Posts

When one door closes, another opens. At least, that seems to be the case in Prague 6’s Dejvice district. Just as one establishment in the neighbourhood closed down – the legendary A Maze in Tchaiovna, a quirky meeting point that fused British...

The Letov Š-328, Czechoslovakia’s most common single-engine bomber and observation plane in the interwar period, made its first flight 90 years ago, on July 19, 1933. The Š in the name Š-328 was the initial of the plane’s designer, a man named...

On Saturday, July 22, visitors to the Prague Zoo will be treated to a ceremonial opening of the aviary at the Sečuán pavilion. The newly built exposition will allow the rare birds of the Himalayan foothills to inhabit outdoor spaces as well...

Insect poke bowl, crickets on garlic, or locusts in banana batter – you can come and taste all this weekend at the Prague Zoo. The popular insect festival will offer non-traditional gastronomic experiences, special commented feeding of...

One of the topics on the table during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to Prague last week was the post-war reconstruction of Ukraine, in which hundreds of Czech companies are eager to partake. Tomáš Kopečny, the government’s...

The Czech government recently approved the country’s first new National Security Strategy since 2015. Unsurprising, the plan of action is influenced by Russia’s war on Ukraine. But how? And what else is different? I spoke to Petr Tůma, visiting...

A Czech-based, Russian-owned company is under investigation on suspicion of violating EU sanctions by exporting heavy machinery to Russia, news outlet Deník N reported on Thursday. The case is being described as potentially the country’s...

He announced that the Czech Republic will join in further supporting Ukraine Today, President Petr Pavel participated in the second day of the NATO summit in Vilnius. In addition to the heads of state and government meeting and the first ever...

The constructivist Svět Palace was for many decades the focal point of community life in Prague’s Libeň neighbourhood. Known as Libeň’s answer to the Lucerna Palace, Svět appeared in several works by the famous author Bohumil Hrabal, who was a...

The eyes of the world are on Vilnius where NATO is debating Ukraine’s increasingly pressing demands to be allowed to come under NATO’s protective umbrella and new defense plans for the alliance. Czechia has made it clear that it supports...

The internationally renowned Czech-born writer Milan Kundera has died at the age of 94. He was the best-known contemporary Czech novelist in the world, authoring books such as The Unbearable Lightness of Being, which became famous the world...

The 57th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival comes to a close on Saturday night with the traditional glitzy awards ceremony. But what have been the best films in the main Crystal Globe competition? And what has been the overall standard of...

The big winner at this year’s Karlovy Vary film festival, which culminated on Saturday night, was Blaga’s Lessons, with the Bulgarian film taking the Best Film and Best Actress prizes. Meanwhile, star Robin Wright brought Hollywood glamour to...

50 years ago, the Ještěd Tower, a television transmitter also housing a hotel and restaurant on top of Mount Ještěd near the North Bohemian town of Liberec, opened to the public for the first time. Architect Karel Hubáček and structural...

The great Czech composer Leoš Janáček was a regular visitor of the Moravian spa town of Luhačovice, and composed a number of his works there. However, only one of his musical compositions is actually set in Luhačovice – the opera Osud (Destiny...

Holy Mass for Olga Havelová On the anniversary of Olga Havel’s 90th birthday, on July 11, a Holy Mass open to the public was held in the Týn Church on Old Town Square in Prague. Msgr. Václav Malý, a member of the board of directors of the...

Did you know there’s a hidden garden right in the centre of Prague? The Franciscan gardens are located in between Wenceslas and Jungmann square, providing a tranquil oasis for visitors in the bustling city centre. Authors: Barbora Navrátilová...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Prague on Thursday for talks aimed at drumming up support for his country’s fast track admission to NATO ahead of next week’s summit in Vilnius. He received assurances from the president and...

Andriy Yermak, known as Volodymyr Zelensky’s right-hand man, is the Ukrainian’s president’s chief of staff and liaison officer on key issues. He negotiates with the Russians on prisoners of war or with the Americans on key arms supplies. Andriy...

Some 374 Czechs and 26 Poles were murdered by Nazi soldiers in the village of Český Malín in the Volhynia region of western Ukraine on 13 July, 1943. The reason for the massacre still remains unclear to this day. Even now as the Russian...

Karel Bucháček was a keen amateur photographer who captured everyday life in Prague in the final decades of communism, as well as the dramatic events of the 1968 invasion. A new book called Stifled City aims to bring fresh attention to this...

The main part of the KoresponDance festival will visit Žďár nad Sázavou in just a few days. Most of this year's performances will take place at the local castle, Dolní hřbitov and Zelená hora between July 13 and 16. The introductory part in...

The five-month-old cub of Chinese Pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) – female Šiška – is increasingly active, has almost switched to “solid” food, and weighs close to 1,600 grams. The Prague Zoo thus came close to historic...

Prague 30 June 2023: The Office of the Commissioner General and the House of Lobkowicz hosted a meeting of EXPO 2025 partners and supporters on Monday, June 26, 2023. Despite the steamy weather, two hundred guests arrived, including the...

On Tuesday 4 July 2023, a historic religious meeting took place at the office premises of Humanitas Afrika in Prague. In an extraordinary move, which could be described as the first of its kind in the Czech Republic, Kofi Nkrumah head of...

Žďár nad Sázavou in the Vysočina Region of the Czech Republic recently had the unusual honour of becoming the site of a 20-metre-tall cardboard structure inspired by the works of Czech architect of Italian descent Jan Blažej Santini, whose...

Prague is home to many beautiful gardens, but the Vrtba, located in Prague’s Mala Strana neighbourhood, is one of the most striking. Featuring a bird aviary, colourful flowers, and terraces that overlook the historic old town, it’s surely a...

The Basilica of St. Procopius and the Jewish Quarter in Třebíč attract thousands of visitors every year to the picturesque town located at the foothills of the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. Other than Jerusalem, Třebíč’s Jewish landmarks are the...

Barbora Tellinger is a Czech-born jazz singer, composer and music teacher who spent most of her life in South Africa, only returning to her native Czechia shortly before the covid pandemic broke out. After a successful career in the South...

One of the most valuable medieval monuments at Prague Castle, the glass mosaic of the Last Judgement at Saint Vitus Cathedral, is undergoing a close inspection. Two decades ago, the 650-year-old glass mosaic of the Last Judgement was completely...

The Ukrainian president came to Prague primarily to appreciate the efforts of the Czechs in the support they have provided to his country since the beginning of Russian aggression.

Marine biologist Petra Nevečeřalová, who hails from the north-Bohemian town of Ústí nad Labem, has been obsessed with whales since early childhood. Today, she is part of an international team of scientists who study evolutionary genetics of the...

The 57th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival kicked off in great style at the weekend. The major Hollywood stars Russell Crowe and Ewan McGregor both received awards – and wowed the crowds – at the start of the region’s...

The Karlovy Vary film festival is currently in full swing in the West Bohemian spa town. As every year, the region’s biggest cinema event offers extremely broad fare, from main competition films to fascinating documentaries – and all sorts of...

July 6th is a public holiday in the Czech Republic marking the 608th anniversary of the burning at stake of reformer priest Jan Hus. Masses are celebrated around the country, among others in Jan Hus’ birthplace Husinec and at Bethlehem chapel...

Built at the end of the 1930s, the Skleněný palác or Glass Palace is a late functionalist-style apartment building constructed for Prague’s middle class. With its groundbreaking design and plush amenities, the palace was extraordinary not just...

Making friends in a foreign city can take time. Kevin Loo collects anecdotes from foreigners and Czechs to find out what it’s like to find genuine friendship during life abroad. Making real, genuine friendships is challenging enough in ordinary...

The General Commissioner of Czech participation Ondřej Soška visited on 10-19 June 2023 Japan on a business trip. Together with entrepreneurs, representatives of universities, and the Union of Industry and Transport, he became part of the...

Lucia Legáthová is an economic diplomacy specialist for the City of Prague and also runs the Prague Expat Centre, located in the heart of downtown. I recently sat down with Legáthová to talk about what the Centre does to help newcomers, and the...

This year marks 90 years since the publishing of Karel Čapek’s children’s book Dashenka, which chronicles the life of a fox terrier puppy growing up in the famous writer’s household. To mark the anniversary, the Karel Čapek Memorial at Strž...

July 5th is a public holiday in the Czech Republic honouring the legacy of Saints Cyril and Methodius who came to Great Moravia in 863 to spread the Christian faith and lay the foundations of literacy with the Glagolitic alphabet. Thousands of...

Prague is home to beautiful cycle paths in quieter areas of the city, but when it comes to hopping on two wheels in the heart of the city centre, it can be a safety gamble with aggressive drivers behind the wheel of cars, coupled with narrow...

July 3 marks 50 years since the death of the phenomenal Czech conductor Karel Ančerl. Ančerl was a Holocaust survivor, artistic director of the Czech Philharmonic for 18 years, and later a 1968 emigré to Canada. Karel Ančerl’s career was...

Since the fall of communism, Prague has seen a massive increase in foreigners, and part of this group of expats are Canadians – a close knit community here in Prague who meet a few times a year to share some memories and laughs, and...

Whether you are a shoe junkie or a history buff, this is a place that will stop you in your tracks. The Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto is the largest museum in the world entirely dedicated to the culture, traditions and styles of footwear. Created...

I have collected some photos of butterflies during my walks around the zoo. When I looked at them yesterday, I realized that it is a decent collection and includes some very rare species. Even the experts, who determined the relevant species...

The message of the letters written by former Czech president, Václav Havel, to his South African Republic counterpart, Nelson Mandela

It’s not a big secret that I love Thailand. I have visited this beautiful country several times, and have explored its beauty from Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai in the north to Phuket and the islands in the south. This time, we decided to have a...

In 2016, a cooperation project was launched between the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, Prague, and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of...

Czech singer songwriter Marek Ztracený is currently at the height of his career. Earlier this month, he sold out Prague’s Eden stadium three times in a row, attracting a domestic record of 100,000 spectators. Ztracený was born in a small...

Established in 1945 by members of the Czech and Slovak community, the Masaryk Memorial Institute, a non-profit organization based in Toronto, Canada, provides a space for young and old to celebrate their Czech and Slovak heritage. Czech and...

In your standard guidebook it may be referred to as the “city of a hundred spires”. Its municipal administration is certainly interested in making Prague a destination for high culture and congress events. But, if you know the right people and...

Taste of Prague is an Instagram page, food tour business, and now a bistro run by husband and wife duo Jan Valenta and Zuzana Valenta Daňková. I spoke with Jan to talk about how the business has grown over the years, and how Prague’s food scene...

At 111 metres, Brno’s AZ Tower remains Czechia’s highest building a decade after it officially opened in June 2013. The idea of outdoing the hitherto tallest building in the country, the City Tower in Prague, came from Brno’s leaders; the AZ...

Pornography, sex shops and prostitution were all taboo in communist Czechoslovakia. And there was no sex education of any kind, neither in schools nor in teen magazines. So how did Czechs live without all that? With no official sources, young...

As the turbulent events of the past weekend unfolded in Russia, world leaders braced for potential civil war that could turn the tide of history within the space of hours. The Czech foreign ministry warned Czech nationals against travelling to...

The presidential couple started the first day with a visit to Cimburkova elementary school: They proceeded to a memorial service to honor the memory of the victims of communism: Full speech can be found here ( in Czech ). After the lunch of the...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Czechia has deployed a mobile ICU bus to be used across Ukraine to provide medical aid to those in need. I spoke to Petr Gandalovič, Director of the Department of Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid...

Czechs are marking 73 years since the death of Milada Horáková, a democratic opposition leader who was sentenced and executed in a communist show trial on June 27, 1950. A host of events is taking place around the country in honour of the brave...

Lucerna Cinema, built in 1909 by the grandfather of the late Czech president Václav Havel, is one of the oldest cinemas in Europe. While they screen both Czech and international films, their monthly series Made in Czechoslovakia spotlights a...

Czech tennis star Petra Kvitová will be bringing home yet another trophy after Sunday’s German Open final in Berlin. The current top-ranked Czech tennis player in the world cemented her position by beating the Croatian Donna Vekic without...

It is well-known that jeans – a symbol of the West – were a highly sought-after commodity in the final decades of communism in Czechoslovakia. How did people manage to obtain them? And what imported brands were even available? I visited a new...

Czechia has slipped down the World Economic Forum’s rankings for gender equality. The country is currently ranked 101st out of 146 countries, 25 places lower than it was last year. I discussed the situation with Johana Jonáková, head of...

Homelessness is a significant problem for both men and women in Prague, but women have specific issues and vulnerabilities they face on the streets. Olga Pek, an employee of the NGO Jako Doma, is working to raise awareness around these issues...

Over 150 Czech economic diplomats based the world over met in Prague this week for consultations on how to further the country’s economic interests. Addressing the gathering, Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský stressed the need to transform the...

Czech electronic music artist dné released his debut LP several years ago, picking up multiple domestic awards and millions of streaming plays. Now dné, known to his friends as Ondřej Holý, is back with a long-awaited follow-up, Basic Living...

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, led a delegation on an official visit to the State of Israel. In the Knesset, she negotiated with her Israeli counterpart, Amir Ochana...

The first foal was born in the paddock of Převalský’s horses at the Maiden’s Castle in Prague. It is also the first addition of this species to the Prague Zoo this year. The mother is the five-year-old mare Khamiina, the father is...

Forest dog puppies were born at the Prague Zoo. Visitors can now observe the pair of cubs in the outdoor enclosure. These South American beasts managed to breed here after five years. This is the first litter of a newly assembled pair of these...

A new female Cape grebe has arrived at the Prague Zoo. Almost six-year-old Sabi forms a breeding pair with fourteen-year-old male Draco. Visitors can now observe the new couple in the African House. “Breeding Cape grebes in human care is...

Prague’s Vyšehrad Railway Bridge, built in 1901 and granted national monument status in 2004, has long been in need of repair. But the dispute over how those repairs should be carried out have intensified since an architectural competition to...

An international conference on Ukraine organised by Czech Radio on the occasion of its 100th anniversary took place in Prague on Thursday. The event, focusing on the role of public media in covering the events in Ukraine was attended by, among...

If you’ve heard the roars of a crowd at Prague’s Viktoria Zizkov stadium, there’s a chance it’s been fans of the Prague Lions, the American football team who recently qualified for the European League of Football (ELF) this season. This past...

According to the Czech police, there has been a sharp increase in the number of young people taking steroids over the last few years. Experts say that social media and the pressure to achieve the “perfect body” play a significant role. Police...

This Tuesday, June 20, marks World Refugee Day, held to honour people around the world who have been forced to flee their homes in the face of conflict and persecution. In connection with the annual day, the Czech office of the UN Refugee...

Pavlína Adam, a biologist and adventurer, recently became the first Czech woman to complete the Great Himalaya Trail, one of the world’s most difficult treks, stretching 1,700 kilometres across the Himalayas, with an approximately 240,000...

Saturday marks Petr Pavel’s first 100 days as president of Czechia. What have been his biggest successes – and his biggest failures? I spoke to political scientist Jiří Pehe about how he would rate how the fledgling president is doing so far...

Ludwig Löwi Moser supplied the courts of emperors and monarchs such as Franz Joseph I, the Persian Shah and the British King Edward VII with his elegant creations. The founder of the global brand Moser was not only a skilled craftsman, but also...

Špejchar 1969–1991 I–II is the title of a compilation by the great Czech singer and guitar player Vladimír Mišík. The double album, which has now been rereleased by the label Supraphon, contains many of the popular artist’s best-loved songs...

The organisers of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival have just revealed that actress Robin Wright will appear this year. She joins other star names, including Russell Crowe, whose band will perform for the public on the opening night...

On Wednesday the sixth edition of the Metronome festival will kick off in Prague, ushering in four days of international musical programming and cultural events. I spoke with David Gaydečka, the founder of the festival, about the development of...

Although perhaps not as well-known as the nearby Lucerna, the Koruna Palace is an architectural masterpiece. With its unique blend of function and style, the palace has been an important Prague feature for over a century. The Koruna, or...

In the latest in a series of moves by the city to rid itself of reminders of its decades of Soviet occupation and oppression, Prague City Hall voted on Monday to rename Koněvova Street, which is called after the controversial Soviet military...

Czechoslovakia decriminalised homosexuality in 1961, earlier than many Western European countries. Why was it that the generally repressive Communist regime showed such tolerance? And what was like life for gay people under communism? The...

Father’s Day is this Sunday, but are Czech dads actively involved in the day to day domestic duties of running a family amongst heterosexual couples, or are mothers still bearing the brunt of the workload? I asked Dr. Jana Klímová Chaloupková...

On Tuesday evening at the Platforma 15 gallery in Prague, Czech artist Renata Machýčková will debut her first show in 10 years in her native country. The exhibition titled “Blades on Heels” showcases her paintings as well as paper carvings that...

Dinner in the Sky is a food concept taking place across the world highlighting the best chefs and faces in contemporary gastronomy. Since 2017 the event has also been held in Prague, presenting Czech chefs who serve guests – at an altitude of...

František Bělský is largely unknown in his native country. However, the Czech, who was born in 1921, achieved great success in his adopted UK, becoming the only sculptor ever to create busts of four generations of the royal family. Bělský’s...

In Darwin Crater we have recently introduced Winkleigh, the wombat female, to the public. Now we are expecting the arrival of the breeding group of Tasmanian devils. And between these two major events, one more has been squeezed in: We now have...

Lenka Lichtenberg is a Prague-born singer and composer living in Toronto. She has recently won the Juno Award, Canada’s highest music prize, for Thieves of Dreams, an album based on poetry written by her grandmother in Terezín during the...

In the 1950s, during the darkest phase of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia, Czech sexologists started to research the female orgasm, outpacing most of their colleagues abroad. What triggered their interest in the topic and what exactly...

Two pilgrims from the United States and Canada have just covered over 700 kilometres across Moravia on foot. They were tracing the footsteps of their distant ancestors from the Hutterite community, who were driven out of Europe in the 18th...

The Open Gardens festival will be taking place across Prague this weekend, with different gardens scheduling unique programming. The festival is the perfect opportunity to learn about the unique art and architecture featured in gardens...

Jakub Cigler is perhaps THE architect of post-1989 Prague. His Jakub Cigler Architekti are behind the ongoing remodeling of Wenceslas Square and have also designed such buildings as Quadrio, Florentinum and The Park in Chodov.

Hundreds of villages in the European military theatre of World War II became the target of Nazi massacres, where entire populations of inhabitants were systematically murdered and the villages razed to the ground. But perhaps none became more...