A Scots Pine standing over the flooded village of Chudobín, Czech Republic.
During the late Renaissance, above an isolated Czech valley, a scots pine seedling found footing along a rocky outcrop. For the next three centuries it watched the farming village of Chudobín as a dozen generations of inhabitants lived, worked, and died there. As it grew, both villagers and visitors to Chudobín noted the striking silhouette it cast against the sky– it became the subject of drawings and poems, and the inheritor to local legends. It was said that the Devil himself sat below the pine on windy nights, playing a discordant violin which you could hear above the gale if you listened close. The tree was the called the guardian of the town.
In 1947, construction was begun on the dam Vír I. Over the next decade, the inhabitants of Chudobín would be forcibly relocated before the flooding of the valley in 1957. The village and all of its surrounding farmland and forest was consumed, with water levels rising to entirely fill the valley-become-reservoir. The dam includes a hydroelectric generator and a drinking water treatment plant. When full, the new lake's surface is just below the tree's roots.
Now, The Guardian of the Flooded Village stands over ghosts. Far below, under 215 feet (65 meters) of vertical water, is the old town, buildings and all– though you'd never know it by the looking. The reservoir is mostly off-limits to human visitors, under a hygienic protection zone, and you cannot visit the Guardian. On windy nights, the Devil leans against the trunk and plays a howling violin to no one.
