Museum of Carpathian German Culture

At the Museum of the Slovak Village in Jahodnícke Háje, Martin, there is a German settlement from Horný Turček. The house was inhabited by the family of farmer Vincent Rusnák (1897-1982) and his wife Alžbeta, née Priwitzer (1899-1987). They had nine children, eight of whom remained in Slovakia after the war. The family owned and lived in the farmstead until it was sold to the Slovak National Museum in 1978, when it was dismantled and transported to the Museum of the Slovak Village in Martin.

The settlement from Turček represents the dwelling of the German population in the Kremnica area from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It consists of a two-story residential house and farm buildings – a stable and a threshing barn, which together form an open-type courtyard with scattered buildings within the village.

The residential house is of log construction, built on a stone foundation. The walls are made of double-hewn logs, coated with clay on both the exterior and interior sides. The exterior walls of the ground floor and the southern side of the upper floor with the porch are lime-washed. The gable roof is covered with wooden shingles, and the truss has a "hambalková" construction. The ceilings are beam-supported, with interlaced wooden board cladding.

The entrance space of the house is a hallway (Flur, Vorzimmer) spanning the entire width of the house. Opposite the street-facing door, there is a door leading to the courtyard. The layout of the house is symmetrical, providing suitable conditions for the large family to live together, or for two to four families under one roof. On the left side is a large room (Stube) and a black kitchen (Rauchküche), and on the right side, a small room and a clean kitchen. The rooms and kitchens are not walk-through. The same layout is repeated on the upper floor, which is accessed via a wooden staircase with a railing. The hallway runs through the center, and on either side of it, there are two chambers (Kammer). Wooden stairs lead from the hallway to the attic, and from there, access to the porch is possible, which is positioned at the height of the first floor and extends along the entire front facade of the house.

As for the use of the house's individual spaces, the main room (Stube) played a prominent role, serving as the social and representative room. The family gathered here, and meals were eaten in this room. Cooking and sleeping did not occur in this space. The room was distinguished by its spaciousness, light, and furnishings. The walls were lime-washed, and the floor was made of wooden planks. In the corner of the room near the black kitchen, there was a large lime-coated oven with a tiled stove extension, used for baking bread, cakes, and heating the room. Beside the oven were benches without backs, which were used for sitting, as well as for storing things or drying items. Across from the oven, in the corner of the room, was a corner bench with a backrest. In front of the benches was a massive table with a cross-shaped base. In the corner above the bench, there was typically a small cupboard. The wall above the benches was decorated with sacred images. A shelf between the windows held painted plates, or sometimes the plates were simply hung on the wall. The empty corner of the room housed a small domestic altar (Herrgottswinkel), with a statue of the Virgin Mary about one meter below the ceiling, accompanied by angels and a candleholder (Wetterstöckl), which was lit during storms. Behind this altar was a cross with funeral items placed on it. These items were placed on the table when the priest came to give the last rites to a dying person. The area around the altar was decorated with holy pictures. Lighting was provided by candles, oil lamps, or carbide lamps. The windows were double-glazed and had two wings. In the large room, there were two windows on each of the corner walls, and in the small room, there was one. In the fall, shutters (Winterfenster) were typically installed, and moss was placed between the windows as thermal insulation. Floral decorations in the windows were rare, but rosemary or geraniums were common.

The hallway primarily served as a communication space between the various sections of the house. It usually also contained a food storage cupboard (Špajkastn), a chest for flour (Mehlstock), a bench with containers for drinking water, baskets for potatoes, and fuel.

The black kitchen features a masonry open hearth with a crane, covered by a vault. It was the room designated for food preparation, and its equipment reflected this function: a simple table, a bench, pots, and cooking utensils were stored on the walls. The smoke was vented through a wooden chimney above the opening in the ceiling, which extended through the attic and exited through the roof, ending in a gable roofed structure. In the clean kitchen, there was a brick stove with an oven for baking, located in the corner where the partition divides the kitchen from the room. A brick chimney vented the smoke, leading out above the roof of the house. The floor in this kitchen was made of wood, while the floor in the black kitchen was packed clay.

The chambers on the upper floor were used for sleeping and storing clothes and food. The furnishings were appropriate for these functions, with beds, chests, and sometimes tables and cradles for children. Since the sleeping chambers were above the heated room on the ground floor, there was an opening in the floor with a wooden cover (called a "šúber"), allowing warm air to rise. The chamber (Rauchkammer) above the black kitchen was used to store food, particularly meat, sausages, and bacon. Unlike the rooms, the chambers had small, single-glazed windows. All four chambers had clay-packed floors, and the hallway and porch had wooden plank floors.

The farm building – a stable – like the residential house, is of log construction, built on a stone foundation. The walls are made of double-hewn logs. The spatial division of the building is vertical and symmetrically laid out. The ground floor consists of two non-passing stables, coated with clay and lime-washed, while the upper section is an open log structure. Each stable contained a pen for pigs and a space for poultry. The upper section is open to the attic and accessible through small doors above the stable entrances. The gable roof, originally thatched, is now covered with shingles, and the truss is of a "hambalková" construction.

The threshing barn is also of log construction and is open. The doors are double-winged, made of planks. The space is divided into a threshing area and a storage space. The gable roof is covered with straw.

The furnishings of the internal spaces and the external buildings are an example of German rural housing in central Slovakia during the interwar period. They reflect the employment patterns of the family members and the lifestyle of the local German population.