Posts

The last years of Kafka’s life were associated with severe illness and numerous stays in sanatoriums. On this account, Kafka has often been described as sickly. However, as long as his health allowed, he exercised regularly, washed with...

The great Czech architect Eva Jiřičná has been living in the UK for many decades. But the biggest project in the 85-year-old’s career, a 1,000-apartment development, is set to go up in Prague. I spoke to Jiřičná on Monday at a presentation of...

Czechs contributed to the foundation of the International Olympic Committee and to the creation of Olympism as we know it today. One of the co-authors of the Olympic Charter was Czech Jiří Stanislav Guth-Jarkovský. The origins of Olympism in...

Disappointed fans, crying children, angry parents: some of the scenes that could be witnessed at the turnstiles to hockey arenas in Prague and Ostrava when excited ticket holders realised the passes they had bought to the 2024 IIHF World...

The 2024 Ice Hockey World Championships are well underway in the Czech cities of Prague and Ostrava. The tournament, which brings together teams representing 16 nations, is held annually in alternating host cities. As the group stage of the...

The making of glass and jewellery by hand, a tradition which has survived for hundreds of years in the Liberec Region, draws thousands of tourists to the area each year. Radio Prague paid a visit to the oldest still-functioning glassworks in...

Translations of short stories by the Prague German-language writer come out this week. Entitled Selected Stories, the collection is the work of Mark Harman, an Irish-born, US-resident academic who has been described as “the finest living Kafka...

Final preparations are underway for the 23rd edition of the Prague Fringe, which starts on Monday. Alongside an array of artists from around the globe, this year’s edition will also include a local company performing a play “by” fictional Czech...

Every year, Czechs consume millions of chickens, leaving behind tons of feathers as a by-product. The feathers typically end up in incinerators or on landfills. Czech scientists have now come up with a way of repurposing this by-product –...

The Botanical Garden in Liberec has been celebrating World Bee Day, which falls on May 20, with an interactive tour of its hives. Source: ČTK

A fresh Russian offensive targeted at Kharkiv puts Ukraine’s efforts to defend itself against Putin’s aggression under renewed focus. It may also increase the importance of a Czech initiative to provide large amounts of artillery ammunition to...

Two polar bears from the Warsaw Zoo arrived at the Prague Zoo. Thirteen-year-old twins Gregor and Aleut came to Prague based on the recommendation of the European breeding coordinator of this species. Her decision follows the March departure of...

Czech firms have increasingly been looking across the ocean at opportunities to expand to North American markets, specifically in fields such as IT. But what specific skills can Czech born businesses offer these already competitive...

The third part of our video series on Czech Music Greats is devoted to the Fantastic Scherzo by Art Nouveau composer Josef Suk, pupil and son-in law of Antonín Dvořák, and the country’s only Art Nouveau Composer. The piece received its premiere...

The spa season has officially kicked off around Czecia with traditional ceremonies at the country’s  many healing springs. Pictured here are girls in traditional costumes at a healing spring in Luhačovice. Source: ČTK

One of the greatest Czech composers, Bedřich Smetana, known as “the father of Czech music,” died on this day, 140 years ago. Bedřich Smetana (March 2, 1824– May 12, 1884) is one of the most influential figures in Czech music...

What really happens to your plastic after you’ve carefully sorted it and put it in your local recycling container (in Czechia, those iconic yellow bins)? According to many recent media reports, rather than being recycled, it likely ends up in...

Ferdinand Porsche was a Liberec-born genius engineer, who designed the first-ever hybrid car. He also contributed to the development of Volkswagen Beetle, which remained in production for 65 years. Ferdinand Porsche was born on September 3...

Perhaps you’ve seen one in the Charles University Faculty of Law building – the old wooden ‘infinity’ elevator known as a paternoster. The vintage ride has become quite a tourist attraction, especially the one at Prague’s City Hall. But the...

Open House Prague, the week-long festival where many buildings throughout the city normally closed to the public open their doors, kicks off this week. Until May 19th, visitors will be able to explore famous sites across the city, and learn...

Visitors will be able to view more than two hundred works, not only graphics, but also drawings, paintings, and artistic crafts. The exhibition “From Michelangelo to Callot. The Graphic Art of Mannerism”, on which the NGP...

Professor Josef Michl, a world-renowned Czech chemist, died on Monday at the age of 85. Professor Michl, who excelled both in theoretical and experimental chemistry, led research groups at Prague’s Institute of Organic Chemistry and...

If you’ve taken the metro to Prague’s Anděl station, you may have noticed a bronze sculpture that reads ‘Moskva-Praha’. Constructed in 1985, it was meant to symbolize friendship between Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. After the fall of the...

In the previous episode of ‘In Kafka’s Footsteps’, we visited the town of Frýdlant, believed to have inspired Kafka’s novel ‘The Castle’. But there is another contender vying for the same accolade: the village of Siřem, a tiny hamlet in...

The National Czech and Slovak Museum and Library in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is marking the 50th anniversary of its founding this year. Rawdio Prague was at the launch of the official celebrations, which kicked off earlier this month in the Midwest...

Singer and songwriter Petr Hapka, one of the most significant composers of Czech film music scores, would have turned 80 this week. He died at the age of just 70 in 2014, leaving an unforgettable music legacy behind. The popular Czech composer...

Jane Goodall, the famous English primatologist and anthropologist who has spent decades studying chimpanzees, is paying a special visit to the Prague Zoo this weekend. Goodall will be naming one of the Zoo’s new baby gorillas, a special event...

From Monday 27th May – Friday 1st June audiences can enjoy over 140 performances of 36 productions from 15 different countries around the world! The traditional (and not so traditional) theatres and performance spaces of Prague’s Malá Strana...

The fountain has been out of service since it was damaged in the fall of 2022 and restoration work began. Visitors to the Royal Gardens of Prague Castle can listen to it again from tomorrow, always from ten in the morning to seven in the...

There is no doubt that one of the pivotal moments in Czech history I just mentioned came twenty years ago when this country joined the European Union. In the last episode, I talked to a businessman with experience from the highest echelons of...

According to the book of Genesis, Noah’s Ark was 300 feet long and 50 feet wide. Converted to current units, it measured roughly 135 to 22 metres. Squeezing a pair or even seven pairs of all animal species on to it must had been a completely...

A brown bear weighing as much as 200 kilogrammes has been spotted on the outskirts of the Moravian city of Zlín. The authorities say the animal could be passing through the area but have warned locals to exercise caution. The brown bear...

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, started her working trip around the Baltics with a visit to Lithuania. There, she discussed joint security issues with Parliament Speaker Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, Prime...

Another baby! Third time this year I announced a birth of an ape. After two lowland gorillas a Sumatran orangutan baby was born on May 2, after the noon hour! And on top of that, it is a grandchild of the famous and genetically valuable Káma...

On the occasion of the 65th Anniversary of the establishment of Moroccan-Czech Diplomatic Relations, The Ambassador of the Kingdom of Morocco in Prague Kingdom of Morocco H.E. Ms. Hanane SAADI in collaboration with The Music and Dance Faculty...

This year, the Prague Zoo will transport Převalsky’s first horses to Kazakhstan as part of the Return of Wild Horses 2024 project. A total of three stallions and five mares will be flown on June 3 by CASA military aircraft from Prague and...

One of the final two Czechoslovak RAF veterans still alive today celebrated his 100th birthday on Thursday. Jiří Pavel Kafka, also one of the “Winton children”, marked his centenary in the hangar of Prague’s Kbely military airport in the...

UN Tourism has launched the second edition of its Women in Tech Startup Competition: Middle East. The initiative aims to highlight and support women entrepreneurs who are shaping the future of sustainable tourism and technology across the...

Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová received Speaker of the Slovenian National Assembly Urška Klakočar Zupančič. The main topic of the joint meeting was the current issue of the expansion of the European Union to include...

Karel Raab trained as a locksmith in view of taking over the family firm, but his yearning to create art was stronger. He started out by creating small pieces for his garden in his spare time. They soon got noticed and enabled him to turn his...

The 79th edition of the Prague Spring International Music Festival, the largest and oldest classical musical festival in Czechia, gets underway in the Czech capital next Sunday with a performance of Bedřich Smetana’s My Country by the Berliner...

The traditional Freedom Celebrations in Plzeň, marking the liberation of the city by US troops at the end of World War II, kicked off on Friday. Source: ČTK

Are you a hockey fan in Ostrava for the World Championship and are wondering what to do in the evening before or after your team’s game? We have some advice for you. Stodolní Street –a place to party! A visit to Ostrava’s Stodolní...

The Prague metro is celebrating 50 years of service this week with a number of special events for the public. People can visit an exhibition on the history of the metro, ride on the historic first trains that opened the Prague subway or play a...

Thursday marks exactly 50 years since the opening of the first section of the Prague metro, running between Kačerov and Florenc on the C line. Today there are 61 stations and three lines. But did you know that there is also a secret metro...

The second funeral of poet Karel Hynek Mácha, whose remains were exhumed from the occupied Sudetenland 85 years ago and taken to Prague for a second ceremonial burial, ended up turning into one of the biggest anti-Nazi protests in the early...

Among the books nominated for the prestigious Magnesia Litera Award this year was a graphic novel called Arnoštova cesta, describing the life story of the great Czech Jewish writer Arnošt Lustig. I met with his daughter Eva, a writer and...

The Czech Constitutional Court has ruled to abolish forced sterilization for individuals who want to make an official sex change. Czechia is one of the last few EU countries enforcing the sterilization requirement. The change, which will...

Frýdlant, a town of about 7,400 inhabitants in Czechia’s Liberec Region, certainly has a Kafkaesque feeling about it. You arrive there only to find that the people you arranged to interview suddenly don’t have time to meet you, saying they are...

The National Gallery at Prague’s Kinsky Palace has been converted into a hockey fans paradise for a new exhibition titled “Get on the ice! Ice Hockey and Skating in Art”. The exhibit showcases skating and hockey in Czech fine art throughout the...

The 2024 Ice Hockey World Championships are set to begin this Friday in host cities Prague and Ostrava. The tournament, which brings together 16 teams, will take place over the course of two weeks. But how is the Czech team expected to perform...

We have already three “Przhevalsky’s” in the new Gobi Exhibit – three animal species, which were named after Russian geographer Nikolay Mikhaylovich Przhevalsky (1839- 1888). Besides Przewalski’s horse it is Gobi racerunner (Eremias...

The eight-strong gorilla troop at the Dja Reserve visited the outdoor enclosure for the first time with the two cubs this week. Giraffes, zebras and antelopes graze in the open air in the large African enclosure, hippos alternately sunbathe and...

The Škoda 440, known in Czechoslovakia as the Škoda Spartak, was first seen by the public in a May Day parade in company town Mladá Boleslav in 1954. The period socialist press ran articles telling the public that the car market would improve...

After a period of stagnation, prices of apartments and houses in Czechia are again on the rise, according to players on the property market. But what is driving this development? And what other trends can be observed? According to a study by...

The first ever National Development Day was held at the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday. The event highlighted the country’s active cooperation with developing countries around the world – including in the human rights field. The...

Join us on a trip to the Liberec Region. Our drone video will show you the region’s hilly landscape with its many castles and the iconic TV transmitter on Ještěd. See the rest here. Author: Vít Pohanka

Since 2008, the organization ComingOut has been working to protect the rights of LGBTQ+ folks in Russia, as a response to the many dangers and difficulties this community faces on a daily basis. Georgii Kalakutskii, a member of the queer...

Chamber music is a vital part of Czech musical traditions, and on this episode of the Faces of Czech Music, we sat down with four talented and bright young musicians who are adding their take on this classical genre. Together, Eliška Kukalová...

Czech-made video game Kingdom Come: Deliverance achieved massive success at home and abroad when it was released in 2018. Warhorse Studios, the games developers are gearing up for the highly anticipated sequel to be released. Tobias Stolz...

The Franz Kafka Museum in Prague gives visitors an insight into the inner world of Franz Kafka, one of the most important writers of the 20th century. The exhibition portrays Kafka’s life and work, his fascination with Prague and how its...

The 2024 Ice Hockey World Championships are set to commence on May 10th in Prague and Ostrava. The tournament, which includes 16 teams, attracts fans from all over the world to the hosting country. So how many hockey fans are expected to...

Twenty years ago, Czechia officially became a member country of the European Union. Few people doubt that it was a truly historic moment. The simultaneous accession of ten mostly post-communist countries on May 1st, 2004, was the largest in...

A Sumatran orangutan was born at the Prague Zoo shortly after noon Thursday 2.5.2024. This is the first cub of the 11-year-old female Diri, who was also born in the Prague Zoo. The father is a 22-year-old male from Paga. According to the first...

Zoologists from the Dvůr Králové Safari Park have started researching elephants in the Mkomazi National Park in Tanzania. One of the zoo’s main missions is protecting endangered and threatened wildlife species directly in their natural...

The world-famous Czech composer Antonín Dvořák died 120 years ago in Prague on May 1, 1904, at the age of 62. The 120th anniversary of his death is naturally being commemorated with a host of concerts, but also by us here at Radio Prague...

We’ll hear from two extraordinary Czech women who’ve woven their lives into the fabric of this the vibrant city of London. First up, we’ll meet Lucie Wenigerová, a dynamic film producer who, along with her Northern Irish...

A two-meter-wide stained glass window with the Eye of God, which was most likely hidden by a priest during the communist regime so as to safeguard it, has been discovered and restored to the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in...

May 1 is the Czech equivalent of Valentine’s Day, when couples  kiss under blossoming cherry trees to seal their relationship. Now, however, the custom may be threatened by climate change, which causes trees to bloom much earlier than before...

A competition for draft horses in difficult terrain took place in Brdy, Central Bohemia, at the weekend. The competition trail led through the Jince military training ground, which exceptionally opened to the public on the occasion of the race...

Last year Mason Parker and a group of other US investors bought American football club Prague Lions, the sole Czech team in the burgeoning European League of Football. Why does Parker feel this is the right time to back the sport in Europe? And...

An extraordinary spectacle – two baby lowland gorillas – awaits visitors at the Prague Zoo. The Kijiva female has been lending her offspring to her half-sister Shinda less than two weeks after giving birth. On the other hand, Duni...

Czechia is one of the last countries in Europe to still require transgender people to undergo medical sterilisation in order to legally change their gender – meaning that officially changing your sex is not possible without undergoing surgery...

The South Bohemian Region boasts ancient towns full of life, fairy-tale castles and palaces, unique picturesque villages and literally thousands of fish ponds. See the rest here.

Bedřich Smetana has been in the spotlight recently in connection with the 200th anniversary of the Czech composer’s birth. Smetana is also the subject of a new novel, Friedrich řečený Bedřich (Friedrich, Known as Bedřich), by Milena Štráfeldová...

While the streets of Prague 1 may be breath-taking by day, they turn ugly by night for the city’s residents who are severely plagued by noisy drunk tourists wanting to make the most of their time in Prague. The locals, many of whom have lived...

A new study by the Prague Institute of Planning and Development (IPR Prague) comparing the Czech capital with 11 other European cities has found that there is still a gap between East and West in many respects. The analysis looked at areas of...

Hundreds of people attended the 25th edition of a gathering of vintage car enthusiasts in the Central Bohemian city of Poděbrady at the weekend. One model on display came all the way from Italy. Author: Hana Slavická

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová, together with the President of the Senate Miloš Vystrčil, participated in the two-day international Conference of Speakers of the Parliaments of the European Union in Spain. One...

The phenomenon of hockey and ice skating in fine art is the subject of a new exhibition of the National Gallery Prague (NGP), which reopens the Kinské Palace on Old Town Square to visitors. The exhibition will present almost a hundred works...

With just over three months to go to the Summer Olympics in Paris, work on the Czech Olympics House is in full swing. Where will it be and what can visitors expect? The popular La Villette park on the north-eastern suburbs of Paris is set to...

The Committee of Good Will – The Olga Havlová Foundation will award the Olga Havlová Award for the thirtieth time this year and the Public Award for the eighth time. The award goes to personalities who, despite their health handicap, help...

Music must be beautiful,” wrote Bohuslav Martinů, “or it wouldn’t be worth the effort.” One of the most prolific 20th century Czech composers wrote around 400 works, drawing inspiration from different styles and genres. His long-lost...

Nicholas Lowry leads viewers through IDENTITA: A Film About Czech Graphic Design, which is set for release later this year. The New York auctioneer, art expert and TV personality seems the ideal man for the job, given his vast knowledge of the...

Art expert Nicholas Lowry has Czech heritage and lived in Prague in the early 1990s. He will soon be seen as the presenter of a documentary on classic Czech graphic design. Author: Ian Willoughby See the rest here.

Roma representatives, top officials and cultural figures attended the opening of a memorial to Romany and Sinti victims of the Holocaust in Lety, south Bohemia on Tuesday. Due to communist neglect, the site of a former concentration camp...

A new monument honouring the courage of those who fought in the May 1945 Prague Uprising has been selected in a public competition and will be erected in the Bubeneč district. It will replace a statue of the Soviet Army commander Ivan Konev...

In today’s episode of our series In Franz Kafka’s Footsteps we are back in Prague to visit places where the famous writer lived, worked and wrote, and also where he spent his free time. This is how Franz Kafka described Prague to his...

While the worst of the winter months are behind us, the need for the services that aid people experiencing homelessness in Prague have not diminished. Homelessness continues to be a significant problem across Czechia’s capital, as Jitka...

After nearly a week of temperatures in the mid-20s Celsius, Czechs are having to put their winter coats back on as the weather dips below freezing. But the sudden change doesn’t only impact our clothing choice – it has an even more detrimental...

The first details about this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival have just been revealed. The 58th edition of the region’s biggest cinema event will feature a special section dedicated to Franz Kafka, while its visual identity will...

We’re diving into the enduring relationship between Czechs and this vibrant city, exploring moments that have left an indelible mark on our nation’s story. Today, we’re focusing on a truly remarkable chapter from World War II...

The innovation of film with sound first made it to Czechoslovakia 95 years ago. The first sound film to be screened in the country was not a feature film, however, but an advert for a factory in Ustí nad Labem. It had its premiere in the same...

Ever wondered what happens to your Christmas tree after the festive season is over? Well, in the case of one particular Christmas tree at least, it won’t end up on a scrapheap or in an incinerator. Apprentice carpenters from one of the...

How would cities look if we designed them with children in mind? That’s the topic of an event hosted by Prague’s Centre for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning (CAMP) taking place on Wednesday evening. The lecture, titled “Start with...

On Wednesday, April 17, 2024, the General Commissioner of the Czech participation in the World Expo, Ondřej Soška, signed a contract with the general contractor for the construction of the Czech national pavilion, the Japanese construction...

The Embassy of the Republic of Rwanda in the Czech Republic organized on 18th April 2024 a ceremony at the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic with the theme: Remember-Unite-Renew The commemoration period, commonly...