AuthorMartin Hladík

November 25, 2023 – Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová and President of the Senate Miloš Vystrčil visited Ukraine. Together with high-ranking representatives of other European parliaments, at the invitation of the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, they took part in a solemn meeting commemorating the anniversary of the Ukrainian famine. Last year, the Chamber of Deputies already adopted a resolution commemorating the genocide committed by the Stalinist regime against the Ukrainian population. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi also received the participants of the meeting in Kyiv.

Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová and President of the Senate Miloš Vystrčil visited Kyiv today at the head of a parliamentary delegation. They attended a commemorative meeting on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the famine in Ukraine at the invitation of the Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, Ruslan Stefanchuk.

“What happened here in 1932 and 1933 was nothing more than an attempt to eliminate the Ukrainian nation. It was not the first or last time in history that the Russians tried to achieve this cynical goal. I am proud that both chambers of the Czech Parliament clearly and openly called the Holodomor what it really was – an act of genocide of the Ukrainian nation,” said the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, in her contribution to the Ukrainian legislature.

The Chamber of Deputies, which together with its chairwoman was represented in Kyiv by the Chairman of the Security Committee Pavel Žáček, already adopted a resolution in April last year to commemorate the genocide of the Ukrainian nation during the famine organized by the Stalinist regime. An artificially created famine took place in the early 1930s in parallel with an intensive Russification campaign and repression of Ukrainian elites. According to the data of the Ukrainian Famine Museum, there were up to seven million people in the territory of the then Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and another three million Ukrainians living in other regions of the Soviet Union.

“The war that is still going on is another attempt to liquidate the Ukrainian nation. However, it is also an attempt to break the spirit of the entire democratic community. All of us present here and the nations we represent have a moral obligation to do our utmost for our victory. The alternative is the victory of dictatorship, destruction, and hatred. In this context, I would like to express my admiration for the brave Ukrainian people. It is they who bear the heaviest part of the burden of responsibility for the future of a free Europe, and we must not stop supporting them in every possible way in their efforts,” added the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

The participants of the day-long commemorative meeting, which included, among others, legislators from Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Poland, and Estonia, were also received by the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi. “Mr. President and Chairman Stefančuk repeatedly expressed their thanks for all the Czech-Ukrainian cooperation to date, as well as for the recently successfully organized parliamentary summit of the International Crimean Platform in Prague,” concluded Chairman Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

On November 28, 2023 – The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, spoke at the influential Berlin international conference on foreign policy, the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum. In her contribution, she focused on the current changes and challenges of the world order and appealed for the continuation of coordinated support for Ukraine’s defense against Russian aggression. She ended her working trip around Germany with a meeting with federal legislators.

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, spoke in a panel debate as part of the professional international conference Berlin Foreign Policy Forum. The debate focused on urgent foreign-political issues related to current changes in the international order.

“Steps that we previously considered impossible in our conditions were accomplished within a few months. We managed to significantly reduce our dependence on Russian raw materials. We also began providing Ukraine with sophisticated weapons systems and an unprecedented amount of financial aid. No less important is that the EU has decided to grant Ukraine and Moldova the status of a candidate country and that the accession process in the Western Balkans has been accelerated after long years of stagnation,” said the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, in her contribution.

Since its establishment in 2011, the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum has become one of the most influential platforms in the field of foreign policy. Every year, it brings high-ranking politicians, government representatives, diplomats, academics, and journalists to the German capital to discuss foreign policy challenges for Europe.

“However, after the initial success, we seem to be running out of steam. I fear that we have become somewhat complacent and have begun to believe that the conflict in Ukraine is manageable and no longer poses an existential threat. As a result, we are not supplying as many weapons and ammunition as the resisting Ukrainians need,” said the speaker of the House of Representatives, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, and added: “I returned from Kyiv a few days ago. The situation is really serious there. We witnessed the most massive drone attack since the beginning of last year’s aggression. Ukrainians urgently need our support – political, financial, and military. This is where Germany, the Czech Republic, and other like-minded countries in the region should coordinate and set an example for everyone else.”

At the end of her two-day working trip to Germany, the speaker of the House of Representatives also met with a group of legislators from the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Photo: René Volfík, iROZHLAS.cz

Czech President Petr Pavel is among the 28 most influential people who will co-determine the character of Europe in 2024, according to the Brussels-based website Politico, which describes him as a hawk on Russia and China, a supporter of Ukraine and promoter of NATO enlargement. Others in the top 28 are French President Emmanuel Macron, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. I asked political scientist Vladimíra Dvořáková how she perceives the Czech president’s listing.

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Photo: Urbanstructure.xyz

When one thinks of art, the first place the brain goes is not typically finance, specifically NFTs, or blockchains. But a new exhibit called Urban Structures, featuring the work of Czech artist Vratislav Pecka, also known as PosterLad, is merging the two. Twenty-five posters, all featuring famous Czech architectural landmarks, will become a unique NFT, where the buyer also becomes part-owner of the art, and generates income from each additional sale of the actual poster. I spoke to two of PosterLad’s collaborators, Jan Svoboda and Martin Ježek, ahead of Wednesday’s opening.

[Jan] “He’s inspired by the Bauhaus style, and works a lot with shapes, and also Warhol Style pop art, these two things together really shape his work. PosterLad is actually my friend from childhood, we met ten or 15 years ago and recently we discussed making some NFT’s. We thought about architecture, because I am originally an architect. PosterLad was previously based in the Netherlands, and he wanted to come back to Prague. So we decided we would combine Bauhaus style, pop-art, and Czech architecture; these are the basics of the exhibition.”

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Author:Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Prague’s Motol hospital, the largest healthcare facility in the country, is working on introducing a voicebot to assists patients with their phone inquiries and even manage their medical schedules. The voicebot, which will speak in 60 languages, should help take the pressure off overburdened medical staff.

Whether we like it or not, Artificial Intelligence will increasingly become part of our lives. One area where it might be useful is the chronically understaffed medical sector.

Patients calling Prague’s Motol University Hospital to ask about their planned surgery or reschedule their appointment may soon be confronted with an artificial voice.

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Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Karolína Burdová

A region that got rich on coal and steel and nowadays attracts visitors to its industrial monuments and mountains. It is also the birthplace of Sigmund Freud and Leoš Janáček.

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Author: Vít Pohanka

Photo: Czech Television

He started his career working for the Czech News Agency, or ČTK, as we Czechs call it, first as a regional correspondent in Central Bohemia, later in the central newsroom. In the early 1990s, after the Velvet Revolution that saw the fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia, Ivan was selected as a correspondent in London.

Here, he continued his journalistic endeavors, bringing insightful reporting to Czech audiences through his work with Czech Public Television in London. His reports from this vibrant city offered a unique perspective to his audience back home, bridging cultures and communities.

In the latter part of his career, Ivan Kytka joined the Czech Section of the BBC World Service, a prestigious platform where, I am proud to say, I was his colleague for a few years. In 2006, however, the BBC World Service made a significant shift in its broadcasting strategy, which included the closure of several language services, including the Czech Section.

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Author: Vít Pohanka

Photo: Bronislava Janečková, Czech Radio

The Queen’s Court and Green Mountain Manuscripts, discovered in the early 19th century, were considered seminal texts during the Czech National Revival. Thought to provide evidence of the earliest medieval writing in the Czech language, they were regarded as founding texts for the nation and acquired an almost sacred status. It was only 70 years later that they were shown to be fakes – although the people generally regarded to have been the forgers never confessed to writing them.

Recently I spoke to David L. Cooper, Associate Professor of Slavic Languages & Literatures at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the author of a new book, The Czech Manuscripts: Forgery, Translation, and National Myth, which explores the controversy surrounding the manuscripts from a fresh perspective.

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Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Vít Šimánek, ČTK

A green jacket worn by Václav Havel during key moments of the Velvet Revolution sold at auction in Prague at the weekend for CZK 2.76 million. The starting price for the garment, which for instance he had on during a mass demonstration at Letná Plain on November 25, 1989, was CZK 200,000.

Source:ČTK

Photo: Warhorse

With over five million copies sold worldwide, Kingdom Come: Deliverance has a fan base literally all over the globe. Many of its fans come to Czechia to seek out landmarks they know from the game. For Warhorse, the most important thing is the accurate depiction of historical events, places, and clothing as well as the knightly battles. “I think the most important thing in our game is the freedom we offer our players,” says Martin Klíma, executive producer of Warhorse Studio.

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Author: Barbora Navrátilová

Photo: Roman Lunin, People in Need

A recent survey by the Kantar.cz agency indicates that Czechs’ support for Ukraine in the war with Russia is slowly waning. According to the results, 51 percent of Czechs are no longer in favour of continued military support for the country, up from 36 percent just over a year and a half ago. To learn more about what’s behind the dwindling support , I spoke with Petr Drbohlav, director for Eastern Partnerships at the charity NGO People in Need.

“People in Need launched an appeal in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine back in 2022, and there was an enormous, unprecedented response from Czech society. We were able to fundraise more than 90 million Euros since then, and there were some points when there was increased societal interest in the conflict, around autumn and winter 2022, when the large scale attacks on Ukraine were happening.

“Another example of increased interest was when the Kakhovka dam breach happened earlier this year. But now we can see that the interest in the appeal has disappeared. It’s not all because of war fatigue, although I am sure that’s a part of it, but it’s also other events happening elsewhere – be it the Azerbaijan takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh, or the Hamas-Israel conflict.”

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Photo: Czech Television

Petr Čech, the 41 year old former goalkeeper for Chelsea and Arsenal, had his debut Sunday night with the ice hockey club the Belfast Giants. Čech had more than 600 appearances in Premier League football before changing sports to ice hockey and playing goalie for the fourth tier club the Guildford Phoenix’s in 2019. František Kuna, sports reporter at Radiožurnál told me more.

“He was in the net five or six years ago in Brno, there was an exhibition game for the final game of Martin Havlát’s career, and Petr Čech was somewhere in Great Britain in the morning for football, and then came to Brno in the evening for the hockey game. I saw him for the first time in hockey equipment, without his classic football helmet. I was really surprised when he stood up in the net and looked like a man who has been doing the sport for many years. Maybe not as good as the guys who have been doing it for longer at the professional level, but I really didn’t expect that he could do it at the professional level in Great Britain.”

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Photo: Post Bellum

The Czech Radio sound archives are among the richest in the world and through them we can travel in time to many moments in Czech and Czechoslovak history. This is the first of two special programmes in our series In Their Own Words that take us back to the dramatic year of 1968. The year began with hope, with the reforms of the Prague Spring, but these were brought to a bitter end by the Soviet-led invasion in August of the same year. Hundreds of archive recording bring the drama of that year to life.

The reforms of the Prague Spring did not happen overnight. The political thaw began at the beginning of the 1960s, bringing with it as sense of openness and optimism. This was reflected in many fields of cultural life, including radio.

The satirical cabaret of Prague’s Semafor Theatre featured quite regularly on the airwaves. As the political atmosphere relaxed, the two stars of the cabaret, jazzmen and actors Jiřý Suchý and Jiří Šlitr found their way onto the cultural mainstream. Despite several risqué jokes at the expense of the regime – in the sketch featured here another famous member of the Semafor team Miroslav Horníček jokes that he will only use foreign words if he is paid in hard currency – Czechoslovak Radio was quite happy to broadcast Semafor’s New Year’s Eve show on December 31, 1967. The show includes an amusing rendering of Strangers in the Night by Jiří Šlitr, sung in deliberately dreadful English.

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Author: David Vaughan

Bates’s snakehead is a new addition to the Prague Zoo’s snake collection. There is only a very limited number of individuals in European breeding and at the same time many people interested in its breeding. Getting a young couple is all the more valuable. Photo by Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

In the Prague Zoo, the rarely bred Bates dogs can now be seen. These snakes, emerald green on top and lemon yellow on the bottom, inhabited the Terrarium pavilion.

A delicate species native to the Amazonian lowlands, it boasts the proportionally longest teeth among non-venomous snakes. His likeness with the inhabitant of the neighboring exhibit, an unrelated green python that comes from the opposite end of the world, is also fascinating. At the Prague Zoo, visitors can now see this phenomenon – the so-called convergent evolution – with their own eyes.

“The male is called Uatuma and the female is called Coari. It is a young couple, whose acquisition from an experienced herpetologist is extremely valuable for us,” says reptile breeder Vojtěch Víta. “We planted the terrarium exclusively with such types of plants that are also found in the natural habitats of these canids in the Amazon. It is an arboreal species of snake, so visitors will definitely find our pair in the branches at the top of the exhibit.”

When moving from the background of the zoo to the pavilion, it was appropriate to measure and weigh the dogs. It is advisable to limit the handling of such conservative species of snakes to a minimum, therefore every suitable situation should be used for the control inspection. Photo by Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

They got their bizarre name from the famous Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus, the creator of traditional botanical and zoological nomenclature. Based on the shape of the head and fangs, which resemble those of a dog, he called the first described canine with the species name caninus (= canine), which later became the Czech generic name.

The species name “Bates” was given to this attractive species in honor of the British biologist Henry W. Bates, who was the first to draw attention to the mimicry of non-poisonous animals that resemble poisonous species in their appearance in order to deter enemies. Even the Bates’ sardine is a good example of this. In its appearance, it imitates the poisonous bush beetle Bothrops bilineatus.

Probably the most remarkable fact that visitors will notice when walking through the Terrarium in the lower part of the zoo is the already mentioned figure with a green python in the neighboring terrarium. Although dog-heads inhabit South America and the latter in northern Australia and New Guinea, to the layman’s eyes they are indistinguishable.

The figure with the green python (right) is remarkable. Not only the appearance or the environment they inhabit are similar, but also the way of life and even the typical elliptical resting position. Photo by Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

“The two species are separated by 70 million years of separate evolution, yet they are similar not only in appearance but also in their way of life. Adaptation to almost the same environment or food caused an almost identical development. We call this phenomenon convergent evolution, and it can be seen to varying degrees in other animals as well: for example, in armadillos and crustaceans or our hedgehogs and Australian sea urchins,” explains Víta.

While the green python is a relatively commonly bred species in zoos and hobby farms, Bates’s pythons are now exhibited by only three other institutions in the entire EU, besides the Prague Zoo.

Photo: Lukáš Hurník, Czech Radio

The renowned Czech jazz pianist and composer Emil Viklický turns 75 on November 23. In connection with that milestone, a folk-based LP he brought out in the early 1990s is being re-released.

After earning a degree in maths in Czechoslovakia, Olomouc-born Viklický got into the Berklee College of Music in Boston in the latter half of the 1970s. Since his return to Prague the keyboard maestro has led his own groups and collaborated with a vast number of Czech and international musicians, including guitarist Bill Frissel.

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Photo: Festival svobody/Gymnázium Jana Nerudy

How should you teach children about the tumultuous events of 1989 in a way that conveys the enormous gravity of what happened without being too heavy-handed? And how much do kids nowadays actually know about it? Is it even still relevant? To find out, I spoke to some Czech teenagers and teachers about their thoughts, knowledge and experiences surrounding November 17.

“We do a lot of talking and the teachers really care about what we think, what interests us and what we want to know about the topic. A lot of the time we have articles that we talk about and analyse. It’s not really about memorising, it’s more about talking. I really like it that way, because I think history is not about memorising dates, but really having all the connections between things.”

18-year-old Emma talking about her experience of learning about the events surrounding November 17, 1989, forever imprinted into Czech history as the date that the Velvet Revolution began, eventually bringing down the totalitarian regime that had held onto power for over 40 years. At her prestigious grammar school, Gymnazium Jana Nerudy in Prague’s affluent Mala Straná district, the students engage with, discuss and debate the topic, even bringing in their own particular interests, as confirmed by her classmate, Tobiáš.

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Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Zuzana Bönisch

Prague hosted a summit of the presidents of the countries within the Czech presidency of the Visegrad Group countries. In addition to President Petr Pavel, Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová attended the meeting, Hungarian President Katalin Nováková and Polish President Andrzej Duda. The main topics of the meeting were the strengthening of contacts between the citizens of the V4 countries, the use of the International Visegrad Fund, and joint infrastructure projects, such as high-speed railways.

The Czech Presidency of the V4 began on July 1, 2023 and will last for one year. Its motto is “V4 for citizens”. It follows on from the Slovak presidency and its efforts to return to the roots of Visegrad cooperation.

“Even if the opinions of V4 representatives change over time, we remain neighbors and our task is therefore to cultivate good neighborly relations. Although we may have different opinions on many issues, it is important that we know each other’s positions and know where the intersections are for our cooperation and where not. This summit was also important in that,” said President Pavel at the joint press conference of the four heads of state.

Photo: Zuzana Bönisch

The presidents also discussed the V4+ projects, which target the countries of the Western Balkans, the Eastern Partnership, and the consequences of Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. On ways of supporting Ukraine presidents and female presidents debated at a joint lunch.

“The Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary are located in the center of Europe. Naturally, we also solve similar geopolitical issues. Russian aggression affects us all. Support for Ukraine is therefore essential for our security. At the same time is a naturally human step. Russia must bear responsibility for the human lives lost and the damage done in Ukraine. We must therefore resolutely continue to provide comprehensive support to Ukraine and its citizens,” said President Pavel.

After freezing Russian state-owned property on Czech territory, Czechia is now pushing for restrictions on movement for Russian diplomats within the Schengen space. Prague argues that Russian agents working undercover as diplomats greatly benefit from the EU’s borderless zone.

The government’s new security strategy clearly points to Russia and its imperialist ambitions as the biggest security threat for Czechia in the present day. And the country’s diplomacy has consistently moved to curb Russian influence on Czech territory in cutting Czechia’s dependence on Russian crude oil and gas, enforcing EU and national sanctions against individuals and companies linked to the Putin regime and defending itself against the hybrid war that Russia is waging against Western democracies.

Last week the government announced its decision to place another legal entity on the country’s national sanctions list – a Russian company, which is in charge of managing Russian assets abroad. The move is to guarantee that income generated by the company in this country will not be used to finance the war in Ukraine, and Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský says he would like to see such a move implemented across the EU.

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Authors: Daniela Lazarová, Jan Bumba

New research from the HateFree Culture group indicates that over the last ten years, Czech attitudes towards minorities living in the country have improved, especially towards Roma people. But while many Czechs are now ready to accept Romanies as co-workers, they stop short of welcoming them into the family circle, a symptom of the persisting ‘us’, and ‘them’ mentality that HateFree Culture chairman Lukáš Houdek explained to me.

“Roma have been one of the most negatively perceived groups in society in the Czech Republic for a long time. Even in 2015 during the refugee crisis when hate towards Muslims was quite high amongst Czechs, the Roma were still the most hated group in society. I think it comes from the history – because Romanies have always been perceived negatively because of their social and living conditions, and because they often lived on the side-lines of society and were socially excluded.

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Photo: Dark Bark Drama

Prague’s D21 theatre will be hosting a special event on Wednesday night: three original radio plays, performed live on stage with actors accompanied by music and sound effects. One of the people behind the project, produced by Dark Bark Drama and Radio Tuna, is Prague-based British writer and director Steen Agro.

“I am a Brit living in Prague who has had a long fascination with radio ads and radio stories since the BBC production of the Hitchhiker’s Guide, which I listened to as a kid. I eventually ended up becoming a feature director and screenwriter, and right before the pandemic, I had the idea to create a live radio event, but Covid got in the way.

“A few years after that, I met up with Spencer Derr, a Californian living here in Prague, who along with Kierstan Devoe and Olga Mikulska, had set up something called Dark Bark Drama, a non-profit company that works with a creative writing group of playwrights in Prague.

“They were actually doing a script in hand performances, with a couple of actors sitting on stage with the script in hand and reading it, performing the work that way. I went to see a couple of their shows and I thought it was pretty similar to what I had in mind having actors in front of mics. So I approached Spencer and he said: let’s try that, so that’s what we did.”

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Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: European Commission

EU countries will have to implement a directive that requires firms to disclose the salaries of employees by 2025. The move is intended to improve gender equality, and aims to eliminate gaps in wages between men and women. While some welcome the new legislation, it has been met with some pushback here in Czechia. I spoke with Anna Kotková of the Gender Studies Centre in Prague to learn more about the legislation and its potential impacts.

“I think that this new EU directive is a good tool to make employers focus on pay transparency, especially with the same positions. In the Czech Republic, we have a pay gap of 10 or 11 percent for the same positions, which is not good, because there is no objective reason to pay women less for the same work, so we definitely welcome this tool.”

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Photo: Khalil Baalbaki, Czech Radio

The New Stage of the Czech National Theatre opened to the public on November 20, 1983 with a performance of Josef Kajetán Tyl’s The Strakonice Bagpiper.

The Brutalist-style building was designed by architect Karel Prager, who is also responsible for what is now the New Building of the National Museum, formerly the Federal Parliament.

The massive glass cube, which is placed right next to the neo-Renaissance National Theatre, has always sharply divided public opinion, with many people criticising it for lacking respect for its environment.

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Photo: Stanislav Heloňa, ČTK

A Christmas market has already started on the square Horní náměstí in the Moravian city of Olomouc. A 14-metre high tree towers above the stands and other attractions.

Source: ČTK

The number of children who require mental health intervention is on the rise here in Czechia. Forty percent of ninth graders show moderate signs of depression, and last year data from the Institute of Health indicated that there were over 4,000 hospitalizations of patients under the age of 19 in acute beds, almost twice as many as 10 years ago. Jana Karasová, a reporter with iRozhlas.cz who has covered this story, explained the situation to me

“For a long time, we have known that in the Czech Republic there is a shortage of psychiatrists, but what has happened in the last few years, is that there has been an increase in patient numbers, especially when it comes to teenagers and children. Finally, this year we have the first survey of the well-being of ninth graders, and it proved that every third teenager or ninth grader would benefit from professional support or help, and that 40 percent of them have signs of depression or anxiety.

“When it comes to the numbers of psychiatrists in hospitals but also in ordinary care, there are new numbers released by the office of Czech health information. It counts not only the number of every individual doctor, but also how these doctors are employed. Even though we see that there could be about 150 doctors focussed on psychology for children and teenagers, when we look at the employment numbers, there are only about 74 of them.”

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová visited members of the human rights and educational organization Memorial. After their ban on activities in the Russian Federation, they found refuge in the Prague residence of the Speakers of the House of Representatives last fall. From there, they continue their professional work and plan other related activities.

On Tuesday 21.11.2023 the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, visited representatives of the renowned historical, educational, and human rights organization Memorial. They have been working in the House of Representatives villa since last fall. Memorial has a long-term professional focus on research into the Soviet repressive system and its current reflection. Because of its activities, it was banned by the Russian authorities and its members faced persecution, bullying, and severe persecution in their homeland.

“Researchers from Memorial systematically contribute to illuminating the dark sides of the past and present of the Russian totalitarian regime. Their work was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year. Our doors are still open, literally,” said the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

Up to eight employees of the organization currently work in the building of the First Republic functionalist villa from the 1930s in Prague’s Ladronka. The period of use of the premises was originally agreed upon with the leadership of the Chamber for six months. Concerning mutual interest, it was then extended after their expiration. The Memorial organization has committed to cover the costs of using the facility, most of which are energy and maintenance expenses. On the other hand, the object as such is provided to them free of charge.

“I am really glad that the villa of the Presidents of the House of Representatives, which has been uninhabited for a long time, has found a really meaningful use and has become a second home for those who are helping to build Russian civil society from exile,” added the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

“Thanks to our stay here, we manage to expand the Memorial’s museum collection. For example, last week I had the opportunity to acquire a unique violin handmade in the gulag, which the descendants of its author took to Dresden, from where we obtained it after five years of negotiations,” said Irina Ostrovskaja, the Memorial’s archivist and documentarian, during the meeting.

“Recently, we managed to publish several books, for example, a collection of documents about the surveillance of Andrei Sakharov by the KGB or a narrative catalog of our exhibition about women in the Gulag. This is also the result of the fact that we have the opportunity to devote ourselves fully to our work thanks to this background in Prague,” added Boris Bělenkin, director of the Memorial library.

“A huge thank you goes to Markéta Pekarová Adamová for her generous offer for the Memorial, which was not completely taken for granted at the time of the Russian war against Ukraine. Our Russian colleagues are aware of this, and I am personally pleased, for example, by the recent meeting of Memorial human rights activists with their Ukrainian counterparts. This took place in the Prague residence. Such meetings are very rare, although the need for them is great. In addition to the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, I would also like to thank my colleagues from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of the Interior, who since last year have been welcoming the stays of Russian civil and human rights activists in the Czech Republic,” concluded Štěpán Černoušek, chairman of Gulag.cz and Memorial ČR.

Photo: Eva Kézrová, Czech Radio

Scientists in Prague have been measuring the amount of dust that enters people’s lungs on a busy road in the city centre. To do that, they used a special mobile cell incubator with actual human lung cells. The results confirmed that traffic pollution poses a serious threat to human health.

Exposure to air pollutants is associated with all kinds of health problems, including asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or lung cancer. It also affects other organs, including the central nervous system, resulting for instance in an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

To see what happens to human lungs when exposed to traffic pollution, Scientists from the Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Czech Academy of Sciences carried out measurements on a busy road in Prague’s district of Holešovice, where more than 90,000 cars pass each day.

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Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Eva Kézrová

According to national statistics, as many as 14% of Czech children experience domestic violence directly or indirectly at some point in their lives and many are left permanently scarred. Shockingly, experts say it often takes up to six years for a child experiencing domestic violence to get help. And when they do, the support network is not what it should be.

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Authors: Daniela Lazarová, Lucie Korcová

Photo: Vít Šimánek, ČTK

Former dissident and Charter 77 signatory Jiří Gruntorád is on the fourth day of his hunger strike outside the seat of the Czech government in Prague. He is calling for the labour and social affairs minister, Marian Jurečka, to resign over his treatment of ex-dissidents who now live on extremely small pensions.

Jiří Gruntorád is particularly upset about a letter that a fellow former dissident, Karel Soukup, received from the labour ministry, rejecting his request for a pension recalculation that would have allowed him to receive the nationwide average pension. In it, Soukup was allegedly advised to try applying for additional social benefits. Gruntorád says that Soukup receives a monthly pension of CZK 6000 (about EUR 250).

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Authors: Anna Fodor, Jana Karasová,

Sources: ČTK,Český rozhlas

Czech-produced Hot Chip Challenge crisps are marketed as extremely hard to consume. Now domestic authorities have halted sales of the chili pepper-based product, following alarm bells in other EU states.

Single Hot Chip Challenge crisps are sold in coffin-shaped boxes and come with taglines such as Have you got what it takes? and Can you handle the heat?

Consumers receive rubber gloves for handling the crisps, which resemble scorched nachos, with some posting videos of themselves taking on the “challenge” on social media.

Indeed, the producers’ own website features promo videos depicting young men clearly suffering after popping the uncommonly hot snack in their mouths.

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Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Jan Brzobohaty

Czechia is home to some of the best ice hockey players who have played the game. From Dominik Hašek to Jaromír Jágr, the legacy the country has with the sport is enduring, in fact a Czech player just broke the NHL record for the hardest slap shot to date. But in recent years Czechia has also become home to players from abroad, who come to play in the nation’s top leagues. Among those international players are Canadians, and the Extraliga team the Kladno Knights have three of them on their current roster. I was curious about how these players got here in the first place, and took a trip to Kladno to find out more.

When you think of hockey, it would be hard not to think of Canada, the so-called ‘first nation’ of the sport. But if one thing is for certain, it’s that Czechs equally love the game and have a deep and rich history with it, just like the northern nation where the game was invented and popularized.

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

“On the occasion of the 34th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution (17 November 1989) The Embassy’s staff of Georgia to the Czech Republic gathered together with the Ambassador of Georgia to the Czech Republic, H.E. Ms. Tea Maisuradze to honor the Czech culture and the democratic values that the students of the revolution fought for.

The Embassy’s staff would like to remember all the students who played a key role in the fall of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia.

To symbolically honor them and the Czech culture, they dressed in folk costumes that represent a fragment of the Czech national culture.

On this day, we would like to pay tribute to all those who fought for freedom and democracy 34 years ago. After all, precisely these shared values symbolize the Czech-Georgian friendship already for 30 years.” Said H.E. Ms. Tea Maisuradze the Ambassador of Georgia to the Czech Republic.

Photo: Hangonit

Hangonit Studio is a one-man studio, founded by Vladimír Kudělka, who views his games as art. His two games Rememoried and Afterglitch are connected by the themes of parallel worlds, dreams, with the players floating through virtual environments.

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Author: Barbora Navrátilová

Photo: Luděk Peřina, ČTK

The Czech national soccer squad secured qualification for next year’s European Championship on Monday with a 3:0 win over Moldova. However, the celebrations were rather dampened when coach Jaroslav Šilhavý announced live on television that he was stepping down.

While still on the pitch after Monday evening’s game, the Czech football team coach Jaroslav Šilhavý said live on TV that he and his staff were quitting.

The 62-year-old said the pressure on him had been enormous – and sometimes beyond his comprehension.

The news rather took the sheen off what had been a successful night for the Czechs. They needed to secure at least one point against Moldova in their last Euro 2024 qualifying game but took all three, with a 3:0 win in Olomouc.

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Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Youtube / Czech Radio Plus

Timothy Garton Ash was in Prague last week, presenting the Czech version of his latest book Homelands: A Personal History of Europe. While he was here, the UK historian, who spent time in this region when communism was collapsing, took part in events marking the anniversary of the start of the Velvet Revolution. And Mr. Garton Ash also spoke to Jan Bumba of Czech Radio, about those dramatic times – and where Europe is headed today.

We are meeting in Prague in mid-November. At this time 34 years ago, Czechoslovakia was going through historic changes. The vast majority of people were happy to get rid of the Communist regime. Nevertheless, today there are many who tend to remember the ‘70s and the ‘80s as the “good old times”. Why do you think this is happening?

“The Velvet Revolution, which I witnessed at first hand, thanks to Václav Havel in Laterna magika, was such an extraordinary, magical moment, and the beginning of what I call the ‘post-wall’ period, the period after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And it was a very, very good period in European history.

See the rest here.

Authors: Jan Bumba, Ian Willoughby

Photo: Vít Pohanka, Radio Prague International

Canadian by birth, Don Sparling found a new home in Brno. Among other things, he explains why he prefers living in the second Czech city rather than the capital Prague.

Don Sparling first came to what was then Czechoslovakia when the Communist government was trying to reform itself, introducing the so-called “socialism with human face” in the process that became known as the Prague Spring of 1968. Don was a student of English Literature at Oxford University in Britain at that time. Curious about what would happen to the country after the Soviet-led invasion crushed the reform process, he later applied for a teaching job at a state language school and spent several years in Prague. But he found a wife and new home in Brno, the second largest city in the country.

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Author: Vít Pohanka

In the last episode we heard emeritus professor of Masaryk University in Brno Don Sparling. Among other things, he mentioned why he left Prague for Brno and that he considers the Czech Capital to be very “self-centered”. I agree and I also think that foreigners who come to Czechia often make the mistake of staying in Prague only. There are many other interesting and fascinating places and Brno is certainly one of them.

The best known Czech brand name is undoubtedly Pilsner Urquell. Budweiser (sold as Czechvar in the United States and some other countries) is probably the second most prominent. The fame of these two brands outshines many other lagers and other types of beer brewed all over Czechia. And that is a shame, because there is so much more to discover for any beer-loving visitor to this country. Brno with its Starobrno lager is no exception in this respect.

See the rest here.

Author: Vít Pohanka

The French travel most often in Europe, making 80% of their trips there. The Czech Republic is very interesting for them, last year more than 213 thousand French tourists came to domestic hotels, apartments, and pensions. Even if the numbers before the COVID-19 pandemic have not yet been reached, the potential to attract the French to the Czech Republic is offered. They like local gastronomy, new places, and interesting programs and activities. The inhabitants of France are, in the best sense of the word, hedonists, individualists, and people who bet on certainty. They want to enjoy traveling to the fullest.

This and other information were part of the export workshop organized by the Czech Tourism Office – CzechTourism. Among other things, it was heard at the event that the French have more vacations than in other countries of the world and are among the creditworthy tourists. They prefer an interesting program and accommodation in four-star hotels for a low price. 30- to 50-year-old residents of France go on trips the most, and they prefer transport by airplanes.

“Even though the French most often go to Prague here, they are gradually discovering the regions as well. Last year, in addition to our capital, South Moravian and Pilsen regions were the most visited. According to the NMS Market Research 2021 survey, in addition to Prague, the Czech Republic is also associated with landscape, culture, castles, beer, history, monuments and beautiful architecture,” says František Reismüller, director of the Czech Tourism Office – CzechTourism, adding: “This year in the 3rd quarter, French tourists, with a total of 67,500 arrivals, placed 12th in the list of countries from which most foreigners come. From July to September 2023, they spent almost 172 thousand nights in the Czech Republic, with the average length of stay of one guest from France being 3.54 days. On average, the French spent 2,432 CZK per person per day traveling to the Czech Republic last year.”

That is why the 1st and 2nd wave of this year’s main campaign of the CzechTourism agency Nečekáné tradice – Unexpected Traditions was focused on France. In the Czech Republic, last year and this year, French television often filmed – for example, TF1 reported on Crystal Valley, ARTE programs on Czech gastronomy in Invitation au voyage producers, marketplace and landscape. And it was ARTE television that recently started broadcasting documentaries about Czech gastronomy with the words: “The soup is the grunt and the meat is the plug”. You can find the first report from footage 32:08 on Invitation au voyage – Bretagne / Éthiopie / Thailande – Regarder le documentaire complet | ART.

“When luring the French to the Czech Republic, one must, among other things, remember the more demanding requirements of French guests regarding language skills, which of course plays a role in choosing a destination. Although guests from France speak English more often than before, the undeniable advantage is simply the destination where they are able to communicate with them in their language. This is not the only reason why we are not slacking off in our activities, as far as French-Czech relations are concerned, this autumn was also very busy,” says Markéta Dianová, Director of the Foreign Office of the Czech Tourism Headquarters – CzechTourism for France, and adds: “In October, together with the Czech Embassy and nine partners prepared the presentation of the Czech Republic at the IFM TOP RESA tourism trade fair in Paris. Furthermore, at IPT UNESCO, we presented domestic UNESCO monuments from the Giant Mountains to Rautis in Poniklé to Žďár nad Sázavou. And we are currently preparing events for the French focused on traditions, including Christmas, and presentations of places where congresses, conferences, fairs, exhibitions or events for employees can be held in the Czech Republic.”

And next year? The traditional Czechia Travel Trade Day event, directed by CzechTourism, which will take place in Hradec Králové, should not miss French buyers, representatives of travel agencies, and the media. And not only the French will be treated to a workshop on the topic Discover Central Europe, which is jointly prepared by the foreign offices of the Czech Tourism Headquarters for France, Poland, and Slovakia. Last but not least, they will be very important – in the spirit of the main communication theme of 2024, which is “active tourism” – the Summer Olympic Games in Paris. In connection with them, the Olympic festival will take place at Lake Most.

Photographed by Jana Trojanová

Travel tips, calendar of events, or thematic specials of the Kudy z nudy portal, which is operated by the Czech Tourism Office – CzechTourism. Starting this school year, pupils, teachers, and school visitors have all this available on the ÁMOS vision touch panels. The interactive information board, where everyone can choose what they are interested in, is currently used by almost 350 schools throughout the Czech Republic with a total of 190,000 pupils.

Large-scale touch panels located in corridors or in school information centers now routinely display timetables, substitutions, event plans, or menus from the school information system—also class meetings, clubs, or photos from school events. With the 2023/24 school year, articles, photos, videos, etc. from one of the largest tourist portals in Europe, Kudy z nudy, are also being taken over.

“Children, teachers, parents, and others spend a large part of their lives in school. In addition to the necessary education, they also get inspiration there on how to move on with life or what to do in their free time. This is where the great potential of our Kudy z nudy portal, which is full of up-to-date travel tips and everything related to it, says the director of the Czech Tourism Center – CzechTourism František Reismüller and adds: “Interest in travel tips is continuously growing, since this year from January to October, the portal recorded more than 24 million visits, which is 3 million more than for the whole of last year. It has more than 100,000 registered users and has sent out more than 3 million e-mails with a regular newsletter so far this year. We will be very happy if the availability of the unique Kuda z nudy on panels in schools leads to the fact that students, teachers and everyone who visits schools automatically start taking it as a guide for travel and leisure activities.”

ÁMOS information panels within the non-financial partnership with Kudy z nudy enable, among other things, that the user can, for example, choose events only in his region or the type of activity he is interested in. That way, he can get inspired on how to spend his free time and where to go.

“We piloted the connection of the ÁMOS information panels with the Kudy z nudy portal in schools on September 3 this year. The test run lasted one month and, among other things, it showed that there is a lot of interest in this new content of ÁMOS. Everything officially started in full swing on October 2, 2023. After more than a month, we can say at this moment that children, teachers, and school visitors liked the Where to go on a trip button. The number of visitors is in the order of thousands and has increased by 15% month-on-month, which is a very good result compared to other interesting interactive elements for pupils,” says Inpublic CEO Richard Prajsler and adds: “We are happy that together with the CzechTourism agency we are succeeding in achieving the goal , which we set out to do. In other words, to inspire and motivate the young generation to discover interesting places in their region. ÁMOS is a unique information panel that takes communication with students to a new level. Modern technologies make the work of schools easier, save printing and also paper consumption. And last but not least, they inspire other activities.”

Cooperation with the Kudy z nudy portal was also possible due to the educational role of touch information panels. Thanks to the tourist website, those who look at it on the panels will learn, for example, what cultural, sports or socially beneficial activities they can perform.

This coming Saturday, Czechs all around the country will be celebrating Saint Martin’s Day, which falls on November 11. On this day, Czechs traditionally sample the season’s first wine and sit down to a feast of roast goose, dumplings and cabbage.

The tradition of Saint Martin’s festivities, the Czech equivalent of the Beaujolais celebrations, dates back to the Middle Ages and has become hugely popular in recent years.

Back in the reign of Charles IV, it marked the symbolic end of the farming season, when labourers received their pay. It was also the time when the first bottles of wine produced that year were opened.

According to a Czech saying, Saint Martin’s Day is also the day that brings the first snow to the country. While weather forecasters say that is unlikely to happen this year, most Czechs will definitely not miss the opportunity to sample the season’s first wine.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Ken Howard, Metropolitan Opera

Since its premiere in 1901, Antonín Dvořák’s most famous opera Rusalka has been staged all over the world. Some of its most recent productions have been quite unorthodox, portraying the water nymph as a prostitute and a heroin addict.

See the rest here.

Photo: Bohemia Interactive

Bohemia Interactive is behind the world-famous Arma series, set in a wartime environment. In their next game, the player fights against zombies. However, the company has a broad portfolio and also offers a game for children in which they can learn the basics of programming and development thanks to the game mechanisms. “We don’t primarily make games, we make game worlds. And our worlds are very often inspired by the Czech Republic, its history, culture and even language,” says Marek Španěl, the studio’s CEO.

See the rest here.

Author: Barbora Navrátilová

Photo: René Volfík, iROZHLAS.cz

Speaking at a security conference in Prague, President Petr Pavel expressed deep concern regarding the disruption of the world order and the increasing assertiveness of revisionist powers and terrorist groups. He said the democratic world must unite in defence of its values and do everything possible to prevent existing conflicts from spreading.

Addressing a Diplomacy and Security Conference at Czernin Palace, President Pavel said global security was deteriorating and the world has become a less safe and less predictable place for all.

“Existing conflicts continue deepening and new ones are breaking out. Frozen conflicts are thawing in the Caucasus and the wave of military coups in African countries, especially in the Sahel, is causing increasing concern. The explosive potential of the current crisis in the Middle East, sparked by Hamas’ barbaric attack on Israel, is evident above all else.”

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: René Volfík, iROZHLAS.cz

The Czech government has moved to freeze Russian state-owned property on Czech territory by placing the company that manages these assets on its national sanctions list. The foreign minister said Prague would strive to get this measure approved across the EU.

Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský on Wednesday announced the government’s decision to place another legal entity on the country’s national sanctions list – a Russian company, which is controlled by the Russian presidential administration and is in charge of managing Russian assets abroad. The move should guarantee that income generated by the company in this country will not be used to finance the war in Ukraine, Mr. Lipavský said.

“This company controls and operates a vast amount of Russian state-owned property in the country, predominantly real estate in Prague and Karlovy Vary, which generates significant financial income. As of this moment the company’s assets are frozen and its commercial activities are illegal, as is any attempt to evade the sanctions.”

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Author: Daniela Lazarová, Source:Český rozhlas

Photo: Peter Turnley, public domain

The 1989 Velvet Revolution, ending over four decades of Communist one-party rule, spelled seismic change for Czech society. Words like restitution and lustration became common parlance in the early 1990s, as the transition to democracy was accompanied by a legal reckoning with the past. But how effectively was justice served in that period? How successful was the rehabilitation of political prisoners, many of whom had suffered greatly under the recently departed Communists?

One man who has studied these questions in great depth is Roman David, a Czech sociologist and expert on transitional justice based in Hong Kong. Indeed Mr. David, who was himself a 21-year-old student in 1989, carried out sociological surveys of both ex-political prisoners and former party members and collaborators for his book Communists and Their Victims: The Quest for Justice in the Czech Republic.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

A gift voucher for an annual ticket is an ideal Christmas present for supporters of the Prague Zoo and its frequent visitors. Photo of the Prague Zoo

Prague Zoo is launching the sale of gift vouchers for annual tickets as well as an electronic version of this season ticket.

Newly, those interested can conveniently arrange it from their computer or mobile phone. The same is the case with the mentioned vouchers, which can be given to loved ones and left to their discretion.

The menu includes all available categories in electronic form: children’s, student, family, and others.

Another advantage of the electronic season ticket is that the user can track how many entrances to the zoo he still has left on his mobile phone.

The gift voucher is practical in that it can be printed from the comfort of your home. The recipient will then exchange the voucher for an annual pass on their first visit to the zoo.

Electronic tickets and gift vouchers in all available tariffs can be purchased via the Prague Zoo e-shop at: https://vstupenka.zoopraha.cz/

A team of researchers and doctors from Ostrava recently demonstrated the presence of microplastics in human amniotic fluid for the first time ever. Prior to this study, it had always been assumed that the placenta would prevent any such particles from reaching the foetus, but the presence of microplastics was confirmed in nine out of ten women in the study. To understand the significance of this finding and what it could mean for the health of babies and expectant mothers, I spoke to Ondřej Šimetka, one of the study’s authors.

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Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Petr Hudec, Národní památkový ústav

In 2022, Prague welcomed more than six million tourists to the city, but other parts of the country, regions in Moravia in particular, struggle to lure in visitors. CzechTourism is trying to change this by focussing campaigns on other parts of the country, and CEO Frantisek Reismuller told me more about them.

“Especially before Covid, tourism in Prague was quite strong. Our strategy was to get people into the lesser-known Czech regions, and of course get them to stay longer in Czechia.”

Looking back at the statistics from last year, six million tourists visited Prague alone in 2022 – but do other regions, let’s take Moravia as an example, have a harder time attracting visitors?

“I would say the Moravian part of the Vysočina region is a little bit less visited, which is a pity because it’s a really beautiful place. There is a different structure of tourists in Moravia. South Moravia is definitely more visited by foreigners, and it’s one of the hottest regions of Czechia. The northern part of Moravia is more visited by Czechs.”

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

The city of Olomouc lies in the eastern province of Moravia. The sixth biggest city in Czechia with a population of about 100,000 – Olomouc is home to countless historical landmarks and one of the 17 UNESCO sites in the country. Not only a historically important city, but today a very international one, as Palacký University attracts thousands of internationals from all corners of the earth to learn and study in Moravia.

I took a trip to Olomouc to learn more about its history, and speak with some of the international students who are shifting the landscape of the city.

It’s a chilly autumn morning, and the bright sun lights up the colours of the red and yellow leaves on the trees as my train cruises through the Moravian countryside. The train, bound for the Moravian city of Olomouc, jerks into the station. I hop off, eager to catch the next tram headed in the direction of the historic centre.

To my surprise, the trams move incredibly slowly in Olomouc, nothing like the zip of the number 9 in Prague. But as my day begins to unfold, and as I meet the locals in the city, I realise the speed of the trams is indicative of the way of life in Olomouc – slightly slower in pace, not as rigid in schedule, a more laissez-faire attitude than what I’m used to in the nation’s capital.

See the rest here.

Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Five years ago, 85 Olga Havel trees were planted at ceremonial gatherings across the country in honor of her 85th birthday, which at that time did not live long. The Committee of Good Will – Olga Havlová Foundation followed up in the annual 2023 by planting five more Olga Havlová trees. Olga Havlová’s last, 90th tree was a pecan tree, planted in the Jelení moat at Prague Castle.

The tree was planted together on the afternoon of November 10 by President Petr Pavel and First Lady Eva Pavlová, on behalf of the foundation the chairman of the board of directors Vojtěch Sedláček and the director Monika Granja, a personal friend of Mrs. Olga Anna Freimanová from the Václav Havel Library and the singer Aneta Langerová.

Commemorative meetings in honor of Mrs. Olga will be held at the Olga Havlova Trees throughout the Czech Republic during 2023. So far, 52 have taken place, and they are all united by the Song for Olga. It is interpreted by solo singers, school choirs, and choirs of elementary art schools. It was sung by its author Aneta Langerová in Jelení říkopá, accompanied by Jakub Zitek and the Maranatha Gospel Choir on piano.

Each of the meetings at the newly planted Olga Havelová Tree is connected to one of the areas that were essential for Mrs. Olga and to which the foundation systematically addresses. At Prague Castle, the theme was “Psychological help for children”, which is very close to the current first lady Eva Pavlova.

The commemorative meeting for Olga Havelová was attended by more than 150 of her supporters and supporters of the Committee of Good Will from among well-known personalities and the general public.

Main media partners: Czech Television, Czech Radio

Photos from the event © Anna Šolcová

Photo: Radio Prague International

The full title of this Czech public holiday is Day of Freedom and Democracy and International Student Day, and it commemorates two significant moments in the country’s history. What events are taking place for those who want to learn more about this history, enjoy some culture, or simply mark the day?

Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day on November 17 commemorates not only the start of the Velvet Revolution in 1989, but also the 1939 Nazi storming of the university in Prague following student demonstrations against the occupation of Czechoslovakia, which led to the execution of nine student leaders and over 1200 students being sent to concentration camps.

In fact, the two events are closely interconnected – the peaceful march in 1989 that sparked the Velvet Revolution was initially intended to be simply a memorial march commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1939 student revolt. It only turned into a series of mass protests, demonstrations and strikes which eventually toppled the regime after the authorities tried to suppress the march.

See the rest here.

Author:Anna Fodor, Sources:ČTK,ČT24

Photo: Lukáš Houdek, Czech Radio

Surviving Utoya and Oslo is the title of a new podcast produced by the Czech Radio station Radio Wave. Across seven episodes released in both English and Czech versions, creator Lukáš Houdek speaks to Norwegians who made it through the 2011 attack – and those who had to rebuild their lives when their loved ones never came home. I spoke to Houdek just ahead of the release of the first episode on Tuesday.

“The original idea came a few years back, let’s say maybe when it all happened. Because since then, when the attention was kind of fading away, I started to think about how the people who survived, or were touched by something like this, live today. Who are they? How can you survive, how can you continue your life?

“And only now did I get a chance to record it.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

The Ambassador of Mongolia H.E Mr. Gansukh Khashkhan DAMDIN organized an open day program to remake the birthday of the Chinggis Khaan on 14th November 2023, the first day of the winter month of the lunar calendar.

H.E Mr. Gansukh Khashkhan DAMDIN – Ambassador of Mongolian in the Czech Republic had a presentation of Mongolian heritage and tradition.

It was followed by Mongolian and folk songs and dance.

Mrs. S. Khishigjargal was got a medal Award for her activity.

Photo: Atelier Terra Florida

A dignified memorial to the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti in Bohemia is finally nearing completion. On Monday survivors, activists and politicians symbolically planted the first trees in a forest in Lety that will symbolize the lost Roma community. The memorial will open to the public on February 3, 2024.

The history of the Lety concentration camp – a World War II internment camp for Romani people from Bohemia and Moravia during the Nazi occupation is one of the most shameful and neglected chapters of the country’s 20th century history.

Over 1,300 prisoners were interned in the camp during the occupation. Over 300 people died in the camp, over 240 of them children. More than 800 Roma were deported from Lety to Auschwitz, where almost all were gassed.

After the war, the memory of the genocide of the Sinti and Roma was for the most part repressed in Czechoslovakia. The community of Czech Romanies was almost entirely annihilated and the newcomers from Slovakia and Romania, who settled here after the war, had no knowledge of this tragedy. During the 1970s, the communists built a large pig farm on the site of the Lety camp.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová, Sources: ČTK,Český rozhlas

Under the esteemed patronage of Speaker of the Lower House Markéta Pekarová Adamová, the Embassy of the Republic of Latvia hosted a thought-provoking seminar at the Czech National Library on November 14, 2023. The half-day event convened a diverse diplomatic corps from all regions of the world, experts, scholars, and distinguished guests from Brussels, Riga, Bratislava, and various Czech institutions to delve into the pressing challenges confronting democracies in the digital era.

This timely seminar, organized in the context of Latvia’s candidacy for a non-permanent seat in the UN Security Council for the term 2026-2027, emphasized the importance of safeguarding open, free, and secure information landscapes. The commitment of both Latvia and the Czech Republic to defending fundamental human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, aligned with the principles and purposes enshrined in the UN Charter, took center stage.

Special acknowledgment was extended to Mr. Tomáš Foltýn, Director of the National Library of the Czech Republic, an esteemed cultural and educational institution with a longstanding partnership with the Latvian National Library. His instrumental role as the co-organizer contributed to the success and seamless execution of the conference, fostering international cooperation and understanding.

Mr. Viktors Makarovs, Special Envoy on Digital Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Latvia, stood as the main coordinator of substance for the conference. Renowned for his excellent cooperation with Czechia on various projects, Mr. Makarovs is a well-regarded and recognized expert in the field. His tireless efforts ensured the substantive richness of the seminar, contributing to insightful discussions and meaningful outcomes.

The Embassy also expressed heartfelt gratitude to the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, particularly to Mr. David Konecký, Director General of Security and Multilateral Affairs Section, for their collaborative approach in shaping the conference themes and making valuable contributions to the discussions. This cooperation exemplifies the strong ties between Latvia and the Czech Republic in addressing contemporary geopolitical challenges. Speakers from Czech institutions, including Mr. Otakar Foltyn, Military Office of the President of the Czech Republic, Mr. Radek Haratek, Commander of the Information and Cyber Forces of the Czech Army, and Mr. Richard Kadlčák, Special Envoy for Cyber Space, Director of Cyber Diplomacy Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, brought valuable insights to the discussions, highlighting the importance of regional collaboration.

The seminar also emphasized the significance of global cooperation and support for nations facing challenges. Discussions delved into how established democracies, particularly within the European Union, can empower and strengthen alliances globally, with a particular focus on Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The event underscored the strategic importance of fostering partnerships in these regions, supporting freedom of information, enhancing resilience against disinformation, and promoting global cybersecurity.

Moderated by Mr. Viktors Makarovs and Mr. Patrick Boehler, Head of Innovation and Audience Engagement of Radio Free Europe, the discussions, featuring esteemed panelists such as Ms. Dace Melbārde, Latvian Member of the European Parliament, and Mr. Jānis Karlsbergs, Leading expert of NATO’s Strategic Communication Center of Excellence, focused on vital topics including digital disruption, information integrity, and fostering global alliances to strengthen democracies.

The event concluded with a reception and a cultural program by Latvian-Ukrainian artists Katrīna Gupalo and Edgars Vilcāns, underscoring the importance of cultural exchange and mutual understanding.

Books and libraries are the inspiration for READ, a major new exhibition of works by international and domestic artists at the Kunsthalle Praha gallery. READ is curated by the Berlin-based Scandinavian art duo Elmgreen & Dragset, who also have several of their own pieces in the colourful show. At a press preview I caught up with Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset.

Dragset: “We’ve always been fascinated by books and it was an inspirational source for us, throughout our practice, philosophy and literature.”

What’s your own relationship to books? Do you need to have a paper copy or are you satisfied with e-books?

Elmgreen: “It’s absolutely important to have the book as material in this time when we see books being banned around the world. It would be far too easy to erase them just with a click in a digital version. So at least it’s more difficult to carry the stacks of books out of public libraries.”

See more here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

The Ore Mountains got their first snow of the year. In Klinovec the snow stayed on the ground and children could build the season’s first snowman.

Source: ČTK

Photo: Michal Novotný, Charles University

The Herzl Center for Israel Studies is a research and teaching institution dedicated to the enhancement of knowledge and awareness about the modern State of Israel. It is the first academic institution in the Czech Republic fully dedicated to the study of Israeli society, politics, and history.

It is not the ambition of Czechast to provide you listeners with news and current affairs analysis on a regular basis. However, I thought it might be useful to give you some background information about this country and its people’s relationship with Israel and the Middle East in general, because it’s impossible to ignore what’s been going on in Israel and the Gaza Strip since October 7th, 2023.

See the rest here.

Author: Vít Pohanka

One of the greatest Czech operas, Jenůfa by Leoš Janáček, is currently being staged at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Jakub Hrůša conducts the orchestra and the international cast features one Czech singer. The piece premiered on Sunday and will only have only four more performances.

Singers from the United States, Norway, Sweden, Colombia, Japan and Czechia met on the stage of the acclaimed Chicago Opera House to perform Janáček’s Jenůfa, a grim story of infanticide, domestic violence and redemption set in a Moravian village at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.

The opera, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová, premiered in Brno in 1904. It was this piece that first drew serious attention to Janáček as a composer and established his international reputation.

Janůfa is one of the first operas written in prose. Janáček wanted to keep the language natural and only made slight changes to the original play, deliberately choosing natural speech patterns rather than verse.

It was the Czech language, or more specifically, Moravian dialect, that presented the biggest challenge for the international cast, led by sopranos Lise Davidsen in the role of Jenůfa and Nina Stemme as her mother-in-law, Kostelnička.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Pavel Novák

The Embassy of Japan organized a seminar on the topic of the alcoholic beverage sake in the ambassador’s residence, which was attended by a large number of prominent figures of Czech gastronomy, entrepreneurs from the field of food trade, including importers of raw materials, representatives of gastronomic magazines and others.

The event was an opportunity to introduce Japanese gastronomic culture, which has long been deeply rooted in the daily life of Japanese people.

Sake differs from Western alcoholic beverages in that its basic ingredient is rice, but just like wine or beer, it allows you to increase the taste enjoyment of food many times over.

The seminar was followed by a tasting of three types of sake, which were accompanied by carefully selected Japanese delicacies for the most authentic experience for the participants.

H.E Mr. Hideo SUZUKI welcomes the guests. Here are parts of his speech:

It’s an honor to welcome you to the Sake Seminar today. Sake, which is today’s main topic, is an alcoholic beverage made from rice, which has been in Japan since ancient times, and this history goes back about 2,000 years. The current sake brewing method was established in the 18th century, about 300 years ago.

In Japan, there are currently more than 1,000 sake breweries, both large and small. Some of them have been brewing sake for even more than 100 years. One of the characteristics of sake is that there are many varieties. The climate of Japan varies from region to region. For example, the average temperature in the Kyushu region in the south is 10 degrees higher than that of Hokkaido. Therefore, such a natural environment has given rise to unique foods suited to the climate of each region and it also has developed a wide variety of sake to go with these foods.

Above that, sake is deeply connected to the lifestyle and culture of the Japanese people. So, even today, it is still an important beverage for celebrations such as New Year’s and weddings in Japan.

Another point that I would like to draw your attention is that this old traditional Japanese drink is now starting to attract worldwide attention. Exports from Japan to the rest of the world reached a record high last year, nearly doubling the value of exports before the Covid-19 pandemic. The European region has also shown great interest, and its export value from Japan in 2022 will be one-fourth higher than in 2021.

One of the greatest features of sake is that, like other alcohols like wine and beer, it can be enjoyed with food to enhance its taste dramatically.

So, I hope that our seminar will give you a sense of the unique characteristics and great potential of sake. Today’s lecturer, Ms. Dagmar Kadlecova, is not only a wine sommelier but also the only SSA-certified sake sommelier in the Czech Republic.

I hope that today’s event will be a wonderful opportunity to connect the Czech Republic and Japan through food culture.

Source: YouTube

The popularity of energy drinks among Czech schoolchildren has been steadily rising in recent years and so have concerns about the dangers of such drinks. The lower house of parliament is currently debating the possibility of introducing regulatory measures, in line with many other EU countries.

Parents and experts have long questioned the suitability of energy drinks for children and young adults. But it is the controversial US drink Prime that has sparked a new debate about introducing a ban on such products.

The heavily caffeinated drink, promoted by influencers on social media, has recently gained something of a status symbol among Czech schoolkids.

At the moment, Czech shops can only sell Prime Hydration, a drink composed of coconut water and electrolytes without sugar and caffeine, but with a high potassium content. The other product, Prime Energy, contains 200 millilitres of caffeine, an equivalent to two Red Bulls or six cans of Coke. While it is not yet available in brick and mortar stores, you can buy it online.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Karolina Koubová

Danish and Swedish tourism experts, buyers, and key influencers recently cooked in the Czech language in Copenhagen. Under the baton of Kristína Nemčková, the chef of the local Michelin-starred Geranium restaurant. The “Tastes of Czechia” series of events was organized by the foreign representative office of the Czech Tourism Office – CzechTourism for Scandinavia and Finland. With the aim of enabling Danes and Swedes to taste the high level of Czech gastronomy and domestic wines with a long tradition.

The event took place after a four-year hiatus. Among other things, because current surveys speak of a record number of sold tours and a high willingness of Danes to spend on a foreign holiday.

“In the 3rd quarter of this year, almost 53,000 Danes stayed in domestic hotels, apartments and pensions, which means about 4% more than in the same period last year. On average, Danes spent 3.78 days with us and spent the night here in almost 147,000 cases. If we manage to meet the key challenges that await us in the tourism industry next year, the people of Denmark could come to us even more. The challenges – in addition to a reasonable mix of domestic and foreign tourists – are: solving sustainability and active tourism. Both are unique to the Danes, and we have a lot to offer in the Czech Republic,” says František Reismüller, director of the Czech Tourism Center – CzechTourism, adding: “We have the best system of tourist signage in the world, a great tradition of sports and outdoor activities, and also quality world-renowned spas registered on UNESCO list. And as we presented just in Copenhagen, we also have very high-quality restaurants and wineries all over the Czech Republic.”

The “Tastes of Czechia” event also included B2B workshops, in addition to the part where cooking was done in Czech. Seven organizations and companies from the Czech Republic took part in them, namely the Brno City Council, the Tourism Center – South Moravia, Mondial DMC, ENSANA hotels, Stage Hotel, Resort Svatá Kateřina and the National Wine Centre. Thanks to the CzechTourism agency, business contacts with Danish and Swedish entities were newly established or strengthened during them in order to support the sale of domestic products and services in these countries. There was also a tasting of regional products and a tasting of Moravian and Czech wines.

“I am very happy that the guests, judging by their feedback, took away an intense experience from the “Tastes of Czechia” event. And that they thoroughly enjoyed preparing modern Czech cuisine with such a personality as the winner of the Czech Masterchef competition, who now works in one of the best restaurants in the world, Kristína Nemčková,” says the director of the foreign representation of the Czech Tourism Office – CzechTourism for Scandinavia and Finland Lucie Vallin and adds: “I believe that we inspired Danes and Swedes to visit the Czech Republic and I am happy that we helped establish and support business partnerships.”

A later event at the Czech Embassy in Copenhagen, where the South Moravian Region was presented, had a similar goal. It was intended for wine importers, sommeliers, influencers and others. In addition to the CzechTourism agency, the National Wine Center, the city of Brno and the Tourism Center – South Moravia participated in it.

“Gastronomy in connection with wine and beer tourism will be one of the main product topics we will focus on next year. The aim of these activities is to promote the Czech Republic as a destination for great gourmet experiences and overall to strengthen the attractiveness of the perception of Czech cuisine abroad. This is also helped by greater awareness of Czech wines and beers, whose quality is world-class,” concludes Veronika Janečková, director of the product management, research and B2B cooperation department of the Czech Tourism Headquarters – CzechTourism.

Tomáš Masaryk, the first president of independent Czechoslovakia, married the American Charlotte Garrigue. She had been born to a wealthy and patrician family in Brooklyn, New York. On her father’s side she had ancestors among the French Protestants who had found refuge in America. On her mother’s side, she had ancestors who traveled to America on the Mayflower. So there was a very strong link that President Masaryk felt with the American people and its history and roots.

See the rest here.

Author: Vít Pohanka

Photo: Jaroslav Ožana, ČTK

Former Czech ice hockey goaltender Roman Čechmánek, Olympic champion from Nagano and three-time world champion, died on Sunday at the age of 52.

Čechmánek was a substitute for Dominik Hašek at the Nagano Olympics and won world championship titles in 1996, 1999 and 2000. He also won five Extraliga titles with his home club of Vsetín.

The native of Zlín, who faced serious financial problems in recent years, spent four seasons in the NHL, playing for the Philadelphia Flyers, where he was drafted in 2000. He retired from playing in 2009.

Tributes have been coming in for Čechmánek, with Flyers president Keith Jones expressing that “beyond his numbers, which were outstanding, he was beloved by fans and teammates for his personality, distinct style and pride in stopping the puck.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Amelia Mola-Schmidt, Ruth Fraňková

Czechia will be introducing a deposit return system on plastic bottles and cans from 2025. The new system means people will no longer sort their drink containers into the large colourful recycling bins that can be seen on almost every street corner, but instead will return them to supermarkets or other collection points.

The environment ministry says that the new system will allow over 2.5 billion drinks containers to be recycled annually, meaning a significant reduction in waste and environmental pollution, as well as adding to the coffers of local councils. But not everyone is convinced. Pavel Drahovzal, deputy head of the Union of Towns and Municipalities, says that most local mayors are satisfied with the current system and don’t see a need to change it.

See the rest here.

Authors: Anna Fodor, Blanka Mazalová, Sources:Český rozhlas,Ministerstvo životního prostředí

Photo: Barbora Navrátilová, Radio Prague International

The Book of Prague is a collection of short stories by Czech authors that had never before been translated into English. As the title suggests, Prague, with all its different layers and histories, plays a prominent role in the stories. The book is part of a series called A City in Fiction published by UK publisher The Comma Press. Ahead of its launch in Great Britain, I discussed the anthology with one of its editors, Jan Zikmund, from the Czech Literary Centre, and first asked him how the idea for the book originated:

“Actually, the idea came both from the publisher and from the Czech Literary Centre. We first approached Comma Press about a possibility of publishing The Book of Prague back in 2019. After the pandemic, we came back to this idea and we said that 2023 would be the right year for publishing the book.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Lenka Žižková, Radio Prague International

Rapid industrial development and major social changes at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries increased the number of people suffering from mental illnesses. On November 12, 1903, the Provincial Committee of the Kingdom of Bohemia decided to build a hospital for mental patients in Bohnice near Prague which serves patients to this day.

The 303-hectare site with 28 pavilions once accommodated as many as 2,500 patients.

In addition to the three dozen pavilions, technical facilities were built: water tanks, a boiler house, power facility, kitchen, laundry, warehouses, workshops, administrative and residential buildings, an agricultural farm and the hospital’s own cemetery.

The architect of the building was the then well-known Václav Roštlapil, who, in addition to the Straka Academy and the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, also built a similar institute for mental patients in Vienna. Both of these institutes were at the time the largest and most modern in Austria-Hungary.

See the rest here.

Author: Klára Stejskalová, Sources:Český rozhlas,ČTK

Capybaras resemble huge guinea pigs in their appearance. Visitors to the Prague Zoo will see them here after ten years. Photo by Oliver Le Que, Prague Zoo

Extremely popular capybaras are returning to the Prague Zoo after years. This Saturday, November 11, at 11 a.m., representatives of the zoo will present them to the public.

The capybaras will inhabit the enclosure together with the anthills in the lower part of the zoo, where Saturday’s event will also take place. It will also include the launch of sales of a new collection of capybara t-shirts designed by illustrator Štěpán Mareš.

The motivation for returning to their breeding was, among other things, the enormous popularity of the world’s largest rodents and the public’s interest in them. This results from the existence of many videos on social networks that have brought unprecedented popularity to capybaras.

Capybaras have a barrel-shaped body, short legs, and a prismatic head with eyes and ears set on top of it. This makes it easier for them to stay in the water, in which they spend a lot of time, while they also dive well. They live in groups in the vast territory of South America from Panama to the north of Argentina.

More information can be found here: https://www.zoopraha.cz/aktualne/akce-v-zoo-praha/14443-kapybary-se-vraci-do-zoo-praha

At the same time, Prague Zoo will spectacularly celebrate the Indian festival of lights, Diwali. Feeding Indian animals, henna painting on the body, free yoga lessons for visitors, or face painting for children – all this awaits visitors throughout Saturday. The program traditionally culminates with a lantern procession through a darkened garden and a light show in Elephant Valley. The complete schedule of the day can be found here: https://www.zoopraha.cz/aktualne/akce-v-zoo-praha/14426-diwai-2023

An expert panel debate on the topic of cooperation within Central Europe took place on November 7, 2023 in the Chamber of Deputies.

The debate, which was initiated and opened by the Speaker of the House Markéta Pekarová Adamová, was held in the lower parliamentary chamber in cooperation with the Association for International Issues.

In her introductory speech, the Speaker of the House mentioned the common history, interests, and problems of the Central European countries and emphasized the need to find common solutions.

In the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, an expert panel debate was held today entitled Czech Republic and the possibilities of cooperation in Central Europe.

“Our entire region faces significant challenges. Of course, common history does not guarantee that we have the same views or that we automatically follow the same interests. Often it can be the exact opposite,” stated Markéta Pekarová Adamová, the chairwoman of the Chamber of Deputies and the initiator of the meeting, in her introductory speech, and added: “Nevertheless, a number of links are worth mentioning. Central Europe has long been an advocate of strong transatlantic relations. We are pro-export and open economies and have a common interest in the most liberal trade and economic cooperation with the USA. Last but not least, we are also united by strong support for the state of Israel, which is important both in the context of the ongoing struggle of the Jewish state with terrorists from the Hamas movement and also in the long-term effort for a more balanced position of the European Union towards the Middle East as such.”

“We very often talk about regional formats – V4 or Slavkovská group. But first of all, we should talk about what goals we are actually pursuing and only then decide how and within which formats to promote them. After all, a safe and prosperous Central Europe is our common task,” added the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

The debate, which took place in the lower chamber of the Czech Parliament in cooperation with the Association for International Affairs, loosely followed on from a series of earlier expert meetings and round tables dedicated to current global challenges and problems, as well as the active role of modern parliamentary diplomacy in solving them.

On Sunday, November 12, the traditional Goodwill Benefit Concert for the Goodwill Committee – Olga Havlova Foundation (VDV) will take place. In the concert hall of the church of St. Šimon and Judy will perform in the Old Town, and this year the Barocco semper giovane chamber ensemble with leading Czech oboist Vilém Veverka and the boys’ choir Pueri gaudentes will offer an exceptional musical experience. For the twenty-eighth time, the Kocián Šolc Balaštík law office is organizing a benefit concert for VDV. Proceeds from the entrance fee will be used by the foundation for one of the projects chosen by the concertgoers. Unless they decide otherwise, the proceeds of the concert will go to the Senior Project.

“Benefit concerts have been a proven combination of friendly meetings, musical art, and charity for almost thirty years.

We thank our partners and all donors for their long-term support, we appreciate it very much,” says Monika Granja, director of the Goodwill Committee – Olga Havlové Foundation. Concertgoers can look forward to music from the workshops of baroque composers J.S. Bach, A.L. Vivaldi, and G.P. Telemann performed by the chamber ensemble Barocco semper giovane, which will perform with leading Czech oboist Vilém Veverka. In the second half of the concert, the famous boys’ choir Pueri gaudentes will perform.

During the period of cooperation with the Kocián Šolc Balaštík law firm, the foundation was able to distribute more than 25 million crowns from the proceeds of 27 concerts to help those in need. “It is an honor and brings us joy that together with our clients, professional colleagues, friends, and families we can support the activities of VDV through these concerts,” says Helena Navrátilová, tax partner of the Kocián Šolc Balaštík law office.

Funds collected from this year’s concert will be used by the foundation for one of the projects chosen by the concert-goers. Unless they decide otherwise, the proceeds of the concert will go to the Senior Project. As part of it, the foundation cooperates with non-state non-profit organizations that effectively ensure the best possible care for seniors who are largely dependent on charitable assistance for various reasons.

Thanks to all sponsors, partners, and guests who decided to make a financial donation in addition to purchasing a ticket.

A team of enthusiasts from Oslavany near Brno are building a replica of a Viking boat from the 12th century. The eight-metre boat is called Gislinge, after the Danish village where the original was discovered, and should be launched in the spring of next year. The remains of the original Viking vessel were excavated by archaeologists in 1993 in Gislinge, a village located on the reclaimed Lammerfjord.

Analysis of the timber established that the boat was built around the year 1130 and it was most likely used for fishing and transporting both goods and people.

A team of enthusiasts from the town of Oslavany in Moravia are now completing an exact copy of the Viking vessel, using local ash and oak trees.

See the rest here.

There were more tourists in the 3rd quarter than before the pandemic

More tourists visited the Czech Republic in the 3rd quarter of this year than in the pre-Covid 2019 year. Almost 7.9 million of them arrived, of which more than 4.8 million (61.3%) were domestic guests and over 3 million (38.7%) foreign guests. Year-on-year, this means an increase in the total number of tourists in the Czech Republic by 8% and also by 4% more travelers compared to the period before the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the ratio between domestic and foreign visitors has changed.

While residents, if we take the 3rd quarter of 2023 and the same period of 2019, traveled in the Czech Republic by 15% more, foreigners arrived by 9% less. The countries where tourists from abroad most often came from did not change much. This year, in the 3rd quarter, the largest number of Germans arrived (689,683, +19% year-on-year. They were followed by guests from Poland (286,118, +15% year-on-year), Slovakia (281,891, +7% year-on-year), the USA (165,999, year-on-year +19 %) and the Netherlands (116,776, year-on-year +18%).

“The good news is that the total number of arrivals from the TOP 5 countries also generally increased compared to the 3rd quarter of 2019. It is so obvious that it makes a lot of sense to target these markets with foreign campaigns, this year including our main Unexpected Traditions campaign, where the 2nd autumn wave is currently running and in mid-November, we will launch the 3rd wave focused on winter and mountains,” says František Reismüller, director of the Czech Tourism Center – adding: “In general, Czechs traveling in the Czech Republic spend on average person and day less than guests from abroad. However, while Czechs traveling around the Czech Republic spent more per person and day last year than before the pandemic (CZK 802 vs. 704), foreigners, on the contrary, spent less. Last year it was CZK 1,907, but in 2019 it was CZK 2,203. The potential of guests from abroad for the domestic economy is therefore more than obvious, and we are working intensively to get them to the Czech Republic.”

In the 3rd quarter of 2023, the largest number of tourists stayed in the capital city of Prague, approximately 2.2 million of them. This was followed by the South Moravian region with approx. 870 thousand guests and the South Bohemian region, where a total of approx. 807 thousand travelers stayed overnight.

“The regions most visited by tourists do not change much. Prague, South Moravia, and South Bohemia are in the top five most visited regions. However, while for Czech residents in the 3rd quarter of this year, the regional ranking of visitors was South Bohemia, South Moravia, Hradec Králové, Central Bohemia, Liberec Region, and Prague, for foreigners our capital was in the lead, followed by South Moravia, Karlovy Vary, South Bohemia and Hradec Králové Region,” says the head of the Czech Tourism Institute head office of the tourism industry – Petr Janeček and adds: “A greater regional distribution of travelers is of course beneficial for the Czech Republic, it helps with the sustainability of the tourism industry as well as the fact that we regularly publish an overview of undiscovered gems throughout the country in cooperation with the regions.”

At the same time, direct air connections play a fundamental role in the tourism industry. CzechTourism works intensively on them with Prague Airport and other entities. This year, among other things, the lines Prague – Seoul and Prague – Taipei were put into operation, and work is being done in the following years. The fact that this activity makes sense is confirmed by the figures for the 3rd quarter of 2023. They show that the number of guests from Asia is growing in the Czech Republic. From January to September this year, 206% more residents of South Korea arrived in the Czech Republic than in the same period last year, 156% more Japanese and even 1,196% more Taiwanese. Thanks to the lifting of COVID restrictions, there were also significantly more travelers from China, by 135%, and other Asian countries increased the number of visitors to the Czech Republic by a total of 37% compared to the 3rd quarter of 2022.

Details are available at https://tourdata.cz/data/navstevnost-huz-2012-2022/.

Photo: Mathis Elias-Jean, Radio Prague International

Debate is still going on over whether to knock down Prague’s Vyšehrad Railway Bridge. Some interested parties say it may only remain in place if it is expanded from the current two tracks to three. However, the group Nebourat (Don’t Demolish) on Wednesday presented data on the bridge’s capacity that they say proves even that change is unneeded. I spoke to Nebourat’s Pavel Štorch, who is a Green Party politician.

“The owner of the bridge, Správa železnic, the Rail Network Administration, is pushing forward with its plan to demolish the bridge.

“What we have shown is that this decision isn’t fact-based. Because one of the most important claims, that there would be a capacity problem and a third track needs to be installed, isn’t necessary.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Miroslav Kobza, Czech Radio

Vincenz Priessnitz, the founder of modern hydrotherapy, was born in the Olomouc Region. He founded a spa near the town of Jeseník that successfully applies his curative methods to this day.

Vincenz Priessnitz was the son of a local crofter and an unusually talented young man with great intuition, observation skills, and common sense. From his first attempts at healing animals and himself, he was able to move on to treating the injuries of other people and eventually established a world-renowned hydrotherapy spa.

At the age of sixteen, Vincenz was seriously injured when a load of wood fell from a horse-drawn carriage and crushed his chest, breaking several ribs. The doctors of the time offered little help with what was then considered a severely debilitating injury. Their treatment, a combination of leeches, hot compresses and rest, produced no results and so Vincenz started treating himself. The chief archivist of Jeseník, Květoslav Krovka explains.

See the rest here.

Authors: Daniela Lazarová, Vít Pohanka, Source:Český rozhlas

The NGI Forum 2023, a flagship event of the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, is set to take place on November 15-16, 2023. With a forward-looking theme, “NGI Forum 2023: Unlocking the Power of Digital Commons,” the event promises to be a convergence of brilliant minds, innovators, and change-makers, all poised to dissect and discuss the trajectories of the internet’s future, with a laser focus on the revolutionary concept of the Digital Commons.

The NGI Forum 2023 will be a hybrid event happening at the Blue Point venue in Brussels and streamed live online. The Forum will offer participants from around the world the opportunity to engage with the latest developments in the digital landscape. This event serves as a dynamic hub for visionary thinkers, policymakers, and technologists to delve into the forefront of Europe’s digital transformation.

Register for the event and delve deep into the initiatives steering Europe’s digital future.

At its core, the forum places the spotlight on the concept of the Digital Commons, which is vital for fostering equitable access to information, fuelling innovation, and bolstering digital sovereignty. The NGI Forum 2023 will explore a diverse array of topics essential to the transition to the future internet, including digital identity, quantum internet, large language models, web search, decentralized social media, and security of the open-source supply chain.

This year’s edition will feature an opening speech deliver by Roberto Viola, Director-General of DG Connect (Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content, and Technology) at the European Commission, who will delve into the impact of the NGI initiative and the European commitment of advancing a human-centric internet that is safe, open, responds to environmental challenges and adheres to the Declaration European Digital Rights and Principles.

Henri Verdier, French ambassador for Digital Affairs and a key figure in digital diplomacy, will deliver an inspirational talk on the potential of digital commons to underpin the transition to the future internet on the first day of the event. On the second day, Jesse Robbers, Co-Founder and Executive Board Member of Quantum Delta NL, will provide insights into building the Quantum Internet Network ecosystem. As the master of ceremony, Jennifer Baker, renowned as “Brussels Geek”, will help the audience to navigate the plethora of possibilities and challenges in building the internet of humans. Additionally, workshops will be held in the evening of day 2, covering a range of topics, from licensing and copyright to ethics in NGI search and digital identity.

The mission of NGI is to re-imagine and re-engineer the internet. It is an initiative of the European Commission designed to support European research and innovation efforts aimed at creating an Internet of Trust, empowering end-users with more choice and control over their data and digital identity. Over more than four years in operation, NGI has nurtured a unique ecosystem of innovators dedicated to open source and open data. NGI has supported projects that contribute to user-centric solutions, such as CryptPad, Searx, Mastodon, and many more.. Join us at NGI Forum 2023 to be part of the conversation and the change. For more information and registration details, please visit the official website of the NGI Forum.

About NGI Forum:

The NGI Forum is the flagship event of the European Commission’s Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative, bringing together innovators, policymakers, and technologists to advance a safer, open, and citizen-centric Internet. NGI Forum explores topics that underpin the transition to the future internet, focusing on the concept of the Digital Commons, equitable access to information, innovation, and digital sovereignty. Learn more at https://ngiforum2023.eu/

About NGI Initiative:

The Next Generation Internet (NGI) is a European Commission initiative that aims to shape the development and evolution of the Internet into an Internet of Trust according to the vision of the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles. An open Internet that responds to people’s fundamental needs, including trust, security, and inclusion, while reflecting the values and the norms all citizens enjoy in Europe.

Photo: CinemArt

A new documentary explores the story of the Mašín brothers group, three members of which shot their way from Communist Czechoslovakia to the West in 1953. Escape to Berlin, featuring extensive interviews with the now elderly Josef Mašín and his sister Zdena, is written and directed by Jan Novák. I spoke to him ahead of next week’s cinema release of the film.

“I have been working on this story for half my life. I wrote a book, which I later adapted into a radio version. Then I used a screenplay that I wrote – and originally sold to Tomáš Mašín [distant relation], the author of the [recent fiction] film Bratři, Brothers – as a comic book.

“Finally now I’m doing this documentary, because I think it’s a really important story and unfortunately here in the Czech Republic people still have a very strange idea of what the Mašíns accomplished and did.”

The tagline is that it’s one of the greatest stories of the Cold War. What make it such a great story?

“It’s the hunt in East Germany, where up to 30,000 East German and Soviet troops are hunting down five young men. The Germans lose at least 10 people, some of them to friendly fire.

“And three of those guys make it to West Berlin and become American citizens eventually. Two are caught along the way and are hung in Prague in 1955.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Mapamátky

Mapamátky is a Czech association dedicated to popularising Prague’s architecture. As part of their activity, they created a web app motivating people to go outside and explore the city. It originated during the Covid lockdown as a university assignment, and has since developed into a professional project, offering more than a dozen thematic walks through the Czech capital that can be downloaded for free. Mapamátky, which combines the Czech words for maps and sites, recently launched its English version. On the occasion, I discussed the project with one of its founders, Marie Zákostelecká:

“The project was created during our studies of Arts Management at the University of Economics in Prague, but since then we have been developing it on our own with my friends and colleagues.

“It was first created during the hardest Covid lockdown, and the assignment was to create some online event for people, since they couldn’t attend any other cultural events.

See the rest here

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: ČT

In today’s Sunday music show we’ll be commemorating the great Czech conductor Zdeněk Mácal, who passed away last week at the age of 87. During his long career, Mácal conducted more than 170 major orchestras in four continents, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the London Royal Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, and the Chicago and Boston Symphony Orchestras.

See the rest here.

Authors: Markéta Kaňková, Ruth Fraňková, Anna Fodor, Source:iROZHLAS.cz

A group of Czech specialists have teamed up with conservation workers at the Mkomazi National Park in Tanzania to track and study the movement of lions. The team placed trackable collars on selected lions this past October in order to collect data that will help conservation workers protect them. I spoke with Michal Šťastný from Dvůr Králové Safari Park about the initiative.

See the rest here.

Photo: Barbora Navrátilová, Radio Prague International

Visitors to Prague Airport can now see a large and quite stunning 3D portrait of Václav Havel comprised of items associated with him and the Velvet Revolution he led. These include keys, typewriters and even a barrel of beer.

The anamorphic work is by Czech artist Patrik Proško, who has made similar objects in the past capturing the likenesses of Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, Tomáš Baťa and Nikola Tesla.

He used thousands of items to create a highly recognizable image of dissident turned president Havel – if the whole is seen from a certain angle.

Objects such as a sign for Prague’s Národní Street, model yellow and white pre-1989 police cars, dial telephones, vinyl records and recording equipment are among those included on an area of roughly six by six metres.

Proško says it took him four months to put the whole thing together.

The portrait of Václav Havel should be in place at Terminal 2 at Prague’s Václav Havel Airport for at least a year.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

The annual Gender Equality Index report amongst EU member states was released recently, with Czechia placing 25th out of the 27 EU member states. The report ranks nations based on factors such as power, money, and education to understand the position of women in society. To learn more about the situation in Czechia, I spoke with Lucie Hrdá, a feminist and lawyer based in Prague specializing in sexual and domestic violence.

“I think that it is a very touchy subject – if you mention it, you’re labelled as an angry feminist. This is one of the main problems, if you don’t talk about it, the issue will not just vanish, and in fact it will continue to grow. We don’t talk about the consequences of one of the longest maternity leaves here in Czechia, we don’t talk about pay gaps or the mental load that women take on, we just don’t talk about these issues.”

See the rest here.

Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Photo: Office of Czech Government

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala left Prague on Friday for an eight-day trip to Africa, during which he is visiting the east and west African countries of Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. Although primarily a trade mission, the trip is also intended to deepen cooperation in other areas such as security and migration.

Addressing the Czech-Ethiopian Business Forum in Addis Ababa this weekend, Prime Minister Fiala told the assembled business leaders that Czechia needed to deepen trade relations with Ethiopia beyond importing the country’s legendary coffee.

The main purpose of the prime minister’s trip is to conclude new contracts and find new business opportunities, so accompanying him is a roughly twenty-member-strong business delegation representing several sectors, as Jan Rafaj, president of the Union of Industry and Transport, which organised the trade mission, details.

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Authors: Anna Fodor, Tomáš Havlín, Magdalena Fajtová, Anna Horáčková, Source:Český rozhlas

Photo: Petr Košárek, © Český egyptologický ústav FF UK

Czech Egyptologists have made another important discovery in Abusir – the roughly 2,500-year-old tomb of a young royal scribe. Together with other recent archaeological finds in the area, this newly discovered tomb gives researchers a better understanding of the changes that took place in Egypt and the surrounding area in the 5th and 6th centuries BC.

The tomb of the hitherto unknown dignitary, a certain Djehutyemhat, dates from the time of the Persian invasion of Egypt. Only the shaft, the part of the tomb below ground, was found preserved, at the bottom of which, at a depth of 14 metres, lies a burial chamber built of limestone blocks. Inside the burial chamber is a large stone sarcophagus, covered with relief decoration bearing hieroglyphic inscriptions and depictions of Ancient Egyptian gods.

The medium-sized burial chamber, measuring 3.2 m long, 2.6 m wide and 1.9 m high, is itself also decorated with inscriptions and drawings, as Ladislav Bareš from the Czech Institute of Egyptology details.

“The burial chamber is decorated in the usual style of the time for important dignitaries, even though this person was only a middle-ranking clerk. There are inscriptions that were meant to help ease his journey into the afterlife and guarantee him eternal bliss. They are almost exclusively religious texts, but there are also the names of his parents and specific formulations, for example a set of sayings which were supposed to protect him from snakes.”

Interestingly, the snakes mentioned in these magical texts represented both potential danger and powerful protection for the deceased. However, the inscriptions were unfortunately not able to protect the tomb completely – Djehutyemhat’s burial chamber was almost empty when it was discovered, as like other tombs in this area, it had been robbed sometime around the 5th century AD.

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Authors: Anna Fodor, Hanka Shánělová, Sources:Univerzita Karlova,iROZHLAS.cz

Photo: Martin Pařízek, Český rozhlas

Czech scientists are developing a new technology that could help in accidents involving radioactive materials. Called the RaDron, it combines autonomous drones with unique particle detectors, which can expose even unknown sources of radiation.

Scientists from the Multirobotic Systems Group at the Czech Technical University’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering have long been involved in developing advanced autonomous drones.

In the past, they have worked, for instance, on a fire extinguisher for skyscrapers, and they can program swarms of drones that search for people lost in the wild.

Tomáš Báča, one of the members of the team, explains what makes the latest task particularly challenging:

“What is specific about this task is that we are measuring something that is not visible. With drones, we usually use conventional cameras or lidars, which provide us with data that we can easily understand. But when we measure radiation that is not visible to the human eye, it is something very special.”

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Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Ondřej Vaňura

Photo: Vít Pohanka, Radio Prague International

You can meet them wherever you go in America, from New York in the East, to San Francisco and Los Angeles in the West, from Chicago in the North to Houston and Miami in the South. But it is in the Midwestern states where you can find whole cities and towns with a very kind of pronounced feeling of Czech Heritage.

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Author: Vít Pohanka

Photo: Thomas Slepička

How do you bring up children in bilingual and bicultural families? On the one hand, it is potentially a great advantage if the kids get this educational and learning impulse and live in two cultures at the same time. On the other hand, it is not easy to balance the influences of the two nationalities or ethnicities.

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Author: Vít Pohanka

Photo: Zuzana Jarolímková, iROZHLAS.cz

Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský on Monday met for talks with his newly-appointed Slovak counterpart Juraj Blanár from the ruling SMER party, which has indicated a U-turn in the country’s support for Ukraine. The meeting was viewed as an indicator of how far the change-of-guard in Slovakia could cool relations between the neighbor states and the Visegrad Group.

The meeting of foreign ministers was the first top-level contact between the Czech centre-right Fiala administration and the cabinet of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico who earlier announced he intended to halt military aid to Ukraine and said that he was not going to support any sanctions against Russia that would hurt his country.

Many predicted a cooling in relations between the two neighbours, who spent over 70 years in a common state before going their separate ways 30 years ago. However, after Monday’s talks, the foreign ministers went out of their way to smooth any rough edges, saying that despite differences of opinion on certain issues, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have exceptionally close ties and would continue to cooperate closely in areas where they have common interests, such as pushing for a viable European migration pact. Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said he was happy with the outcome of the talks.

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Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Czech Academy of Sciences

The week of the Czech Academy of Sciences started on Monday, commencing six days of programming that presents the latest and most important findings of modern scientific research in Czechia. Around 400 events are taking place in 22 locations around the country. Eliška Zvolánková from the press department of the Academy of Sciences told me more.

“The week of the Czech Academy of Sciences tries to bring the best and most recent research and its results to the broadest audience. To do so, we offer many lectures, exhibitions, workshops, movies with discussions, games, and science shows.”

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Source: Crestyl

One of biggest construction projects in Prague at present is the renovation and extension of the city centre Savarin Palace. Behind the 1.7 hectare complex, which should house Alphonse Mucha’s Slav Epic, are developers Crestyl, who are also creating the capital’s new Hagibor housing complex. The firm’s COO and managing director for Czechia is Englishman Simon Johnson. For the lowdown on its projects – and his own background – I spoke to Johnson at Prague Crestyl’s HQ at the highly impressive Libeň Dock, which the company also built.

What brought you to Prague back in the ‘90s?

“A simple answer: I worked for a big British construction company. They had opened an office in Prague and they were looking for English-speaking staff who were core employees to spend some time in Prague.

“So I was brought over here for a year. After staying for a year I got a couple of jobs, I got a couple of contracts, for Bovis, stayed – and then the rest is history.”

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Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Charles Games

Charles Games incorporates history and social issues into their games. The World War II period appears in Attentat 1942, the pitfalls of modern technology in DigiStories Nela. This makes them good teaching material. “You learn about history, you learn some dates. But we don’t want our games to be primarily educational,” says Ondřej Trhoň of Charles Games. In their latest creation, they are looking at the impact of armed conflicts on children.

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Author: Barbora Navrátilová

Photo: Český Krumlov Region

The Egon Schiele Art Centre, one of the most popular attractions in Český Krumlov, first opened its doors in 1993.

The Austrian Expressionist painter Egon Schiele died at only 28. However, he spent spells of his short life in the pretty South Bohemian town of Český Krumlov, where his mother was born and which he knew by its German name, Krumau.

An art centre dedicated to the great artist was opened in Český Krumlov, one of the most visited towns in Czechia, in 1993 and is still going strong today.

During its 30-year existence, the venue’s biggest hit was a Pablo Picasso exhibition, which attracted 90,000 visitors. At present, it offers a display of posters commemorating previous exhibitions.

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Author: Klára Stejskalová

Photo: Václav Šálek, ČTK

A very strong Aurora borealis brightened the sky above the northern horizon of Czechia on Sunday night.

Source:ČTK

The capybara in the yuzu bath in the picture, which also appeared on the official Twitter profile of the Japanese government in December 2021.

You wanted them, so you will have them. Capybaras are coming back to Prague Zoo. Probably the most popular animals in the world at the moment. At least in the world of social networks, where they appear in countless memes with huge numbers of shares.

Capybara, which occurs in South America, is the largest living rodent in general; large specimens reach a weight of over sixty kilograms. It has a robust barrel-shaped body on short legs and a large prismatic head with nostrils, eyes and ears located close to the crown. It lives in groups of dozens of individuals and is an excellent swimmer and diver. Undoubtedly, an unmissable animal, but still: How is it possible that it has become an absolute phenomenon of meme culture?

A significant date for the incredible rise in online popularity of capybaras was September 10, 2020, when a meme appeared on You Tube combining a video of a capybara riding in a passenger seat of a car with the rapper Don Toliver’s hit “After Party”. This act began to be copied, modified and followed. In mid-2022 then a Russian band Sto-Litchnyy Ona-Nas released a song “Capybara”, which later took over TikTok in extremely successful memes.

Of course, this massive mainstream had its sources and larger as well as smaller tributaries. Japan can be considered the cradle of capybara’s popularity. Already in 2000, the toy manufacturer Bandai introduced a successful anime character named Kapibara-san there. However, the real pioneer was the photographer Katsuhito Watanabe, who in early 2007 set up a photography blog with a capybara theme, and later also a You Tube channel and profiles on social networks. As he says, his life revolves around capybaras: he spends more than 100 days a year in zoos by taking their photos and he takes over 100,000 pictures every year. The last time he drew significant attention was December 2018, when he tweeted a video of several capybaras in a traditional Japanese yuzu bath. By the way, Nagasaki Bio Park, which also offers the visitors a possibility to pet these rodents, is probably most famous for its special spa for capybaras.

Also, Argentina contributed significantly to the fame of capybaras, thanks to the so-called “Nordelta riots”. Nordelta was built on the site of wetlands in a beautiful landscape north of Buenos Aires and is a home to the wealthiest people. In Nordelta, the wealthy residents are isolated from the surrounding world, however capybaras did not respect that and “invaded” Nordelta in the summer of 2021. They destroyed manicured lawns, bit dogs, caused traffic accidents, and their excrements were the biggest problem of all. This led to an effort to start reducing them, but capybaras found massive support on social networks. The fact that a lot of users not only in Argentina, but also worldwide, started to portray them as a symbol of the class struggle against the rich, somehow became part of the matter…

Simply expressed, thanks to all of this, capybaras have achieved a global popularity and there is no wonder that also our visitors desired them more and more. So, their time will come next Saturday.

Richard is the leader of the male lowland gorilla group that lives in the Méfou Center pavilion in the lower part of the Prague Zoo. His enchanting gaze has left an impression on many thousands of visitors of all generations over the past two decades. Photo by Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

The famous male gorilla Richard has lived in the Prague Zoo for 20 years. On Saturday, November 4, two decades will pass since the arrival of the silver-backed founder of the local breeding and the father of all gorilla cubs to date in the Prague Zoo. An extraordinary program has been prepared for this day in the Méfou Center pavilion – a presentation of gifts to Richard, commented meetings with the gorillas, and free thematic face painting for children’s visitors.

“Richard is the most famous animal personality of our zoo,” says the director of the Prague Zoo, Miroslav Bobek. “I got to know him thoroughly years ago on the set of the ‘slightly different reality show’ Revelations, and he made me realize that gorillas really are just slightly different people.

Richard is the epitome of a true animal ambassador for the wild. With his presence, a significant part of the public became interested in and contributed to the protection of gorillas. Let’s also not forget that Richard is the father of the first baby gorilla in our country – the famous Moji – and soon he will become a great-grandfather thanks to Moji’s daughter Duni.”

Moja’s ten-year-old daughter Duni, who traveled to the Prague Zoo from Cabárcena in Spain last September, is currently pregnant. If all goes well, she should give birth at the end of this year. With a bit of luck, the Prague Zoo will welcome its first baby gorilla in almost eight years. At the same time, it will be the first addition to the new breeding group led by male Kisum in the Dja Reserve pavilion.

Richard will be 32 years old on November 9. Among gorillas in human care, old age is not an issue, and Richard therefore has many active years ahead of him. Photo by Oliver Le Que, Prague Zoo

Richard continues to live in the original gorilla pavilion, at the Méfou Centre, together with his two sons. “Richard, Kiburi and Nuru form a kind of gentlemen’s club. It is a natural social structure that we call a youth group. Here, too, Richard fulfills the role of the dominant male and the group is more stable thanks to his presence,” explains head primate keeper Martin Vojáček. According to him, the famous male is enjoying a well-deserved rest. “Without the responsibility of a family group of females with cubs, Richard is noticeably calmer and more balanced,” she adds.

Richard was born on November 9, 1991 in Frankfurt am Main, which means that he is also approaching his 32nd birthday. He came to the Prague Zoo in November 2003 from Paignton, UK, and the following year Moja was born to him and the female Kijiva. A total of five of his descendants live today in the Prague Zoo or in other European gardens.

Richard is about 170 cm tall and the needle on the scale shows the same number of kilograms under his weight. His favorite foods include tomatoes, carrots, and special primate biscuits.

Saturday’s celebratory program at the Méfou Center
10.30 and 15.00 Presentation of a special “gift basket” to Richard and his sons
12.00, 13.00, 14.00 Commented meetings with gorillas
10.30–15.00 Free facepainting for children

Photo: Prague Sounds festival

The Prague Sounds music festival is set to kick off on Tuesday, ushering in more than two weeks of performances, with concerts ranging from classic jazz to hip-hop. On the eve of the event – formerly known as Strings of Autumn – I spoke with head programmer, Guy Borg.

“We’re now in our 27th year, and we are happy to be considered one of the premier festivals here in Prague. Our approach to programming is quite eclectic, and we tend to not worry too much about genre distinctions, and try to illuminate relationships between genres. For example in this year’s program, we have everything from electronic music, to hip-hop, to jazz, and contemporary classical music.”

I’m curious where you get your sources of inspiration from for the programming of the festival?

“We are all super passionate about music at the festival, and our music tastes are quite diverse, just like the festival programming. We often try to choose artists whose concepts we feel shed interesting light on the other concerts around them in the programming. For instance, this year we have jazz legend Ron Carter, the bassist who played with Miles Davis, and he is performing on his last European tour, so it’s a fairly big event. On the other end of the spectrum, we have a British rapper called Kofi Stone who is just starting out and has a great future ahead of him.”

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Photo: Czech Radio

With a career spanning over two decades, 41-year-old Czech professional ice hockey player Tomáš Plekanec announced his retirement from the game on Saturday evening. Known as ‘Pleky’ by his devoted fans, he spent more than a decade with NHL team the Montreal Canadiens, and also played for the Czech national team, leading the squad as captain in the 2018 World Championships. To learn more about the legacy he will leave on the ice, I spoke with Radiožurnál sports reporter, František Kuna.

“As a player, he had a great heart – and Czech fans love him because when he played at the World Championships or for the Czech National team, he showed up. He played at 11 World Championships, and that was because many times the Montreal Canadiens did not make the playoffs, so he had the time to play for the Czech national team. For his opponents, they wanted to play with him, but not against him. He could be a little bit tough to play against.”

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

The Olomouc Region is located in the north-western and central part of Moravia. Spreading over an area of just over 5,000 square kilometers, it is the 6th largest region in the country. The region’s assets include the university town of Olomouc, the fairytale landscape of Bouzov and the spa Karlova Studánka with the cleanest air in Central Europe.

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Author: Vít Pohanka

Olga Havlová’s fourth Tree was planted in front of the Charity Nový Hrozenkov building on the day of the celebration of the 105th anniversary of the establishment of independent Czechoslovakia. With this act, the picturesque Wallachian village joined the campaign of the Committee of Good Will – Olga Havlova Foundation (VDV) called Olga is here with us and commemorated the 90th birthday of the founder of the foundation Mrs. Olga.

Five years ago, 85 Olga Havlová trees were planted at ceremonial gatherings across the country in honor of her 85th birthday, which at that time did not live long. In the annual 2023, the foundation followed up by planting five more Olga Havlová trees and unveiling a commemorative plaque. An ornamental apple tree was planted in Nový Hrozenkov.

The ceremony in Nový Hrozenkov was attended by the director of Charity Nový Hrozenkov Lenka Vráželová and the director emeritus Danuše Martinková in addition to representatives of the foundation. The imaginary anthem of the commemorative year 2023, Song for Olga, by the singer and composer Aneta Langerová, was performed by Markéta Petřeková and Simona Pekařová, who also accompanied themselves on dulcimer and violin.

Each of the meetings at the newly planted Olga Havlová Tree is connected to one of the areas that were essential for Mrs. Olga and to which the foundation is dedicated.

In Nový Hrozenkov, the theme was “Help for the elderly”. The foundation has long been providing assistance to civic associations and charitable institutions that create an offer of an active way of life for the oldest generation and a humanly dignified experience of old age for those who can no longer take care of themselves. One of these organizations is Charita Nový Hrozenkov, which assists the elderly with a wide range of services. The area of the border region of Wallachia is specific from the point of view of the provision of care services and field services in general. It is located in an area of 24,000 ha, with a population of 16,000, of which 20-30% are seniors. There is no major city here, only seven smaller villages with many valleys. It is not just about the actions of the care service, but about a short meeting with each user. Many times it has already been possible to save someone’s life by calling a doctor or providing other necessary services.

At the commemorative event, the director of the foundation, Monika Granja, also mentioned the extraordinary collection Gifts for Olga, the aim of which is to collect a symbolic 900,000 crowns to help disadvantaged people. Successfully reaching the target amount and then distributing it to those in need would be the best birthday present for her.

More about the Gift for Olga collection at https://olgahavlova.cz/

A new study from the FOOD Barometer survey commissioned by the Czech Chamber of Commerce sheds light on how Czechs eat on a daily basis. The study revealed that Czechs are much less guided by the nutritional value of foods, and that while awareness of the importance of healthy eating is improving – the country still drags behind the European average, and Czechs often wait to change their diet only upon advice from medical experts. To discuss the results, I spoke with Prague based nutritionist, Valerija Gerfanova.

There’s a famous Czech expression about eating habits and nutrition in the country: breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dine like a peasant. What do you think of this saying?

“From the perspective of a nutritionist, the underlying concept here emphasizes the importance of fuelling the body when it’s most active, and reducing consumption when it’s less so. But it’s crucial to note that individual needs vary from person to person – some people might thrive on a heavy breakfast, while others do not feel hungry early in the day. In this case, it should be really personalized and dependent on each person’s lifestyle, on the work or type of work each person does. Some people may not need to eat three times a day always.”

This study also points to affordability as a barrier for Czechs to purchase nutritious food. Have you seen this in your practice?

“Yes, in many parts of the world and including the Czech Republic, there is a genuine concern that healthier foods are more expensive than processed or fast foods. For many people it’s a huge barrier to choosing nutritious foods. The word ‘bio’ or organic does not mean healthier food. We should look at the amount of nutrients in each food, and in my practice the complex issues like agriculture policy, socio-economic factors, access to fresh food markets, all of these are related to people’s consumption of quality, nutritious foods. It’s not about the price, it’s about people’s knowledge of quality, healthy foods.”

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

For more than 50 years, actor and singer Václav Neckář has been captivating and entertaining radio listeners with his voice. This past weekend, just two days shy of his 80th birthday, Neckář was inducted into the prestigious Czech Radio Hall of Fame. The singer is the second recipient of this award in the field of music.

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Photo: Tomáš Vodňanský, Czech Radio

Developers Penta Real Estate have completed work on the Masaryčka building complex by Prague’s Masaryk railway station. It was designed by the UK’s Zaha Hadid Studios and is regarded as one of the boldest projects of its kind in the Czech capital in some years.

The final part of the golden facade was unveiled on Monday by representatives of the company, headed by Penta co-owner Marek Dospiva.

The construction of the two buildings that make up Masaryčka began in March 2021and the total investment was CZK 2.5 billion.

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Author: Ian Willoughby