Walking Tour: Kertészsziget

    Settlement: Kertészsziget, the length of the route is approx. 4 kms.

Kertészsziget with its population of approx. 450 persons is the smallest village of Körös-Sárrét.
Sources from the village’s past suggest that its first dwellers came from Bereg County between 1710 and 1715. Its bordering fields were flooded by water as late as the previous century and no earlier than the 1880s were the first drainage ditches were constructed. The inhabitants settling in this fertile land were engaged with tobacco gardening which determined the name of the village [Kertészsziget=Gardener’s Island]. From 1952 onwards it is an individual settlement where agriculture remained even today the most important income source.
The village attracts the visitors primarily by its incomparable rural atmosphere, silence, tidy households, clear air and the local people’s hospitality.
We can reach by bus or car the centre of the village, the Kossuth Street, where we can get guidance from the settlement’s information board. All of the village’s institutions, the mayor’s office, the school, the cultural house are located in the centre.
Regarding that the village consists of several streets, we can walk around it in approx. one hour, taking notice of many interesting domestic animals in the households.

From here on the driveway going to Szeghalom we can walk to a neighbouring small farm, the Akasztó [“Hanging”].
Its name originates from the times when the surroundings were under continuous water surface and this was a dry place where the so called “mud ships”, the flat-boats with blunt bow and wide bottom were landed or “hung up”. Out of the local hosts Ferenc Balla, by appointment in advance, is willing to tell the history of his estate, the nicely renovated furthest Wenckheim “landlord’s house” and the farming buildings, the owners of the region, its castles, Cserepes and Görbesziget, regrettably falling already victims to the passing time.
Walking back to Kertészsziget, on the right side of the driveway we can take a look at the Akasztó Hill, a characteristic formation of the Great Plain: a Cumin hill (protected natural value).
The protected area of the Körös–Maros National Park, the salines of Dévaványa including the grazing field of Atyaszeg and its linking greensward areas are extending as far as Akasztó. This region gives home also to the bustards (Otis tarda). If someone wants to get familiar with the living world and the ornithology of the saline greensward areas, I recommend her to ride on bicycle here. On this tour you can get information from the colleagues of the national park.

Availability:

Address: 5526 Kertészsziget, Kossuth u. 1.
Mayor: Kláricz Jánosné (Tel: 06-66/490-405)
Notary of the municipality: Dr. Erdei Zoltán
Telephone: 06-66/494-022