The Upper Bakomi Adit was originally called St Pachomius Adit.
It carried water from the 2,750-metre Upper Dekýš Ditch from the Vindšachta side of Štiavnické Bane to the Richňava side. On leaving the adit, this water joined water from the Upper Piarg Ditch and was channelled into tajch Veľká Richňava, a tajch (a historic mining reservoir). The Upper Adit is 344 m long.
The Lower Water Adit (the so-called New Richňava Adit) was driven in 1751 from the bottom of tajch Malá Richňava and ended above tajch Bakomi. It was 628 m long. It carried water from the Richňava tajchs to tajch Bakomi, drove the pumping equipment at the Siglisberg Shaft and served several other shafts as needed. Between the Upper and Lower Bakomi Adits, an 18-metre shaft was built, and you can still pass through it today.
At the end of the Second World War, in 1945, the adit earned the epithet ‘Partisan’. During the fiercest fighting for the liberation of Banská Štiavnica, partisans from the Sokol group spent some time in the Lower Adit, from where they carried out reconnaissance behind the German defensive fortifications. On 4 March 1945 they passed the information they had gathered on the enemy’s strength and the layout of its defences to the advancing Soviet Army in the Dekýš-Vysoká area.
The next day, partisans Jozef Beňo and Jozef Zamboj of the Sokol group led a Soviet patrol through the Upper Bakomi Adit, beneath the enemy’s defensive line and into the German rear. The surprise attack by about 350 Soviet soldiers caused panic in the enemy ranks and hastened the liberation of the area south-west of Banská Štiavnica.
