Hum na Sutli

Hum na Sutli stands at an elevation of 330 metres on the road from Pregrada to Rogatec in Slovenia. Here the Sutla is more than a national border: it is the axis of a community whose economy and daily life have long reached into neighbouring Styria. Hum’s clearest signature, however, is glass. Bavarian industrialist Michael Pöschinger established production in the 1860s to supply bottles for mineral water from Rogaška Slatina, and Vetropack Straža continues that industrial tradition today. A glass vessel even appears on the municipal coat of arms. In nearby Prišlin, Mali Tabor occupies raised ground beside the road to Hum Košnički. This privately owned 17th-century castle has an L-shaped plan and three cylindrical corner towers; because it has no visitor use, it should be viewed from public space without entering the estate. Cyclists can experience the wider border landscape on a Sutla Valley circuit linking Hum with Rogatec, Rogaška Slatina and Podčetrtek. Buses connect the area with Pregrada, Krapina and Desinić, while rail connections require a transfer at Đurmanec or Krapina. Hum therefore rewards visitors as a border and glassmaking settlement, rather than as a conventional Zagorje resort centred on thermal springs or a showpiece castle.

Hum na Sutli grew beside the Croatian-Slovenian border, at 330 metres above sea level and 12 kilometres northwest of Pregrada. Its identity was shaped by the Straža glassworks, established in the 19th century to make containers for mineral water bottled in nearby Rogaška Slatina. Generations of glassworkers turned the plant into the main driver of the settlement’s expansion; since 1996 it has formed part of Switzerland’s Vetropack Group. Glass is so central to Hum that a silver-white glass vessel appears on the municipal coat of arms. The Sutla border, together with nearby Rogatec and Rogaška Slatina, gives the community a distinctly cross-border blend of Croatian Zagorje and Slovenian Styria.