Ice houses are an exceptional cultural heritage of the Karst and Brkini. They were created in the nineteenth century as a result of the economic and demographic development of Trieste.
As large quantities of perishable food arrived at the city's port and needed to be stored, ice from the ice houses was a valuable solution.
With the production, storing and sale of ice, both farmers form Karst and Brkini took up new activities due to the unprofitability of small farms. For this purpose, they used ice houses - deep masonry wells, dug near the karst ponds.
The ice, which was removed from the ponds in the winter and loaded into nearby ice houses, was then transported to Trieste in the warmer months and sold. About 80 ice houses were recorded in the vicinity of Hrpelje and Kozina, there are probably more, but today most of them are ruined, overgrown or full of garbage.
The municipality of Hrpelje-Kozina strives to preserve the heritage of the ice houses, which is why, as part of the ENGREEN 2 project, it bought land near Nasirec village, where one of the ice houses is located near the pond.
The ice house was cleaned, as part of the project, project documentation for its comprehensive renovation has also been prepared, which will take place outside the project in the future.
