Tartalmi rész
In this section you can find the crests of almost 2400 settlements of Hungary with notes. Find the starting letter of the settlement in the list and click if you want to see it.
![The Coat-of-Arms of the Village of Markaz [¤]](pictures/onkormanyzat/Markaz.jpg "The Coat-of-Arms of the Village of Markaz [¤]")
Markaz
(The County of Heves)
According to the intentions of the designers, the new coat-of-arms incorporates the charges of the village seal, which has survived from the year 1776, and is complemented with the present symbols of the village. In the lower section of the seal borne in the chief the three tulips refer to the pastures of Markaz, then the most valuable part of the village. Above the middle flower a six-pointed star is borne, flanked by the letters M and F respectively, which are the initials of the words Markaz Falu (village). The new coat-of-arms bears a castle in the fess. This charge is a reference to the castle built by the Kompolti family, the village's first landlords, as their dwelling place. The vine stock on the dexter symbolises traditional viticulture and the production of wine, the villagers' main or supplementary source of living. The stag on the sinister means that Mount Mátra is abundant in game. The mountain range and the silver band representing a lake in the base refer to the village's extraordinarily favourable natural conditions.
The tinctures of the coat-of-arms are the following: the fields of the chief and the fess are azure, the old seal is argent with charges sable and proper, the castle is argent, the gate and the stag are brown (proper in heraldic terms), the vine stock is proper (brown) and vert, the base is vert, whereas the band is argent with an adumbration sable.
The foot of Mount Mátra has been inhabited for thousands of years, because the slopes, the water and the forest abundant in game offered man excellent conditions for life. Markaz is located on the south slopes of Mount Mátra, by the road leading from Gyöngyös to Eger via Verpelét.
The name of the village in the form Markaz was first mentioned in the papal tithe register of 1332-7. The origin and the meaning of the name is unclear. According to the most probable variant of the several interpretations, the denominator was Mark, a cousin of Sámuel Aba. This theory is supported by the fact that the village's first church was consecrated to honour St Mark. The first landowners were the Kompoltis, then the settlement was inherited by a succession of others, including the Petrovay, Huszár, Szúnyogh and Bossányi families. It was the Kompolti family that had the castle, now in ruins, built as their place of dwelling on the 460 m high Vár-bérc.
During the Turkish occupation the village got depopulated, and contemporary sources refer to it as a puszta (abandoned place, field). Resettlement is connected with the name of the landowner Gáspár Bossányi, who in 1742-4 invited Slovak families from his possessions in the comitats Gömör and Kishont. Their memory is kept alive by the more than a hundred bynames of the families who live in the village today.
The ancestors must have made a good decision when they chose this place as their home, because the village, hiding below the peak Hegyes, still has a population of nearly 2,000, living in 750 houses. Owing to the extremely favourable natural conditions, people still keep settling in. Many have bought holiday homes by the shores of the lake, which occupies an area of 150 hectares south of the village, and which is gradually developing into a favourite resort.
The dwellers' main job is viticulture and the production of wine. The outer fields of the village, the hillsides of optimal microclimate and exposed to a lot of sunshine, have been covered since the 1400s with carefully cultivated vineyards, from which vineyardists produce wines of outstanding quality and a special character.
To visitors we can recommend some remarkable sights and various free-time activities.
The country museum of Markaz, built at the end of the 19th century, houses furniture and household tools from the 1920-30s, as well as folk cortumes, and tools used for vine-growing.
In the middle of the village there emerges the neo-Romanesque style Roman Catholic church, whereas at the edge of the village one can find a beautiful small chapel.
The lake is suitable for water sports and angling, in the winter for skating. The forests around Markaz await hunters with abundant game.
The descendants of the Slovak ancestors, who populated the one-time puszta of Markaz, have created favourable conditions for life and formed a community here by the foot of Mount Mátra with firm faith and resolution.