castle. Its walls have collapsed, and what remains of the castle is a grim sight. But the history of this place is truly fascinating, because it was here that the famous “bloody countess” Erzhebet Bathory lived four hundred years ago.
It is clear that if the guide is a good storyteller, then the audience listens with bated breath, because, sitting in a comfortable bus, why not listen to other people's torment, this is inherent in us at the subconscious level. Let's get to know this story, the story of not a knight, feudal lord and magnate, an almighty sadist and tormentor, but … a very beautiful woman of the same chivalrous times, who could well give odds to Count Dracula himself!
3. Climbing the mountain …
As for the castle itself, information about it is rather scanty. It is located in western Slovakia, on a hill, and that hill is at an altitude of 375 m above sea level. It was built in the first half of the 13th century, in the Romanesque style (and it was made by someone Kazimierz Hanta-Poznansky), and then it was a royal border fortress. In 1273, the castle was besieged by the Czech king Přemysl Ottokar II, for which he can be reproached for lack of common sense, because if there was a well in the castle, it was completely hopeless, it stands on such a steep hill. But there are always traitors, "honorable surrender", so in the end the owner's castle was changed. And then I changed it more than once.
4. And here is the gate to what is left of the castle!
At first it belonged to one noble family, then to another … In 1569, the Nadashd family took over it. And in 1708 the castle was seized by the Kuruts of Ferenc Rakoczi and they were not too lazy to destroy it. Since then, it has been in ruins. But at the same time, it is open to tourists and you can walk on it and admire the views of the surroundings opening from its top.
And so, in the process of passing from hand to hand in the middle of the 16th century, the castle began to belong to Erzhebet (Elizabeth) Bathory. A wedding gift from my husband - that's how it is!
Slovakia at that time belonged to Hungary, therefore the Chahtice castle bore the Magyar name of Cheyt. The Bathory clan became famous in battles with enemies, but was distinguished by waywardness and cruelty even in those, in general, wayward and cruel times. And in the 16th century, after the lost battle of Mohacs, when Hungary fell into the hands of the Turks, the Bathory clan split into two branches - Eched and Shomlio.
5. Stephen Bathory, portrait of 1576.
The first took refuge in the mountains of Slovakia, but the second took possession of Transylvania, a gloomy country full of werewolves and vampires, where continuous forests and twilight stands even at noon. In any case, this did not prevent Stefan Bathory from the Shomlio branch in 1576 from becoming king of Poland. Yes, yes, this is Stefan Bathory, known to us, just in Hungary and Slovakia they call him differently - Bathory. But it so happened that we also call Guillaume Bastard William the Conqueror, and even about Bathory, to be sure - he is Bathory and that's it! With his army, he saved Vienna from the Turks, which earned the most sincere gratitude from the Austrian Habsburgs, who by this time had already declared themselves kings of Hungary.
Meanwhile, long before these fateful historical events, Stefan's sister, Anna, married Gyorgy Bathory from the Eched branch. Representatives of both families have contracted family marriages before, and apparently, this is what quickly led them to degeneration. Representatives of the Bathory family suffered from epilepsy (which became the cause of the early death of King Stephen), insanity, and were also distinguished by unrestrained drunkenness. In my Pokrovo-Berezovka, Kondolsky district of the Penza region, I once saw enough of the consequences of such marriages between local residents, where one half of the villagers were Chushkins, and the other Korobkovs and Lazarevs, and immediately remembered this, listening to the story of our guide. And in the damp and poorly heated rooms of the castle, they were plagued by diseases such as gout and rheumatism. In general, it is not necessary … to enter into consanguineous relations, it would be better with some black man from Africa, if his own men did not happen at hand. And vice versa … Erzhebet Bathory, daughter of Gyorgy and Anna, who was born in 1560, also suffered from gout and rheumatism.
It is possible that the pain just caused her fits of wild rage, which she had noted since childhood. But the life of that time itself played its role, and how could it be otherwise ?! Indeed, at that time, on the plains of Pannonia and in the Carpathian mountains, people did nothing but cut each other's throats tirelessly. The Turks slaughtered the Hungarians and Austrians. Those are Turks. The captured enemy generals were boiled alive in boiling water or boiling oil, or they were impaled. At dinner, they busily discussed the details of the execution: to put him on a sharp stake or on a blunt one, hanging weights at his feet. They lived longer on a sharp stake, but the dumb one ruptured the womb more and the execution was more spectacular. And no nobility from death was not a defense. So, Uncle Erzhebet, Andras Bathory was simply hacked to death with an ax in the mountains, and her aunt Klara was first raped by a whole Turkish detachment, and then her throat was simply cut. However, she was also not a mistake - she skillfully took the lives of her two husbands.
Erzhebet was betrothed to Ferenc Nadashdi as a child. Her father died early, her mother lived in another castle, so the girl was left on her own and for 14 years already … she gave birth to a child from a footman. Both, of course, disappeared without a trace, and the girl was hastily married off.
6. And here is a portrait of Erzhebet Bathory herself. The history and the artist's brush have preserved its appearance for us …
The young couple began to live in Cheyte - one of the 17 (!) Castles that belonged to the Bathory family. A rich dowry gagged Ferenc's mouth, and he did not begin to look for where his wife's innocence had gone. Although, most likely, Ferenc himself was not very interested in this: after all, soon after the wedding, he went on a campaign against the Turks, there he could deprive the innocence of the girls he met, and he rarely visited at home. But despite the constant absence of her husband, Erzhebet's children appeared regularly: daughters Anna, Orshola (Ursula), Katharina and son Pal. The children were first raised by their nurses and maids, and then they were sent to be raised and educated in other noble families or monasteries.
It is known that Erzbet herself was tall, slender and surprisingly white-skinned. She bleached her thick curls with saffron infusion, washed her face with cold water every morning (a good example for our girls too!) And was very fond of horseback riding. But not during the day, when it was possible to sunbathe under the sun, but at night! On her pitch-black stallion Vinara, she rode around in the moonlight, and the peasants, if they saw or heard the stamping of her horse's hooves, only crossed themselves. The maids complained that she pinched them or pulled them by the hair (everything, as in the case of our Saltychikha), and from the sight of the blood she became simply possessed. But unlike our Russian tormentor, Countess Bathory's fantasy worked much better. Once Ferenc, returning from a campaign, found a naked girl in his garden, tied to a tree and all covered with flies and ants. Asking his wife what that meant, he received from her a calm answer that the girl was dragging pears from the garden and she smeared it with honey in order to properly punish for theft.
7. Inside, the castle is not small at all! And for artists of a romantic direction, just a godsend!
True, then Countess Bathory had not killed anyone yet. Although she sinned against marital fidelity. Taking advantage of the absence of her husband, she got herself a lover, a neighbor's landowner Ladislav Bendé. And then one day on the road, when she rode a horse with him, they met an ugly old woman, whom they gladly splashed with mud. And in response I heard that she will become the same as she is and soon! Returning home, the Countess rushed to the Venetian mirror. "Am I whiter than all?" After all, she is already over forty and, although the skin is elastic, and the forms are impeccable, still quite a bit, and, yes, old age will come, and no one will admire her beauty anymore. And then in 1604, her husband died, catching a fever in one of his campaigns, and Erzbet remained a lonely widow. The neighbors felt sorry for her, because they did not know and did not know what dark thoughts at that time were already spinning in her head …
Erzhebet Bathory began to look for a way to return the outgoing beauty. She turned to healers, read conspiracies in incunabula, but … did not find effective ways. But once the local witch Darvula was brought to her, and she advised the young countess to bathe in blood. They say that the blood of innocent girls has a "rejuvenating effect." Erzbet remembered that the sight of blood always aroused her and saw this as a sign for herself. What happened next with her is unknown, but soon the girls who fell into the castle to serve the countess began to disappear somewhere, and fresh graves appeared at the edge of the forest for no apparent reason.
8. But there is nothing special to look at. One broken stone and the remains of walls and towers.
And sometimes there were many new graves, twelve times at a time, but in the castle the death of the girls was explained by a sudden pestilence. Then new peasants were brought to replace them, already from afar, but after a week they suddenly disappeared somewhere. The right hand of the countess housekeeper Dora Szentesh, a manly woman, explained to the inhabitants of Chakhtitsa, if they were interested in this, that they say that these peasant women turned out to be complete clumsy and were sent home. Or, they say, they angered the mistress with their insolence, well, and fled, frightened of the punishment …
All these terrible events took place in 1610, when Countess Bathory was fifty years old, and in those years among the nobility it was considered completely indecent to interfere in the life of persons equal to you in their position, therefore strange rumors about what was happening in her castle both flared up and faded away, and the lady's reputation was not reflected. The suspicion arose that Countess Nadashdi was supplying local girls to a Turkish pasha, a great lover of white-skinned Christians. But at that time it was not customary to trade in "live goods" among the nobility, but it did not particularly outrage anyone, so the question of where the girls went did not really bother anyone.
9. One of the roads to the castle leads along the top of an elongated hill. Remnants of a fireplace are visible in the wall on the right.
Well, in the events that took place in those ten years under the arches of the castle, most likely, “pure Freud” was guilty - the envy of aged people for youth and beauty. After all, today everything is not so with the young, in the opinion of many, and we were better. And in principle, what is important is better digestion, the absence of "sores", and, of course, youth and beauty. But now people are kept in check by civilization. And at that time, every nobleman was a master for all who stood below him by birth, and again the hereditary vices inherent in the Bathory family, and the wild superstitions of the Countess herself certainly played a role.
However, she was not the only one who acted evil: her assistants helped her, and what is interesting is how they decided on such a thing. Didn't they understand that if something happened they would become the first scapegoats, that the Countess might get out, but they certainly would not be spared ?! But no, the thirst for other people's suffering turned out to be stronger, although, probably, the fear of the mistress and the money that she paid them for silence played a role.
So, the main henchman was the ugly hunchback Janos Uyvari, nicknamed Fitzko. He lived in the castle in the position of a jester, everyone mocked him, including the servants. So he hated those who, unlike him, were healthy and … beautiful. He specially looked for houses where daughters of the peasants were growing up, and then the maids of Countess Ilona Yo and Dorka came to them and offered to give them to their mistress as a service. And they also helped Erzsebet beat the unfortunate, and then buried their bodies. And when the local peasants, seeing that something was wrong, stopped agreeing to it, they began to look for new victims in distant villages, where rumors about "strange things" in the castle had not yet reached.
The countess herself used to go out to the girls who were brought to the castle and first of all selected the most beautiful ones, and sent those who "did not come out face-to-face" to work. After that, the unfortunates were taken to the basement, where her faithful Ilona and Dorka immediately began to beat them and tear their skin with forceps, and only then, excited by the screams and the sight of blood, Erzhebet joined them and personally took for torture.
It is hardly worth describing all the horrors that happened in this basement. The result is important, when the victims were still alive, they could no longer stand, their arteries were cut, and the blood was poured into basins, and a bath was filled with it, which the Countess took. But a lot of blood was wasted. Therefore, she decided to order an "iron maiden" in Pressburg - a hollow figure of two parts, completely studded inside with long and sharp thorns. Now the next victim was simply locked inside this "maiden", they lifted her up on the block, and the blood flowed in streams straight into the bath.
However, very soon the Countess noticed that even this did not give results! She became angry and told Darvula that she would do the same with her as she did with the girls, if she did not find a more effective remedy for her. And she found it! The blood of noble maidens will help, not servants! And the Countess believed her.
Erzhebet's servants immediately found twenty daughters from poor noble families and persuaded their relatives to give them to the castle "to read to the lady at night." But in less than two weeks, not one of them was already alive, but Darvulya got hers too - she simply died of fear.
10. In this photo, the nests of the ceiling beams are clearly visible. Indeed, at that time, the castles had only stone walls, and all floors were exclusively wooden.
But the countess was already showing clearly sadistic inclinations. She poured boiling oil on the peasant women, cut off her lips and ears, and made them eat before her eyes. In the summer, she put naked and bound girls on an anthill, and in the winter she poured water over them in the cold, turning them into ice blocks.
Moreover, she committed murders not only in her own Cheyte, but also in her other two castles, as well as on the thermal waters in Pishtyan, where the countess bathed, tried to regain her vanishing beauty with the water of mineral springs. Gradually it came to the point that she could not spend two days without torturing anyone, so it became a habit for her. And even while in Vienna, where Erzhebet had a house on Bloody Street (what a coincidence, isn't it ?!), she was engaged in luring street beggars to her place and killing them there. And more than one! People who notice everything, but for the time being are silent, saw how another noble lady, dressed in a man's suit, came to her castle and also participated in the torture, and then they together retired to the bedchamber.
11. Still from the film "Bloody Lady Bathory" / Lady of Csejte (2015). In my opinion - "the film is so-so".
There was a guest here and a gloomy-looking gentleman with a hood on his head, and the servants were convinced that this was Vlad Dracula himself, a resurrected vampire from neighboring Wallachia. They began to talk about the fact that for some reason there are many black cats in the castle, and some strange signs appear on its walls. For ordinary people, it became clear as daylight that the countess had contacted the devil, and this was much worse than the murder of peasant women.
Well, then everything happened as it should have happened, because all criminals, in general, are very stupid people. So Erzhebet Bathory fell for the fact that, constantly in need of money for experiments on rejuvenation, she laid one of her castles for two thousand ducats. And this did not please the guardian of her son Imre Medieri, who raised a scandal and accused her of squandering the family's property. The Countess was summoned to the Diet in Prespurg, where all the nobles gathered, together with the Emperor Matthias, and where her relative and patron Gyorgy Thurzo was also.
And that shortly before that received a letter from the local priest, in which he complained that he had to perform the funeral service at once for nine peasant women killed by Erzhebet. Again, well, you are committing crimes, so do it yourself, why involve a priest in this matter? Why demand a funeral service for those killed by you? Especially after torture and torment? But no - apparently, the rules of relationship with God for the countess, apparently inspired from childhood, turned out to be even stronger than her own pernicious passions. Well, in the end, finally, a priest was found, who reported on her affairs "where necessary."
And after all, Thurzo himself did not want to publicize this ugly story at all and wanted to quietly, in a family way, hush it up. However, here the countess, apparently having heard about the letter, sent him a cake as a gift. It was a dangerous time then. People of the nobility were experienced, so Thurzo did not eat it himself, but fed the cake to his dog, and that one took it, and right there and then died.
One can imagine how angry he was and immediately ordered an inquiry. They interrogated the relatives of Erzsebet who were in the city, and it turned out that when her son-in-law Miklos Zrinyi once visited his mother-in-law, his dog dug a severed hand in the garden. And the countess's daughters, answering questions, were pale and repeated only one thing: "Forgive my mother, she is not herself."
Returning to Chait, the Countess decided that she should protect herself from the danger looming over her, wrote the spell that Darwul had taught her: “Little Cloud, protect Erzhebet, she is in danger … Send ninety black cats, let them tear to pieces the heart of Emperor Matthias and my cousin Thurzo, and the heart of the red-haired Medieri …”That is, she committed a terrible crime - she was attacking the emperor. And here they brought the young servant Doritsa to her, who was caught stealing sugar. And Erzhebet could not resist. At first she whipped the girl with a whip, while the other maids beat her with iron sticks. Then the Countess took a hot iron and stuffed it into Dorica's mouth up to her throat. But even this did not seem enough to her, and two maids were brought to her, and only after beating them half to death, the countess was able to calm down.
And already in the morning Thurzo appeared in the castle together with the soldiers. Dorica was found dead and two other girls still showing signs of life. In the basements of the castle, they found pots with dried blood, and cells in which the captives were kept until a certain time, and the broken parts of the "iron maiden". But the most important proof was … the countess's diary, in which she wrote down all her crimes. There, however, usually there were no names of her victims, so she wrote them down under the numbers: "No. 169, small stature" or "No. 302, with black hair." In total, this mournful list included 610 names, although it is believed that not all of her victims were written in it, but there were at least 650 of them. Moreover, they caught her, literally on the doorstep - she was already going to run, but she was a little late.
Moreover, in one of her travel chests were found and instruments of torture, without which she could not do. Thurzo with the power given to him passed her a sentence: eternal imprisonment in the walls of his own castle. Well, her henchmen were sent to court and there they all told about the crimes of their mistress, well, about their own too - after all, there was someone to show them. As a result, Ilone and Dorke first crushed their fingers, and then burned them alive at the stake. The hunchback Fitzko can be said to have got off easy. They just cut off his head and threw his body into a fire.
12. About the groans in the exact silence that are heard near the ruins of the castle, guides always tell. But … at the foot of the hill, where it stands, people live well for themselves!
In April 1611, bricklayers arrived at the castle, blocking all the windows and doors in the countess's room with stones, leaving only a small gap so that you could slip a bowl of food and a mug of water into her. Erzhebet Bathory spent the rest of her life in the dark, eating bread and water, but did not complain or ask for anything. Death came to her on August 21, 1614, and she was buried at the wall of her castle, next to the graves of her nameless victims. Tourists visiting the castle are usually told by guides that groans can be heard here at night, terrifying the entire area.
