Our story

or how a boy from Bratislava and a girl from Trnava came to a mountain settlement under the Low Tatras

Leaving for a remote place and leaving your previous "normal" life behind is not an easy decision. And it's certainly not for everyone. The most important thing is that both partners want to live this way. And that was also our case. We met at a relatively mature age, both of us leading "normal" lives until then.

I, Miroslav, worked as a translator and interpreter and ran a holiday cottage in Jahodnik in Smolenice. Despite my financial well-being, I felt that this was not quite the way of life I wanted to live, and I sought relaxation in nature and also in my garden. The garden was primarily a resting place for me, so I planted a lot of trees and shrubs in it, which I let grow freely. Instead of mowing, I got chickens and pigs to graze the grass.

And then, ironically, through my work, I got the chance to attend a one-year course at the Krameterhof farm in Austria. Here, I realised that what I was already partly doing had a name - permaculture.

The concept of permaculture really appealed to me and suddenly everything made more sense. Sometime around that time, Vlaďa and I met and our lives began to intertwine, we were already running the holiday cottages together and together we continued to develop our common garden, which, as Vlaďa said, was completely different from the gardens she had known until then, where not a single weed was allowed to grow.

And then we made a big decision together - the decision to leave our current life and to move to a new homestead that would be closer to nature. Together we started looking for a suitable plot of land and travelled to various locations around Slovakia. Finally, we decided to buy an unfinished house with the surrounding land in Brezno, which we did at the end of 2016. At first, Brezno became our second home, we were gradually finishing the house and settling our affairs in our previous home in Western Slovakia. We finally moved to Brezno in October 2019, shortly after the birth of our daughter Vlaďka.

The basic goal and reason we moved here is that we want to live a more sustainable lifestyle, be as self-sufficient as possible and grow healthy food. We believe that permaculture is a viable alternative to consumerist lifestyle and also makes economic sense.