"Донат Магний" - из глубины веков.

История лечебной минеральной воды "Donat Mg" берет свое начало в эпоху Древнего Рима, когда в районе местечка Рогашка (Словения) отдыхали и восстанавливали свое здоровье после военных походов римские легионеры. Об этом свидетельствуют римские монеты, найденные в источниках воды. Быстрое заживление полученных в боях ран, восстановление всего организма убеждали в удивительных свойствах этой воды.

Феномен Рогашких источников не мог не заинтересовать. В 1572 году швейцарский алхимик Леонард Турнейссер провел и объявил первые анализы воды. В течение столетия курорт был одной из резиденций штирийских воевод. В древних записях богатого семейства Унгнад упомянуто, что в 1594 году Вольф Унгнад, сын штирийского воеводы, лечился у лечебных источников минеральной воды в Рогашкой Слатине. Исцеление хорватского наместника Петра Зринского, посетившего источники в 1665 году, принесло лечебным водам Рогашки мировую славу.

Advertisement for Tempel in Germany, 1900

Advertisement for Tempel mineral water in Germany, 1915

Bottle label for the mineral water from the Tempel spring, 1925	Bottle label for the mineral water from the Donat spring in Germany, 1908
Bottle label for the mineral water from the Donat spring, around 1925	Bottle label for the mineral water from the Tempel spring in Hungary, around 1925

В 1680г. придворный врач и профессор венского медицинского факультета Паул Сорбайт в книге "Praxis Medica" описал воду из рогашких источников. Паул Сорбайт начал выписывать своим почтенным пациентам минеральную воду из Рогашки и таким образом обеспечил ей надлежащее место в лечебной практике. После выпуска его книги минеральная вода из рогашких источников стала признанным торговым товаром. Во всей империи врачи начали назначать больным различные лечебные питьевые курсы этой воды, а в больнице г.Граце воду исследовали как клиническое лекарство. Добрая слава о воде из Рогашки разнеслась в те времена по всей габсбургской империи, а также за ее границами.
Мариборский врач Й.Б.Грюндель в 1685 году посвятил данной воде обширную монографию под названием "Roitschocrene" (Рогашкий источник), в которой подробно описал химические и целебные свойства воды из Рогашки.
В ХIХ веке курорт получил международную известность и стал популярным местом отдыха. Здания отелей располагались среди благоустроенных парков и затененных аллей. Веяние тех времен сохранилось и до сегодняшних дней.

В 1907-1908 гг. было проведено основательное переустройство скважин источников под руководством геолога Й.Кнетта, построены отели высокого международного уровня, где укрепляют здоровье жители многих Европейских стран. С середины 60-х годов вода "Donat Mg" бутилируется и поставляется во многие страны Европейского сообщества.

Title page of the Roga№ka Slatina brochure, 1940

Bottle label for Donat mineral water, 1965

Bottle label for Donat mineral water, 1945

Bottling Donat Mg

Knett's intervention in 1907 was a consequence of a many years of comprehensive study and of the new momentum at Rogaska Slatina just before the First World War. Already, from its initial start in the 17th century, the bottling of Rogaska water was not keeping up with the needs of its suppliers, and this situation was also the case at the beginning of the 20th century. Steep growth in its sales prompted the decision for the industrial construction of a devised bottling complex at Rogaska Slatina, of huge water accumulating areas as designed by the Viennese architect Karl Haybдck. This Viennese architect, who similarly to Knett, had worked in Czech health spa resorts and was specialised in industrial, balneological and the building of large Hapsburg health resort spas. In 1904 a large complex for bottling of the mineral rich water was constucted and (the same as his other building spa works) it had very clearly defined secessional similarity. During the period before the First World War over 3,000,000 bottles of Rogaska water were despatched from here on a yearly basis. They equipped Donat with a yellow-coloured stopper, Styria with a green coloured-stopper and, the oldest amongst them all, Tempel, with a blue-coloured stopper.

After 1952, with the discovery of the highly mineralised Rogaska water, the extraction was ten times more than it had been previously therefore the capacity of Haybдck's bottling complex became inadequate. In 1969 they successfully filled up over 20,000,000 bottles, but this was the maximum capability of the old complex. In 1972 they opened a new bottling complex at Rogaska Slatina in which it possible to bottle more than twice as much Rogaska. This bottling complex is still in operation today.

Before the construction of Haybдck's bottling complex, the technique for bottling Rogaska water (and prior to the discovery of Donat) scarcely differed in any way from the technique depicted in Karl Russ's 1811 painting; the water was poured directly into the bottles with ladels from a walled-in and securely covered spring. The bottles were then carried to a wooden trough in the central warehouse where they were checked, stopped up with cork, appropriately labelled, put together in a crate and finally loaded onto carts.

In 1852 this technique of bottling was improved upon when they arranged for a new large warehouse (under one of today's hotels) and when the Tempel well became equipped with the Tober pump which transferred across the glazed pipes into large sumps, where they filled up the bottles and put them into cases. This was then carried along along a track to a ramp. From that point it went according to the old way, ie with a team of horses.

Only the new bottling complex had a special industrial track leading into the warehouse. This was connected to the newly constructed local railway route Grobelno-provincial border (Rogatec), purely because of Rogaska.

As the third best sold mineral water in the world the packaging was appropriate to that fact. Because of its success it was counterfeited from the 17th century onwards and the protection on the packaging was the only trademark by which Rogaska ensured it was genuine.

The bottles of Rogaska were fitted out with distinctive labels and with special seals on the stopper which was visible only through the bottom of the bottle and with a special metal layer around the stopper.

In 1877 its distributors, in the official brochure, warned:

"We would like to draw your attention to the bottles with stoppers, on which there is a rough imitation of a Styrian panther without the ducal crown and without the encircling inscription 'St.Land.Rohitscher Saurebrunn'. Bottles with such stoppers do not contain Rogaska sour mineral water. The best thing to do is if you turn in the direction of the Health Spa Resort with your orders or indicate your need to the main subsidiaries, which have been set up precisely because of increasing misuse with pseudo- Rogaska waters and because of ways that counterfeit products find to Vienna, Budapest and other large cities"

The images are held in the Historical archives at Celje

Karl Russ: Slatinиanka (Slatina Woman), 1811 The rising of Rogaska sales, 1907 The central bottling complex at Rogaska Slatina, 1905 A case of Rogaska, around 1930

Rogaska bottling complex, around 1930

Rogaska bottling complex, around 1930