Pusta Bela - medieval fortress

Pusta Bela is the ruin of the medieval fortified town of Bela, located above the Belski Valley through which the road Bela - Podrute passes. You can reach Pusta Bela by following a marked path from the village of Bela (near the fish farm). The fortress is about a 15-minute walk away.

It was built by the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, better known as the ivanovci. They already had extensive estates on Ivanščica with the fortified town of Bela in the 12th century.

Bela is first mentioned in 1275 as their organized center, although the first written records of their presence in this area date back to 1201.
The ivanovci are very significant for the history of Ivanec and the Ivanec region. It is believed that Ivanec was named after the chapel of St. John the Baptist, which the ivanovci built in the area of present-day Ivanec. Ivanec is first mentioned in 1396 in a charter of the ivanovci Ivan Paližna Jr., the prior of Bela.

Pope Innocent VII abolished the order of ivanovci in 1405, so they left Croatia, and Bela passed into secular hands. Over time, Bela changed hands among various owners, including the Croatian-Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus. He gifted Bela, along with the entire Croatian Zagorje, to his illegitimate son and Croatian ban Ivaniš Korvin. Ivaniš Korvin sold the Bela estate to the Hungarian noble family Petheö de Gerse. It is known that Bela suffered a fire in 1481 but was rebuilt and resettled. During the rule of the Petheö de Gerse family, Bela was abandoned, and by 1653, it was mentioned as a ruin. The people named those abandoned ruins Pusta Bela.

By abandoning Bela, the Petheö de Gerse family moved their headquarters to Ivanec.