Czech Castles: When communism collapsed in Central Europe hundreds of aristocrats returned to former homes. Now around 2,000 Czech chateaux are up for sale. Dan McLaughlin reports

Rubble covers the floor and the snow-filled Czech sky peers in through shattered windows, but Baron Richard Podstatzky is glad to be home.

He is one of hundreds of aristocrats who reclaimed their country piles when communism collapsed in Central Europe, and who are now restoring them to their former glory or, in some cases, selling them to brave buyers from abroad.

The Podstatzky family lived here, in rolling countryside 50kms from the city of Brno, for 170 years before Soviet-backed communists seized Czechoslovakia in 1948. "The secret police arrested my grandfather. Then all the furniture and artwork was stolen from the castle, and a great library of books was burned," says Baron Podstatzky (27), who runs and renovates the castle with his mother.

"Then an agricultural college was established here, and in the late 1960s a technical museum installed heavy machinery that destroyed the structure."

In 1993, four years after the so-called Velvet Revolution, the newly democratic Czech Republic handed back 1,300 hectares and a battered 44-room chateau.

Now the Podstatzky estate employs 20 people from the village of Litencice that clusters around the castle.

They grow crops and tend to the forests while the young baron searches for the €1 million that he will need to transform the place into an exclusive tourist destination.

He plans luxury accommodation for horseriders and hunters keen on pursuing the local deer and wild boar: fare fit for the castle's currently derelict banqueting hall. "I want to renovate it in the original style and, luckily, builders and materials are fairly cheap here," says Baron Podstatzky. "But bureaucracy is still a burden."

Petr Jan Kraselovsky, a castle-owner of aristocratic stock, helped found WK Holdings in 1995, to find owners for some of the Czech Republic's 2,000 chateaux.

The agency has sold a number of properties to businessmen, an American actor, a pop singer and several others and, for those who are interested, it displays some of about 200 currently available Czech stately homes on its website (www.wkholdings.cz).

"We provide an entire service for buyers to avoid all risks before purchase," says Mr Kraselovsky, one of whose tasks is to investigate any ownership disputes .

"EU citizens can acquire property directly, but not forests or farmland: then one must be a specialist in that field and purchase it through a limited liability company with basic capital of 200,000 Czech crowns - about €7,000." All renovation work must adhere to official guidelines, and WK Holdings offers a list of specialists who will carry out such work.

"You will probably not make back the money you spend on your castle," cautions Baron Podstatzky. "It has to be a labour of love."