Black Castle (Čierny hrad) in the Tribeč mountains is worth the trip mainly if you know the film or the book Trhlina and want to see for yourself where the mysterious disappearances took place. It’s about an hour’s hike from Zlatno. I don’t think there’s any reason to be afraid of going: it’s mostly legends and stories.
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Black Castle in the Tribeč mountains had been on my list for a long time, probably since the day I saw the unsettling film Trhlina (released in English as The Rift). It’s based on Jozef Karika’s novel of the same name. Everyone in Slovakia knows the story: the mysterious disappearances in the Tribeč mountains that have never been explained.
In summer 2020 I set out on the trail of Slovakia’s mysteries. The Tribeč mountains were the first place I explored on my own. I came to see where several people had mysteriously vanished, among them a worker called Walter Fischer.
Black Castle in the Tribeč mountains and the mysterious disappearance of Walter Fischer
So what’s the truth about the Tribeč disappearances? What local chronicles and police records say about the missing often doesn’t add up. Even the locals don’t want to talk about the disappearances in Tribeč, and many of them say they’re made up. No wonder the area has come to be known as the Tribeč Triangle, a nod to the Bermuda Triangle. The first legend of these mysterious mountains dates back to the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. A group of eight traders heading home from a fair were found covered in stab wounds, their bones broken all over. Some villagers still believe they killed each other, because nothing had been taken from them.
To this day, a large cross a short way from Black Castle commemorates this unexplained crime. To find it, just follow the hiking path from the village of Zlatno towards Javorový vrch.
The Tribeč disappearances and the unexplained mysteries of the novel Trhlina
The first recorded disappearance came as early as October 1929. Štefan Šamšal, a forester who knew Tribeč like the back of his hand, mysteriously vanished, and nobody ever found his body. A year later the story moves to the other side of the Tribeč mountains. Mária Šlajzerová, 18, set off to take food to her grandparents and vanished without a trace. Four years later came the case of Andrej Murgaš. One December the quarry worker went for a walk to Black Castle and never came home. Nobody found his body either. The fifth person to vanish was Walter Fischer, a worker who got lost. More than three months after he vanished, he turned up 35 km away, badly burned and in a very bad way. He ended up in a psychiatric hospital in Žilina and never recovered.
In 1966 the Belanič couple disappeared. The police reportedly suspected them of illegally leaving communist Czechoslovakia. In 1980 the widower Antonín Topil vanished, and he was declared dead several years later. As if that weren’t enough, in 1995 an entrepreneur, Ján Šala, was on his way back from a business trip. His yellow BMW was found in the northern part of Tribeč, with his papers and a large sum of money inside. Once again, there was no trace of Šala himself. Then comes 2011 and the story of Lucia Zaťková. After a two-day search, she suddenly reappeared at home with several cuts. She had reportedly tried to take her own life. In 2012 Jaroslav Buránsky, a pensioner and keen mushroom picker, never came back from Tribeč. His disappearance was never solved.
In 2017 searchers tracked down Marek Horváth, injured and disorientated, 30 hours after his last known stop. He was taken to hospital in a serious condition and died there three days later. In 2019 Vladimír Švajlen took his own life: he hanged himself from a tree in the Tribeč mountains. What lies behind the mysterious disappearances? People leaving the country illegally? Will-o’-the-wisps in the forest? Or simply dangerous shafts, caves and old gold mines? We’re still waiting for an explanation.
Most people know these stories from the book Trhlina, which is a novel. Jozef Karika himself says in interviews that he can’t tell where the truth ends and the fiction begins. So take the list of disappearances with a pinch of salt.
Hiking to the Black Castle ruins in the Tribeč mountains
The Tribeč mountains may be shrouded in mysteries and disappearances that nobody can explain, but I have good news for you. According to Trhlina, all the disappearances happened between November and March. If you can find the time, I’d recommend the hike to the ruins of Black Castle.
Gold was once mined here on a large scale, which is also said to be why the castle was built: to guard the roads. From Zlatno it’s about an hour’s hike, past the trailer. When I was here in summer 2020, restoration work was going on at the castle. In my view, there’s nothing to be afraid of: these are legends and stories passed down by word of mouth. So in all likelihood the real story was much simpler and a lot less ‘interesting’.
A Slovak travel blogger who has been getting Slovaks out of their office chairs since 2013. Author of the book Influencer and founder of the Bez Mapy blog. "Bez Mapy" is Slovak for "without a map".
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