< >

This dignified neo-Romanesque building is home to the 31st Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Regiment.

This military compound boasts some ingenious architectural camouflage. Passers-by usually only notice the neo-Romanesque building with the tower, and have no idea that behind it there lies a huge complex of buildings grouped around a rectangular courtyard. 

The barracks were built in 1891-1893 following a design by architect Adolf Kaulfers and were originally known as the "Emperor Franz Joseph Barracks". They building was probably given its current name, “6th October Barracks” in 1947. During the so-called Carpathian-Dukla operation during World War II, Czechoslovak troops entered Czechoslovak territory for the first time on October 6, 1944. This day was therefore formerly celebrated as Czechoslovak Army Day.

The city’s “Chemists” (the 31st Regiment of Radiological, Chemical and Biological Protection, to be precise) are the only specialised unit of this type in the Army of the Czech Republic, set up to handle chemical security tasks and clean up the aftermath following the use of weapons of mass destruction. The chemical units have been on the ground not only in operations such as Desert Storm and Enduring Freedom, campaigns in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in alliance and coalition operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. They were also deployed to protect the Olympic Games in Greece and the NATO Summit in Turkey.

Standing in front of the barracks is the Memorial to the Fighters and Victims for the Freedom of the Homeland. The highly unconventional-looking monument is the work of Jan and Petr Stolín, and contains soil from nine Second World War battlefields. Near the monument stands a Lidice pear tree, a direct descendant of the commemorative fruit tree, the only one to survive the extermination of Lidice by the Nazis in 1942, while on the other side there is the Linden of the Republic, which was ceremoniously planted here to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of Czechoslovakia.