EŠD 10108 STARE ŽAGE - ŠPRAJCERJEV MLIN IN ŽAGA

On the road leading from Soteska to Črnomlje, at the end of the village in Stare Žage, on the right bank of Črmošnjičica, stand the former carpenter's workshop and mill, Venecianka, with partially preserved equipment. In the basement of the two-storey stone building of the mill (Stare Žage 12), the blacksmith's workshop is still preserved. Access is via a stone one-arched bridge.

The Šprajcerjevi (Spreitzers) were among the Kočevarjev who, during the mass resettlement of the Kočevarjev to Lower Posavje in 1941, unlike some others, did not wish to sell their property to the Italian Emona family, but rather remained at home on their own land. In Stare Žage, they had a farm and a mill with two millstones. In one, they ground only barley, while in the other, they ground the remaining grains. However, what was most important was that they remained on their own property. The property to which they would have been resettled was not theirs, and they also did not know what awaited them there. Thus, the farmer with two sons remained, while the other children emigrated.

The farmer was very progressive and had a very modern mill for the time. From the external storage, where farmers brought the logs, workers brought them via tracks with small wagons to the cutting site. The Venecianka mill, or locally known as «gater», depended on the water level of the stream, and the millstones could be one, two, or more. Sometimes even the entire log was cut at once.

On the outside, there was a wooden drive wheel, which obtained water for the drive via a wooden channel, in which there was a diversion device that directed the water to the mill wheel or the drive wheel.

In the basement part of the mill, the metal beams with wooden yokes are still visible today, which, via wide wooden yokes, drove either the blade mill for cutting logs, the circular mill for longitudinal planing of boards, and also the edging device, which straightened the edges of the boards and also cut them to the appropriate length.

During the Second World War, the millers cut logs into boards for the needs of partisan objects in Kočevski Rog. Here, in 1943, they also cut boards for Bazo 20, which began to be built in the forest above the Červanovo road under Sokolski vrh.

The mill and the mill are today registered in the register of cultural heritage, but since they no longer operate, the owners do not have the means for their maintenance.