AuthorMartin Hladík

Photo: Amelia Mola-Schmidt, Radio Prague International

At CAMP, the Centre for Architecture and Metropolitan Planning in downtown Prague, a new exhibit presents a mosaic of everyday life in the city through the eyes of Dutch photographer Iwaan Baan. The exhibit features thousands of images of Prague, shot on the ground level and from a birds eye view.

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová held talks on 7.6.2023 with her Korean counterpart Kim Jin-pyo in Prague. The main topics were Czech-Korean cooperation in the political and economic fields. The President, who visited Korea in March this year, also invited her counterpart to the Parliamentary Summit of the International Crimean Platform. Its second year will take place in Prague this October.

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, held talks with the Chairman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea, Kim Jin-pyo, in Prague.

“Our countries share the same democratic values. However, their preservation in the world is not automatically guaranteed. Last year he confirmed that this is not an empty phrase. Ukraine is at war with Russia because of its decision to embrace these values and build a democratic, prosperous country based on the rule of law and respect for basic human rights and freedoms. That is why I invited Mr. Chairman to Prague for the October session of the second annual Parliamentary Summit of the International Crimean Platform. I am sure that his experience and knowledge will be enriching for the participants in the meeting and that we will continue the broader discussion about the defense of our shared values,” said the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, immediately after the meeting.

The two officials also discussed Czech-Korean business cooperation. “The Republic of Korea is the third largest investor in the Czech Republic and the second most important trading partner of the Czech Republic in Asia. Mutual cooperation in the area of drug supplies is also progressing, which we already discussed during my first visit to Seoul in March. I am also glad that we managed to restore a direct flight between our capitals,” added the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová. As part of her trip in March, on which she was accompanied by a large business delegation, she visited, in addition to the capital Seoul, the important South Korean commercial city of Pusan.

June 6, 2023 – Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová, Speaker of the Austrian National Council Wolfgang Sobotka and Speaker of the Slovak National Council Boris Kollár jointly made a two-day working trip to Georgia. In the capital city of Tbilisi, they held talks with the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia Shalva Papuashvili, Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili and Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. The purpose of the joint negotiations was to support Georgia’s pro-Western orientation and its territorial integrity.
The delegation also visited the border of the Russian-occupied territory of South Ossetia.

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, took part in the meeting of the chairmen of the legislative assemblies of Georgia and the countries of the so-called Slavkov format (S3). In addition to the Czech Republic, it is also made up of Austria (represented at the meeting by the Chairman of the National Council Wolfgang Sobotka) and Slovakia (represented by the Chairman of the National Council Boris Kollár).

“I am glad that I was able to visit Georgia in the company of my colleagues from the Slavkov format. It is the very first joint trip abroad in this composition. Our three countries are undoubtedly among the best friends and supporters of Georgia in Europe. And this ancient country should have the ambition to belong to a united, safe, and prosperous Europe,” said the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

Monday’s program of the delegation in Tbilisi mainly included a working meeting with the Speaker of the Parliament of Georgia Shalva Papuashvili, a reception by the Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, and a meeting with Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili.

“Georgia’s representatives are facing a difficult task today. Successful integration into the structures of the European Union requires the implementation of a whole series of very demanding and not always popular reforms. However, they need to be implemented not only for the sake of the EU but above all for the sake of the Georgians themselves. Georgia still has all this ahead of it. The Czech Republic has already gone through this process and, together with Austria and Slovakia, is ready to provide our Georgian friends with their experience and support them in every possible way on the way to our common European goal. During our conversations, we did not avoid controversial topics, such as problems with freedom of speech, recent controversial statements by Georgian politicians, or political polarization. However, constructive criticism is desirable between partners,” said Speaker of the Chamber Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

On Tuesday, as part of their work program in Tbilisi, the heads of Central European parliaments set aside time for an informal discussion meeting with representatives of local civil society. The whole delegation then visited the village of Odzisi, located near the border of the Russian-occupied territory of South Ossetia.

“We want to send a clear and strong signal to Russia here. Disregarding the territorial integrity of Georgia is absolutely unacceptable! The occupation of large parts of the country and the creation of puppet “states” by Russia is a clear violation of international law. Unfortunately, we are also witnessing this in Moldova or Ukraine,” added the speaker of the House of Representatives, Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

At the end of the trip, the members of the delegation completed a presentation of the project “Sustainable development of the PLA Aragvi and local communities”, which is being implemented with the financial support of the S3 countries. “Georgia has long been one of the priority targets of Czech development and transformation cooperation programs. The meaningful, balanced and sustainable development of Georgia goes hand in hand with the hope for a better future not only for the Georgians themselves but for the entire family of European democracies,” concluded President Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

Photo: Miloš Turek, Radio Prague International

More than 1,800 churches, temples and religious sites will open their doors to the public within the 15th annual Night of Open Churches on Friday, June 2. The event includes concerts, exhibitions, and access to houses of prayer otherwise closed to the public. I spoke with Stanislav Zeman from the Prague Archbishopric and asked him how this increasingly popular tradition started.

“It started in Germany actually, in the year 2003, namely in Frankfurt and Hannover. They say it started by coincidence, by a church accidentally being left open in the evening. People were interested and sneaked in. And the clergy realized that people were interested and would welcome the chance to visit churches even in the night hours and so that is how it begun. Slowly, it spread all over Europe. For example, two years after, in 2005, Vienna joined massively, the year after that Brno – the Moravian Diocese – joined in and in the following year it went nationwide.”

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Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Adam Trachtman/Nomad Jawn Press

Immersion, translated into Czech as ‘do hloubky’, is the new and cool-looking graphic novel by Adam Trachtman that details his adventures – linguistic, itinerant, and sexual – as he joins the hordes of young Westerners heading east in the early 90s to experience the brave new world of post-Communist Europe. What they find is, in Adam’s words, “a not-so-brave visa-free world where conversational English teachers make more than doctors, beer is cheaper than water, and law enforcement is entrepreneurial.” I spoke to Adam in our studio about how he used AI to help him with the novel, what brought a poor kid from Philadelphia to Czechia, and what kept him here for 29 years. But first, I wanted to know a bit more about the plot of the book…

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Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Martin Vaniš, Radio Prague International

A replica of a Marian column torn down in 1918 was erected on Prague’s Old Town Square three years ago, in June 2020, after years of often turbulent debate.

A group called the Society for the Restoration of the Marian Column lobbied for the return of the column, which was torn down in November 1918.

They said it was a symbolic commemoration of the defenders of Prague during the Thirty Years’ War, though opponents saw it – as had its original removers – as a symbol of Habsburg domination and oppression of the nation.

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Photo: Elena Horálková, Radio Prague International

Located just off Wenceslas Square, the Lucerna Palace is an iconic building. Its rooftop terraces and passages are unique even for the historic centre of Prague. Interestingly, the palace was originally planned to be one storey higher and have an ice rink instead of its main concert hall.

The spiritual father of the Lucerna Palace was engineer, architect, and builder Vácslav Havel, grandfather of the late Czech president Václav Havel. Lucerna means lantern in Czech, and it is not known for certain why Havel chose it as the name for his project. Many locals believe that it comes from the glass façade of a nearby building on the corner of Wenceslas Square. However, that building is not part of Lucerna Palace, explains Petr Hájek, an architect who worked on the reconstruction of Lucerna’s terraces.

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Authors: Vojtěch Pohanka, Zdeňka Kuchyňová

Photo: Miloš Turek, Radio Prague International

If you ask a Czech for a good summer getaway, it is quite likely they will mention the Lipno reservoir. Built during the 1950s it is not only the largest reservoir in Czechia, but it also borders the beautiful Šumava Natural Park.

Despite being a popular destination during the holiday season, there are several spots around Lipno that remain quite serene and full of hidden secrets. Take the town of Horní Planá for example, whose central square is quite reminiscent of a park and lies just around a kilometre away from the recently built Dobrá voda lookout tower that offers lovely views over the surrounding area.

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Authors: Miloš Turek, Thomas McEnchroe

There were no goods in shops. You weren’t allowed to travel. Rock stars didn’t come to the country to perform. So how else were Czechs supposed to entertain themselves?

“Sex was one of the few pleasures that were available back then at the same standard of quality as today. The bread rolls tasted bad. You don’t even want to know what kind of meat was sold in shops. And pears, for example, you couldn’t get those anywhere. But sex wasn’t any worse than it is today, and so people actively made use of it. A typical snapshot of life under Czechoslovak socialism was the sexual act on the office desk.”

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Author: Libor Kukal

Photo: AP Photo/Libkos

In the wake of the Kakhovka dam flooding, the Czech government and NGOs have joined the humanitarian aid effort. The Czech Defense Ministry is preparing a consignment of tankers for the distribution of drinking water, life vests and water pumps and the Foreign Ministry has earmarked 10 million crowns to assist the humanitarian effort. NGOs are also pitching in. I spoke to Petr Štefan from the largest Czech charity organization People in Need about its response to the crisis.

“We responded immediately to the needs of the people in the villages which were flooded. Even as we speak we are distributing drinking water in two villages on the right bank of the Dnipro River. In the coming days we want to deliver emergency water storage tanks and we are planning to distribute 1,000 hygiene kits among the people affected. This is based on the needs articulated yesterday by the Ukrainian authorities.”

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Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Jiří Šeda, ČRo

To mark the centenary of Czech Radio, the public broadcaster’s jazz station prepared a special project called 100 Years of Jazz/100 Years of Radio. Within the project, contemporary composers were asked to create new arrangements of traditional jazz compositions, which are connected in one way or another to the history of Czech Radio. To mark the anniversary, Czech Radio also commissioned a brand new composition called Swinging on the Radio Waves. The songs were performed by the Gustav Brom Radio Big Band at a concert earlier this year and you can listen to some of them now, in this edition of Sunday Music Show.

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Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Ukrainian Ice Hockey Federation/Facebook

The legendary Czech goalie Dominik Hašek (nicknamed The Dominator) paid a visit to the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Monday to express support for the country, which has been successfully resisting Russian military aggression since February of last year.

In a video posted on Facebook, Hašek expressed his support for Ukrainian hockey players, Ukrainian children and the brave people of Ukraine. In the video, The Domintor is seen posing with members of the Ukrainian Hockey Federation.

“It was with great pleasure that I came to Kharkiv to tell everyone that I support Ukraine, Ukrainian sport, its youth and children. I want your children to be able to play hockey and go to school again,” Hašek says in the video. “Good luck Ukraine, good luck Kharkiv!” he concludes with a broad smile and a thumbs up.

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Author: Daniela Lazarová

Czechia has a rich history of cinema and that heritage is carefully administered by the National Film Archive in Prague, which is currently celebrating 80 years of existence. I discussed the archive’s establishment during the Nazi occupation, the recent tradition of restoring classic Czech movies, how NFA archivists defied the authorities to save treasures and much more with its director, Michal Bregant.

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Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Amelia Mola-Schmidt, Radio Prague International

On the outskirts of the city centre in Prague 3, a delicious Italian bakery serves up traditional Tuscan and Italian fare, and has become a social hub for both Italian expats in the neighbourhood and local Czechs.

In the heart of downtown Žižkov, a bakery by the name of Il Pane Italská Pekárna owned by husband and wife duo Roberto Setti and Deborah Giorgi serves up beautifully baked Italian breads and traditional Tuscan schiacciata. Originally from Florence, the couple came to Prague on their honeymoon years ago, and Roberto fell in love with the city. In September 2020, the doors of the bakery opened to the neighbourhood of Žižkov, where it has received a warm reception from the community for the delicious food and warm social atmosphere.

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Photo: Art & Activism

This Friday, June 9th will be the opening night of the first annual Prague Art and Activism exhibition. A night showcasing the talent of artists whose thought-provoking work crosses boundaries between advocacy and multi-medium beauty.

Nicholas Dungey, an American professor living in Prague, is the founder of Reluvotion, an app that connects not-for profits and NGO’s with volunteers across the world, he has coordinated the exhibition alongside local artists and activists.

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Jeff Couloute and Phillip Schniedermeier, Photo: Amelia Mola-Schmidt, Radio Prague International

Best friends Phillip Schniedermeier and Jeff Couloute who together make up the duo behind the American restaurant Philly & Co’s in lower Žižkov have turned their passion for cooking up American and their native Chicago style food into a hub for local Czechs and expats alike. Amelia Mola Schmidt went to check it out.

Deep dish pizza, Philly cheesesteak sandwiches, and chicken wings – those aren’t exactly foods native to Czechia’s cuisine. But two expats from Chicago have turned traditional American and Chicago style fare into a successful business in lower Žižkov. Philip Schniedermeier and Jeff Couloute opened Philly & Co in the summer of 2020, and together have created a thriving business that welcomes everyone – from expats to local Czechs. The two met when they were teenagers playing basketball together, and moved to Prague originally to teach English, as Jeff explains.

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Author: Amelia Mola-Schmidt

Photo: Jolana Nováková, Czech Radio

The Toy Museum Prague offers a fascinating collection of toys spanning three centuries. The Golden Age of Toys was put together and is curated by Ivan Steiger, a prominent Czech filmmaker, illustrator and cartoonist, who has lived and worked in Germany since 1969.

Ivan Steiger studied at the Prague Film Faculty, where he trained under the well-known Czech writer Milan Kundera. He graduated as film and TV scriptwriter and director in 1967 and even as a student published cartoons in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, The Tribune and the Daily Mirror. Following a number of successful projects in Czechoslovakia, he started exhibiting abroad and emigrated in 1968, settling in Munich.

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Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Anna Fodor, Radio Prague International

Susan Loy is an American artist who had a successful business selling her paintings in the US, but left it all behind a few years ago to move to Prague, when she was already in her 70s. Like Charlotte Garrigue Masaryk, the American wife of Czechoslovakia’s first president, Susan is a Unitarian, and moved to the Czech Republic with Unitarian sponsorship. She is also the curator of an international art exhibition which is on display right now at the Unitarian Church in Prague, so I started by asking her what prompted her to organise it.

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Author: Anna Fodor

Brno, Prague, Warsaw, Budapest, and Calgary – these are some of the cities where an ingenious invention by two Moravian dog owners has spread. Their patented dog urinal prevents unsightly stains and nasty odours from sullying public spaces.

Ten years ago, a group of dog owners in Brno were out walking their canine companions when the subject of the tell-tale stains left on the facades of houses and the unmistakable stench of dog urine came up. They discussed the fact that it has become standard practice to pick up your dog’s excrement, but there still wasn’t any hygienic solution for dealing with pee.

One member of the group, František Tomeček, had an idea after noticing that his dog wouldn’t urinate in the same spot after it had rained and the smell was gone. His colleague, graphic designer Šárka Fialová, explains what happened next.

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Author: Anna Fodor

Cigarettes are getting increasingly more expensive in Czechia, but recent data suggests that as much as a quarter of people over the age of 15 are smokers. On the occasion of World No Tobacco Day, we spoke to Dr Eva Králíková, who heads a stop smoking clinic at Prague’s General Faculty Hospital, asking her how big of an issue smoking is in Czechia when compared with other addictions.

“It definitely is a big issue. Smoking kills about 16,000 to 18,000 people annually in Czechia, compared to alcohol that kills around 5,000 to 7,000 and drugs that, at most, kill around 500 people a year. These other addictions are also a problem of course, but smoking is definitely the biggest problem.”

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Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Photo: The Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren

The country’s largest Protestant denomination, the Evangelical Church of the Czech Brethren, announced over the weekend that it will officially allow pastors to bless same-sex unions. I spoke to Filip Milde of the organisation Jsme Fér, which campaigns for marriage equality in Czechia, to find out what he thought the significance of this move is.

“We believe it has huge significance, although the church is actually the second in the Czech Republic to allow the blessing of same-sex couples. Last year, the Old Catholic Church of the Czech Republic was already the first church to allow it.

“But it sends a very strong message that, even though we are the most atheistic country in the world, the people of faith really support equality, and we are on the right path towards marriage equality.”

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Author: Anna Fodor

The President of the Republic Petr Pavel and Eva Pavlova started their visit to Austria in the early evening of May 31 with a meeting with their compatriots. They met the students of the Comenius School, listened to the school’s children’s choir, and debated with representatives of compatriot associations.

On the second day (June 1), they were received by the President of the Republic of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen, and Mrs. Doris Schmidauer after a walk through the historic part of the city with military honors.

The official part of the program continued with the meeting of the President of the Republic with Wolfgang Sobotka, Chairman of the National Council of Austria. In the building of the Defense Academy, the president held talks with Klaudia Tanner, the Federal Minister of Defence, and then at 4:30 p.m. he will deliver a speech on the topic of Our Freedom and Security in a Globalized World.

(author: Tomáš Fongus/KPR, Source)

Photo: Vít Pohanka, Czech Radio

This weekend the Moravian village of Vlčnov celebrated its most cherished festival of the year: the traditional “Ride of the Kings” which is on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

The traditional Ride of Kings is by no means a quiet event. The central figure of the procession riding a horse down the main street is a young boy. He is the son of a respected local family, must be under the age of 15, and is dressed as a young woman in traditional folk costume and a red, flower-adorned hat, to conceal his identity. He carries a rose in his mouth, so as to remain silent and not give himself away.

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Author: Vít Pohanka

I am pleased to learn that the Senate today overwhelmingly supported the first three candidates for constitutional judges. We thus managed to fulfill the first part of our common constitutional responsibility – to ensure the full functioning of the Constitutional Court. I also appreciate the public discussion that took place around the individual nominations, the diversity of opinions is a sign of a functioning democracy. My goal was to make the process of selecting constitutional judges transparent and based on the assessment of professional criteria, not political pressures. I am convinced that Daniela Zemanová, Jan Wintr and Josef Baxa are a guarantee that the Constitutional Court will be composed of diverse personalities with high moral integrity, competence and the ability to withstand all possible pressures.

The President of the Republic, Petr Pavel, appointed new constitutional judges on Monday, June 5 2023.

Photos: Tomáš Fongus

President of the Senate Miloš Vystrčil, Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies Markéta Pekarová Adamová, Prime Minister Petr Fiala, and Minister of Foreign Affairs Jan Lipavský met today at Prague Castle with President Petr Pavel. The reason for the meeting was a return to trying to coordinate foreign policy at the highest level. A joint meeting of the highest constitutional officials on this topic took place after more than three years. The participants of the meeting talked about relations with neighboring states, coordination of foreign trips, preparations for the NATO summit in Vilnius, as well as assistance to Ukraine, and relations with China.

“We agreed not only on the fact that we want to coordinate foreign policy but also on a number of practical steps on how to do it. So that we maximize the effect for the Czech Republic. We have agreed that these meetings will be held approximately once every six months, but in the meantime, we will meet again on the topic of the longer-term direction of the Czech Republic’s foreign policy,” said President Petr Pavel after the meeting.

“For the first time in the time that I have held the position of President of the Senate, I felt that in the field of foreign policy, we agree with both the Prime Minister and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, as well as the President and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies. I see this as a great opportunity for us to work together for the benefit of the Czech Republic and our priorities, which is the defense of the values on which the existence and functioning of the Czech Republic are built, as well as its prosperity in terms of economic development,” said the President of the Senate, Miloš Vystrčil .

According to the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, we have such a degree of agreement in foreign policy that we are clearly better able to promote the interests of the Czech Republic and its citizens. “I think this is the best possible news for all citizens. It was not always obvious, but now we are getting into a situation where it is, and we should try to make the most of it,” she said after the meeting.

The Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, Petr Fiala, emphasized the importance of foreign policy coordination. “It is necessary for the key representatives of the state to speak with one voice as much as possible because this is the only way foreign policy is credible and also effective. It thus brings the necessary effects for our citizens, for our business, and for our security,” he added.

“Our presidency of the European Union has shown that the Czech voice is heard and that it is respected, and we want to build on that further. We have a strong political consensus, and this is also a signal for our institutions. We are breaking down the walls between these institutions and creating a truly common foreign policy,” added Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský.

Pictures : Tomáš Fongus

The 2023 edition of the multi-genre Prague Sounds music festival will feature the likes of Benjamin Clementine, Alva Noto & Ensemble Modern and jazz great Ron Carter. Though the event is not until November, the organisers unveiled the line-up this week – and I spoke to programmer Guy Borg.

“We tend to try to look beyond strict genre categories, although it’s fair to say that in our programme you will find things like hip hop, electronic music, contemporary classical music and jazz and so on.

“But each of the artists in those categories, we feel, kind of go beyond those genres in various ways.

“Those are the kind of artists we look for and that’s the kind of programme we try to put together.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Filip Jandourek, Czech Radio

This week the Prague authorities approved studies to revitalise the through-road cutting across the centre of the city. The plans – which still need permits – would make the unpopular “magistrála” more attractive for pedestrians and cyclists. But could the communist-era road ever be removed? I discussed the matter with leading Prague architect Jakub Cigler.

“I am excited that the magistrála will around the Main Railway Station have two times two lanes only.

“Because the magistrála is a kind of magnet that concentrates more and more cars; if there were more lanes, there would be more cars.

“And this way is not sustainable. It is not the way forward.

“It’s not the right thing to drive through Prague, it’s better to around.

“We don’t have a périphérique, like Paris has, for example.

“But transportation design should change in the centre in such a way that there is a diminished amount of cars on the streets.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Miloš Turek, Radio Prague International

One of the most popular lookout spots on the River Vltava is in the hills of the Central Bohemian Upland, about an hour’s drive south of Prague.

In the southwestern part of the Drbákov-Albertovy skály nature reserve there are up to 1,000 red yew trees.

The most interesting parts of the reserve feature a 7.4 km circular nature trail, which starts at the U Křížku car park. Occasionally the river’s surface flashes through the trees before finally the view of the Vltava opens up to its full extent and walkers come out at the Tis (Yew) lookout spot.

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Photo: Archive of Magdalena Kracík Štorkánová, Art and Craft Mozaika z.s.

One of Prague’s iconic Brutalist structures, the Central Telecommunications Building in the district of Žižkov, is gradually being demolished. However, some valuable art pieces from its interior have been saved, including a large-scale mosaic created by Italian artist Sauro Ballardini out of hundreds of pieces of glass.

The Central Telecommunications building with its unmistakable tower is known among Praguers as Mordor, a reference to Lord of the Rings. It was built between 1972 and 1979 and at the time, it was the tallest building in Czechoslovakia and the tallest telecom building in Europe.

The communist planners commissioned a number of art pieces for the then state-of the-art building, including a huge mosaic made by Sauro Ballardini, who also did the mural at Florenc metro station.

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Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Czech National Bank

70 years ago, on June 1, 1953, the ruling Communist regime announced a major monetary reform which significantly cut the value of the money in circulation. Many people lost most of their savings and became virtually penniless.

1953 was not a great time to be alive in Czechoslovakia. Show trials, inspired by those in the Soviet Union, had been going on for years and were just culminating in the prosecution of 14 high ranking Communist Party officials that had fallen out of favour. Among them was the former general secretary of the party, Rudolf Slánský. He would soon hang after a confession forced out of him through repeated torture sessions.

The country, which had been ruled by the Communists since 1948, was heavily in debt after five years of economic mismanagement and people were still reliant on a state rationing system that had been originally put in place during the Second World War.

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Photo: Petr Veber, Czech Radio

Czech-born mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená (born on May 26, 1973) is one of the bright lights of world opera. Although based in Britain, she returns regularly to Czechia to perform and was one of the biggest attractions of this year’s Prague Spring Festival together with the award-winning Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida.

Magdalena Kožená studied at the Brno Conservatory and Bratislava’s Academy of Performing Arts winning several major prizes at home and abroad, the most significant of which was the Sixth International Mozart Competition in Salzburg.

On the opera stage, she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2002 as Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and first appeared at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 2003 as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, where she has been a regular guest since.

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Photo: Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary

The organisers of the Karlovy Vary film festival have just unveiled its two competitions, a month before the 57th edition starts. The main Crystal Globe competition will have one fewer entry than usual, after the Chinese authorities intervened. But local cinema fans will be excited to hear there are two Czech films in the running, We Have Never Been Modern and A Sensitive Person. I asked Karlovy Vary’s artistic director Karel Och about them.

“We Have Never Been Modern is the English title of the second feature film by Matěj Chlupáček, who is an extremely young but already established filmmaker; he’s not even 30 yet.

“He is the author of this very self-assured period drama set in 1937.

“It is a, let’s say, detective drama. There’s a very strong suspense moment in the movie, which is gorgeously shot.

“The main character is a woman who is about to give birth to a child. She’s the wife of the director of the factory where a stillborn child is found.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Bohemian Identity

A largescale project is currently in the works that seeks to present the history and current forms of Czech graphic design to both the domestic and international audience. Bohemian Identity, as it is called, will trace the story of how various designs, ranging from banknotes, state symbols, brands, metro signs and more, helped shape the country’s national identity. To find out more about what’s in store I spoke to one of the founders of the project, Michal Gregorini.

“The idea originally started in 2018 in light of the celebrations of the 100 year anniversary of the birth of the independent Czechoslovak state. Filip Blažek and Linda Kudrnovská, the angels behind this project, came up with the idea to cover this 100 year history through the story of Czech and Czechoslovak design because it is very unique and has a special history of its own.”

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Author: Thomas McEnchroe

The tragic earthquake that recently hit Turkey and Syria served as another reminder of the catastrophic damage earthquakes can cause, especially in countries that can’t afford expensive early warning systems. But a new cheap sensor that is being tested by Czech scientists in Nepal could be the solution and provide the valuable seconds needed to save lives.

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Authors: Thomas McEnchroe, Martin Srb

The Covid pandemic placed a lot of restrictions on the society and resulted in a large number of court cases in which people sought compensation. A father who was banned from seeing his child born has now won an important battle over his rights.

Ondřej Pecák’s daughter was born in April 2020 in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Due to the strict measures in place he was not allowed to be present at the birth as planned.

“I spent the day in the parking lot desperately trying to negotiate with the hospital staff for them to let me be with my wife and see my child born. All my arguments were futile. I felt totally powerless.”

Ondřej was not the only father who missed one of the most important moments of his life. Hundreds of others around the country were in a similar plight. Citing the state of emergency in place hospitals mercilessly closed their doors to all.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Tadeusz Boruta, Archive of GASK

An exhibition presenting an overview of independent Polish art of the 1980s got underway in Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region this week. Called Uncensored, it presents the Polish equivalent of the post-1968 Czech underground art scene. I discussed the exhibition with one of its curators, Richard Drury:

“The exhibition showcases work done by young artists and independent artists during the 1980s who protested against the repressive regime that followed from 1981 with the declaration of martial law in Poland. These artists refused to work with the regime and found alternative ways of working and showing their art.”

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Author: Ruth Fraňková

I had to get up very early in the morning, but I did not regret. The scope owl was very near the place, for which I got the tip. In the morning gloom, before the sunrise, it could be barely seen in the opening of the tree cavity – but it was there! A scope owl just a short way from Prague… I would have never expected that.

Eurasian scope owl (Otus scops), which resembles a miniature eagle owl, occurs in Europe mostly in the Mediterranean, but a gradual northward expansion has been evident for decades. In Slovakia it nested for the first time in 1950s and in Moravia shortly before the turn of the new century; the year before last and last year an absolute sensation was caused by the discovery that it nested right in Olomouc. In Bohemia scope owls appear more and more often, but no nesting has taken place yet.

It seems that scope owls are spreading to Slovakia from Hungary. They live there often in and near human settlements, and they keep this habit also in their new home. The scope owls in Olomouc have the same preference. One of the reasons for this synanthropization could be that they are insect eating owls, which, paradoxically, find more food in towns and villages that in agricultural landscape. But perhaps also a better offer of nesting cavities plays a role; after all, also woodpeckers, which excavate them, particularly European green woodpecker, have adapted to life near humans.

The scope owl, which I observed near Prague, was near a built-up area, but not directly in it. As the sun was rising and I could see it a bit better, I was thinking about when we will see the nesting of this beautiful little owl in Bohemia. Couldn’t it be already this year just at this place, a stone’s throw from Prague? Wishful thinking… But sooner or later it will surely happen. And maybe directly in the capital city.

After the sunrise, when I was ready to leave, a nuthatch started hanging around the cavity, occupied by the scope owl. The owl stuck his head out of the hole and then my moment came. I quickly took the photo, in which you can clearly see not only the scope owl, but also the nuthatch above the cavity. And if you look at the photo carefully, you can see, how small the scope owl is.

The statues of three of the apostles gracing Prague’s famous Old Town Clock, which were damaged by vandals last June, are being dismantled and taken away for restoration. The clock dating back to 1410, which is admired by millions of tourists every year, will remain in operation despite the absence of three key figures.

It is a sight that tourists in Prague crowd to see. On the hour, every hour, the clock strikes the time and a parade of twelve apostles is set in motion. Simultaneously, some of the surrounding sculptures also start moving. There is a figure representing Vanity, a Miser holding a bag of gold coins and a Turk representing Lust and Earthy pleasures. Across from them stands Death, tolling its bell to show the figures that their time is up. The Astronomer, the Philosopher, and the Chronicler, appear to be motionless.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Martin Micka, Galerie Artwall

If you regularly take the Prague tram between Čechův Most and Nábřeží Kapitána Jaroše, you may have noticed the giant pieces of artwork on display in the niches of the wall that runs parallel to the Vltava river below Letná. Until June 6, those spaces are being occupied by Markéta Garai’s exhibition With(out) Care, a commentary on the stigmatisation of sex workers and the ecological impact of the global flower trade.

Sex work operates in a legal grey zone in Czechia, with the provision of erotic services neither prohibited nor permitted by law. In practice, this means that those employed in the industry are not protected under the law financially or from workplace harassment or abuse.

See the rest here.

Authors: Anna Fodor, Anaïs Chesnel

23/05/2023

On 23.5.2023 President Petr Pavel met for the first time with a group of his foreign policy advisers. Its members are Petr Kolář, Karel Schwarzenberg, Michael Žantovský, Jiří Pehe, Tomáš Petříček and Jan Macháček. The group is coordinated by Jaroslav Zajíček, director of the foreign department of KPR. Advisors will meet as needed and on current topics, their activity in the group is informal and unpaid.

“I expect openness from my advisers, not only in their opinions and attitudes, but also in feedback and criticism of my steps, if they do not agree with them,” says President Pavel. The topics of the first meeting were the Czech Republic’s relationship with Russia and China, the coordination of the president’s foreign policy with the government and with foreign partners, or the role of the president in strengthening the position of the Czech Republic in the world.

“President Pavel wants to meet with personalities from different ends of the opinion spectrum on the topic of foreign policy, so that he has the opportunity to form a comprehensive view of current topics affecting Czech foreign policy,” explains presidential spokesperson Markéta Řeháková. Therefore, according to her, an informal group of recognized experts who have long-term experience in this area was created.

According to Jaroslav Zajíček, director of the KPR’s foreign department, the group is intended to be used for consultations on current and conceptual issues, for example, which parts of the world the president should visit at a given time and what risks or benefits are associated with it. “The insight and experience of the group of experts will help the foreign department gain a broader perspective,” he adds.

Kisumu arrived at Prague Zoo last September. This week he entered the outdoor enclosure of the Reserve Dja for the very first time. Photo by Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

For the group of gorillas in the Dja Reserve, the outdoor enclosure has reopened after the winter break.
The Kisumu male and the daughter of the famous Prague gorilla Moji Duni, whose pregnancy was confirmed last week, took a look at the outdoor part of the exhibition for the first time.
“The Dja reservation, which was opened last September, is entering its first main season, and the gorillas can finally go outside after the cold spring,” says the director of the Prague Zoo, Miroslav Bobek. “There is a completely different view of gorillas grazing on fresh grass. Along the paddock, which is over 2,500 square meters, there is an equally generous auditorium. I know of visitors who spend almost the whole day there watching the gorillas,” he adds, adding that the African atmosphere there is also enhanced by the giraffes, zebras and antelopes that are within sight. And what did the gorillas’ first steps out of the pavilion look like? Gorillas are conservative primates, so it is not surprising that the three females Kamba, Shinda and Kijivu, who are already familiar with the enclosure from last summer, were the first to confidently enter the enclosure. Seven year old Ajabu didn’t hold back either as he kept checking on Kisuma and Duni who were noticeably more reserved.

Shinda is a great lover of food, which makes her very popular with visitors. Seven-year-old Ajabu is her only son and is currently a Benjamin in the gorilla group. Photo by Oliver Le Que, Prague Zoo

“After her mother, Moje, Duni is very intelligent and inquisitive, so she showed more courage than Kisumu even when entering the large paddock. He first looked at everything from the door and returned to the indoor exhibit several times before making up his mind completely,” explains head primate keeper Martin Vojáček. “I’m sure he’ll get used to it soon. Perhaps even for the giraffes, who are watching the events in the enclosure through the fence.”

Kisumu got up the courage after about half an hour and explored the outdoor enclosure with the others. In the coming days, he will still get used to the generous exposure.

The breeding group of lowland gorillas in the Dja Reserve consists of the dominant male Kisumu and the female Duni – the daughter of the famous Prague gorilla Moji, who was the first cub of this species born in Czech and Slovak zoos. Then two half-sisters: female Shinda with her son Ajabu and female Kijivu – My mother and Duna’s grandmother. The nester of the group is the more than fifty-year-old Kamba, who is the only one who comes from the wild, as she was deprived of the group in her youth by poachers.

Photo by Oliver Le Que, Prague Zoo

Earlier this week, Czechia and the United States signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement in Washington. The treaty creates a legal framework for the possible deployment of US soldiers on Czech territory, though officials on both sides insist it does not pave the way for a permanent American base. The American ambassador to Prague, Bijan Sabet, who arrived in the city early this year, discussed the DCA – and more – with Czech Radio journalist Jan Bumba.

If I may start with the Defence Cooperation Agreement that was signed at the Pentagon by the ministers of defence and the USA and the Czech Republic, it’s described as a very important step by the politicians. How important is it, in your opinion?

“It is a symbol of our cooperation and joint defence.

“We’re pleased to have this agreement signed and of course the next step is ratification by the Czech Parliament.

“So it’s a very important milestone for our two countries.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Jan Bumba, Ian Willoughby

Machine translation experts from Charles University have developed a new system that can translate between 43 languages in real time. Intended for international conferences, Elitr shows words said by a speaker on a screen within milliseconds, and in all languages at once.

Elitr is unique in that it not only accurately transcribes what the speaker is saying using speech-to-text technology, but at the same time can show it in up to 42 other languages, depending on what the user selects. And this all happens in real time. Ondřej Bojar leads the Czech team that developed it.

“We created the system in such a way that it would follow what the speaker is saying and as a backup, it takes what the human interpreters, who are physically present at the conference, are saying. And from these multiple sources, we can show the translation of the spoken words in real time.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Anna Fodor, Eva Kézrová

Photo: Miloš Turek, Radio Prague International

The next stop on our Vltava tour takes us to a valley near the small village of Teletín, offering some of the most beautiful views you can find of the Vltava River.

At first glance, Teletín, with a population of less than 100 people and few sights to boast of, may not seem like a must-go destination. But it serves as the starting point for a series of lookout points offering some of the most beautiful views you can find of the Vltava River. These viewpoints have a series of names beginning with M – Myšák, Mařenka, Máj. The most famous of them is Máj above the Štěchovice Reservoir, with its view of a horseshoe bend in the river.

See the rest here.

Author: Miloš Turek

Photo: Tatra Trucks

The NW Präsident set off with a crew on a 328-kilometre-long journey to Vienna on 21 May 1898. They arrived a day later. The car’s average speed was 22.62 km/h.

The history of the Tatra car company goes back to 1850, when Ignaz Schustala, with the help of two journeymen, started producing carriages and, thanks to his high-quality products and business skills, was able to build his small business into one of the most successful companies in Europe.

In 1897, the company started making a car with an internal combustion engine, the very first one not only in Austria-Hungary, but in the whole of central Europe. The NW Präsident car, built by Leopold Sviták, who was assisted by the future famous designer Hans Ledwinka, came out in the spring of 1898.

See the rest here.

Photo: Archive of magazine Forum/www.cuni.cz

Czechia possesses several leading institutions of higher learning that have produced internationally renowned scientists, businesspeople and academics. No wonder then that the number of foreigners studying in the country has been growing. We asked some of them what they like about the country and the student lifestyle it offers.

Few European cities can rival Prague’s architecture, culture, nightlife and beer. Little wonder therefore that it is not just a popular destination for tourists, but students as well, as 24-year-old Taine Rose from New Zealand, a student at the Czech University of Life Sciences (CZU), confirms.

“Prague is really cool, it’s super close to everything, not as cheap as I originally thought, but it’s still relatively affordable. As a student here, I can teach English or work at a bar and make enough money to get by and still go on weekend trips to Germany and Austria. I really enjoy living in Czechia.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Thomas McEnchroe, Amelia Mola Schmidt

Prince Edward in the village of Vestec near Prague, Photo: Michaela Říhová, ČTK

Less than three weeks after the coronation of Charles III, Czechia has received its first visitor from the British royal family, H.R.H. Prince Edward. The prince, who drank a pint with Czechia’s President Petr Pavel on Tuesday, is in Prague to present the Duke of Edinburgh award to young people who have successfully completed the programme in Czechia.

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Many of Prague’s architectural gems will open to the public for free this weekend within the Open House Prague festival, which is now in its ninth year. Visitors can admire the interiors of more than 100 buildings as well as spaces that are usually inaccessible to the public, including the brutalist Hotel Intercontinental, which is currently under reconstruction.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Argo

When Time Stopped is the title of Ariana Neumann’s first book, about the history of her Jewish family in Prague during the war. Before he emigrated to Venezuela in 1949, her father Hans (or Hanuš) Neumann survived the Holocaust thanks to false papers and the audacity that allowed him to find work in… Berlin. The book is filled with extraordinary personal documents and letters preserved in a few boxes found by the author in Caracas, Prague but also Libčice or Teplice.

Journalist and writer Ariana Neumann answered RPI’s questions from London, where she is now based, after growing up in Caracas.

See the rest here.

Author: Alexis Rosenzweig

Photo: Khalil Baalbaki, Czech Radio

The Czech government announced on Wednesday that Czechia would abstain from a vote on the EU’s accession to the Istanbul Convention on combatting violence against women. Two of the ruling parties are reluctant to support it and the cabinet is yet to decide whether to put the convention to a vote in the Czech parliament.

Czechia is one of the last six Council of Europe countries that have not yet ratified the convention on a national level. Similarly as in Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia, some political parties in this country are holding out against it for fear that it would “interfere with the legal order and put traditions and values at risk.”

The need to move ahead and ratify the document has become the first point of contention between the country’s recently inaugurated president, Petr Pavel, and the Fiala administration. The head of state sees no reason to delay the document’s ratification while the cabinet remains divided on the matter.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

In the early 2000s, native Scot Steve Gove decided to resurrect the intimate feel of the original Edinburgh Fringe festival, before it became the gargantuan beast it is today, and bring it to Prague. Now in its 22nd year, the Prague Fringe is running from 22 – 27 May at venues dotted around Malá Strana. I spoke to him as the festival got underway and started by asking him to summarise what the Fringe is all about, for people who have never heard of it.

“The Prague Fringe is the Czech Republic’s English-language theatre festival. This is our 22nd season and it’s a festival that we ask our public to embrace. Come and see not just one show, but two or three shows!

“The shows last about 45 minutes to an hour each and tickets are cheap. If you jump in at the deep end you’re sure to have a good experience!

“In essence, it’s a festival of English-language theatre, although we have a bit of comedy around the edges. There are a couple of shows that are not in English, but they come with subtitles. So that’s Fringe in a nutshell here in Prague.”

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: National Museum in Prague

A new exhibition showcasing the fashion style of Czechoslovak and Czech first ladies is currently on display at the National Museum in Prague. Visitors can see dozens of items from the first ladies’ wardrobes, including a blouse and skirt that belonged to Charlotte Garrigue Masaryk and the inaugural dress of the current first lady, Eva Pavlová.

The National Museum in Prague boasts a unique collection of fashion items that used to belong to the wives of Czech and Czechoslovak presidents, including dresses, suits, hats and other accessories worn on various occasions. Some of them are now on display at an exhibition called First Ladies – Fashion and Style at the museum’s new building.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Michaela Vetešková

Russian Embassy in Prague, Photo: Google Maps

The Czech government has decided to scrap several Communist-era decrees that allowed Russia to use land in Czechia rent-free for diplomatic purposes. The decision has elicited an angry reaction from Moscow, which is threatening to retaliate.

Prime Minister Petr Fiala announced the decision at a press briefing in Prague, saying that it was a move aimed at putting bilateral relations between the two countries on a more equal footing.

“We are finally, after several decades, getting to a normal, standard state of affairs. In other words, we are now going to request rent from Russia for this land, at a rate that corresponds to the cost of rent for other similar plots of land in the given locality.”

In its report, the foreign ministry also referenced the unequal state of affairs between Russia and Czechia, citing that Russia uses 87,863 m2 of state land in Czechia for free, while Czechia in turn has access to only 26,875 m2 in Russia, which the report describes as “far from respecting the principle of reciprocity”.

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Moravská zemská knihovna Brno

Two valuable documentary collections from Czechia have been inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register: the Antonín Dvořák Archive, which contains most of the great Czech composer’s manuscripts and the Moll Map Collection, a set of ancient maps dating from the late 16th century to the 1860s.

Among the 64 new entries on the UNESCO list of world documentary treasures approved by the organisation’s executive board is the Archive of Antonín Dvořák.

The valuable collection contains not only the manuscripts of the greatest of Czech composers, his best known works, but also his personal items, such as his letters and books, explains Veronika Vejvodová from the Dvořák Museum in Prague, which is in charge of the items:

“The core of the archive are Dvořák’s manuscripts, but we also have his correspondence and personal documents, the composer’s personal library and photographs, as well as printed documentation, such as programmes and posters.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Tomáš Kremr

Photo: Ondřej Deml, ČTK

Many thousands of people helped Czech Radio celebrate its centenary this week at a special free concert at the Prague park Riegrovy sady. The line-up for the marathon event included a whole host of popular Czech names, including Aneta Langerova, K.M. Tichá and Bandjeez, Zdeněk Sverák, Lenka Filipová and Michael Kocáb.

See the rest here.

The east Bohemian city of Pardubice is gearing up for its annual aviation fair this weekend. Highlights this year include air shows by Lukasz Czepiela, who successfully landed a plane on top of a skyscraper in Dubai in March, and Felix Baumgartner, the man who parachuted to Earth from the stratosphere.

Held at the airport in Pardubice since 1991, the Pardubice Aviation Fair is, together with the Czech International Air Fest in Hradec Králové, the biggest showcase of aviation and aerobatics in Czechia. And this year, it promises a programme truly packed with stars from the aviation world.

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

Adolf Loos’ last house, Photo: ČVUT

The foundation stone of Adolf Loos’ last house, which was designed in 1932 but never came to fruition, will be symbolically laid on Tuesday outside the National Technical Museum in Prague.

Originally commissioned by the influential Czech businessman František Müller for his daughter Eva, the house was conceived as a low-cost accommodation suitable both for working-class families and management.

The all-wooden, cube-shaped structure painted in a bright green colour is based on the landmark principle of Loos’s architecture known as Raumplan, the concept of seamlessly linking spaces of different heights.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, ended her five days working trip to the United States of America in the Georgian capital, Atlanta. Here she met with the influential Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as well as leading Georgia legislators.,high-ranking state representatives, supported our entrepreneurs at the Czech-American business forum, and discussed strengthening the transport connection between the Czech Republic and the USA with representatives of the important airline company Delta Airlines.

“Atlanta is a very dynamically growing metropolis that, thanks to its strategic location and openness, offers a diverse range of unique business opportunities for Czech companies doing business in sectors such as IT, the automotive industry and aviation. Thanks to one of the busiest airports in the world, it also represents an absolutely ideal destination for the further expansion of Czech business activities in the entire South-East of the USA,” said the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, after a series of meetings.

Meanwhile, the Minister for Science, Research and Innovation Helena Langšádlová in Atlanta convened a meeting with the Georgia Institute of Technology (GeorgiaTech) and representatives of the Czech University of Technology (ČVUT) and the Cyber Security Hub (a joint project in the field of cyber security of Masaryk University, CTU and the Czech University of Technology Brno). The minister and professors from CTU initiated the first steps leading to the conclusion of a memorandum of understanding with GeorgiaTech. “This memorandum will connect top Czech science with capacities in Atlanta. So far, we have discussed areas such as quantum technology, nuclear energy and semiconductors. GeorgiaTech is an exceptional institution not only in terms of excellent results in the theoretical field, but also excellently manages the transfer of knowledge from research into practice. They have created a robust start-up ecosystem and can be proud of 100 companies growing under the university. We will be happy to be inspired by them,” added Minister Helena Langšádlová.

After that, the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, attended the official closing of the Czech-American business forum organized by the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce. At the very end of the trip, the parliamentary delegation held talks with representatives of one of the oldest airlines in the world, Delta Airlines.

“Strengthening direct air connections between the USA and the Czech Republic would help bring our citizens closer together and connect our businessmen more easily with their transoceanic business partners, which would at the same time strengthen the mutual positive trade balance,” added the speaker of the House of Representatives, Markéta Pekarová Adamová.

Photo: Magdalena Hrozínková, Radio Prague International

Until recently, it was thought that the oldest full-length radio play preserved in the Czech Radio archives was from after the Second World War. But that changed thanks to a chance discovery of a Czech adaptation for radio of Jack London’s 1906 novel White Fang, which though in a very poor condition, was restored and digitised.

The recordings of the play were discovered in the radio archives around 12 years ago by Miloslav Turek, and at first they appeared unusable. They were bent out of shape from years of being stored incorrectly, as Turek explains.

“I found them in a box, but they were in so bad a state that it wasn’t possible to play the whole thing from beginning to end. You could only play parts of it. So I unpacked them from their original packaging, put them on a hard surface, and weighed them down with the heaviest boxes I could find.”

And almost miraculously – and as if just in time for the centenary of Czech Radio – they evened out over time, allowing the recording to be played once again.

See the rest here.

Authors: Anna Fodor, Magdalena Hrozínková

The 78th edition of the Prague Spring music festival gets underway on Friday night at Prague’s Municipal House. The country’s top classical event will traditionally open with Bedřich Smetana’s Má vlast or My Country, this time performed by the Welsh National Opera Orchestra, led by Czech conductor Tomáš Hanus. I discussed the opening concert as well as some other festival highlights with its programme director Josef Třeštík:

“The Welsh National Opera Orchestra, as the name suggests, is principally an opera orchestra. However, they also perform a lot of orchestra music. They have their own programme of orchestra music in Cardiff and they travel extensively within the UK as well as abroad.

“As for Tomáš Hanus, he is really a well-established international conductor, mostly in the opera world. This season highlights include his debut in La Scala in Milan, in Staatsoper in Munich.

Paradoxically, however, he is not so well-known in the Czech Republic, so this will be a big night for him as a conductor but also for the festival audiences, who will get to know him.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Podbrdsko Encyclopedia

One of the last battles to take place in World War Two Europe occurred south-west of Prague around the town of Milín, several days after Germany had officially capitulated. It was unique in that the combat saw units of the Wehrmacht, SS, Soviet Union, United States and Czech partisans all take part in the fighting. A newly opened exhibition documents the events that took place there and the deaths that may have been avoided had the allies taken a different approach.

South-west of Prague, on the left bank of the Vltava River, lies the small town of Milín. It was around here, specifically in the area of Slivice, that one of the last battles to take place in Europe between Nazi Germany and the Allies was fought from May 11-12.

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Photo: Marek Štefek, Czech Surfing Association

For the first time in the country’s history, Czechia is sending its own team to the ISA World Surfing Games – the sport’s world championships. Six contestants are traveling to the upcoming event, which is set to take place in in El Salvador, Central America. For many it is the culmination of a long road towards getting surfing established in the landlocked country.

Prague’s Štvanice Island turned into a mini-California beach earlier this week, as a group of cheerful, fit and remarkably tanned individuals took questions from the media surrounded by surfboards.

A special news conference was held to announce that, for the first time ever, Czechia will be sending its own team to the planet’s premier surfing event – the World Surfing Games.

Organised by the International Surfing Association (ISA), the annual competition brings together the best surfers from around the globe and, for those who are successful, offers the chance to qualify for the Olympic Games, where the sport made its debut just two years ago.

Seven Czechs are travelling to the sandy beaches of Surf City in El Salvador, three women and four men, with one of the latter acting as a reserve in case his teammates get injured.

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Photo: Tereza Kunderová, Czech Radio

Czech Radio’s youth and alternative station Radio Wave lost its FM frequency not long after its launch. But that didn’t stop the channel finding sustained success online, thanks to clever marketing and pioneering use of podcasts.

The Czech Radio youth and alternative station Radio Wave was launched to some fanfare in 2006.

However, only a year later the fledging channel lost its FM frequency.

Though that may have seemed like quite a setback at the time, the station’s operators quickly switched to becoming an online only broadcaster – and have tried to stay ahead of the game ever since.

This includes being a pioneer of podcasting and on-demand in Czechia.

Barbora Šichanová is the head of the station.

“For Radio Wave it demands a lot of effort to figure out new ways of distribution, smarter strategies, promotion using new tools and so on. So I wouldn’t say I see linear broadcasting as a limitation. For me it’s more crucial to be able to recognise and follow upcoming trends and also new habits of young people. We need to be creative and think outside of the box of traditional radio.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Khalil Baalbaki, Czech Radio

A radio receiver used by the first Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk or the microphone into which the very first radio announcer spoke. These are just some of the rare exhibits that are currently on display at the National Technical Museum in Prague as part of an exhibition marking the centenary of Czech Radio.

The exhibition, entitled One Hundred Years is Just the Beginning, got underway in the National Technical Museum on Prague’s Letná on Wednesday, on the eve of Czech Radio’s 100th birthday.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Josef Kaňka

The President of the Republic, Petr Pavel, spoke at the summit of the Council of Europe in Reykjavík, where he supported the establishment of a Register of Damages Caused by Russian Aggression. Its establishment also became the main output of the summit. The registry will be based in The Hague and will collect claims for compensation from both Ukrainian citizens and legal entities such as the state, municipalities, hospitals or schools. The register should start functioning during the autumn. Within three years, the Council of Europe should also create a compensation mechanism for damages.

“I am glad that this is happening, because it is the first time that, on the basis of a solid legal basis, there will be an inventory of the damages caused by the war, whether to individuals or the state, and based on this, a mechanism will be set to compensate the damages, from which sources. The Czech Republic actively participated in this and I am glad that the Czech footprint will be visible in this process,” said Petr Pavel at the end of the summit.

The summit took place after eighteen years, the last time it was held in Warsaw in 2005, and its renewal was a clear signal that the Council of Europe still has an important role to play.

“The topic of this summit is Russian aggression against Ukraine. It resulted in the loss of countless innocent lives, widespread destruction and the displacement of thousands of people. We stand in solidarity with our Ukrainian friends,” the president said in his speech.

In his speech, President Petr Pavel also supported the creation of a special criminal tribunal for crimes in Ukraine.

Photo : Zuzana Bönisch

The President of the Czech Republic Peter Pavel was received by Her Majesty Queen Margaret II at noon. & His Royal Highness The Crown Prince Frederik at Amalienborg Palace.

The President was accompanied by the Minister of Immigration and Integration Kaare Dybvad Bek.

Upon receiving the president went to the royal family stable at Christiansborg Palace, where the white Kladrubia horses of the royal family are housed. Horses are bred in the Czech stallion Kladruby nad Labem, which is about 80 kilometers from the capital Prague.

The Czech stallion is one of the oldest in the world and at the request of Prince Henrik, he has been breding cladders for the State Royal Branch since 1994. President Pavel is in Denmark in connection with the Copenhagen Summit on Democracy 2023, which takes place in the Danish capital today and tomorrow.

Photo : Zuzana Bönisch

Photo: Festival Pražské jaro

Perhaps the most anticipated event of the 78th Prague Spring takes place on Wednesday night, with rising classical star Klaus Mäkelä making his debut appearance in Czechia, conducting the Czech Philharmonic and viola player Antoine Tamestit. Ahead of the concert, featuring works by Schnittke and Mahler, I asked Tamestit what it meant for him to also be the music festival’s artist-in-residence.

“This is a fantastic honour, of course, because of the historic reputation of the Prague Spring festival.

“But it’s also a fantastic chance for me as a musician to express myself in different contexts.

“And also as a viola player, where in the last 200 years we have not necessarily been given the same exposure as a violinist, or a pianist or an opera singer to appear as a soloist or an individual.

“But as the artist-in-residence I was given the choice of repertoire, of partners. “Really, it’s a fantastic chance, for me and the viola.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Kino Ponrepo/NFA

Ponrepo, the Prague cinema administered by the National Film Archive, will be screening a very special film this Tuesday evening. Arsenal is a revolutionary epic that depicts the January workers uprising in Kyiv in 1918. Directed by the famous Ukrainian-Soviet director Oleksandr Dovzhenko, it is considered to be the most prominent expressionist film in Ukrainian cinematography and was voted one of the best films of the year by the American National Board of Review when it came out in 1929.

When the average film fan is asked about early-Soviet cinema, the first name they are likely to come up with is Sergei Eisenstein. However, there were also other key proponents of what is commonly known as Soviet montage theory. Among them was the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleksandr Dovzhenko, who made several critically acclaimed films during the inter-war period.

It will be his film Arsenal that viewers will be able to see at a screening at Prague’s Ponrepo cinema this Tuesday from 8:30pm. The 58-minute-long film recalls an episode from the Russian Civil War. Specifically January 1918, when an uprising of workers in Kyiv aided the besieging Bolshevik army against the forces of the Ukrainian national Parliament who were in control of the city at the time.

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Photo: Lasvit

Lasvit is Czechia’s leading exporter of high-end glass and light installations, producing often stunning creations for luxury hotels, residences and retail outlets around the globe. The company was co-founded in 2007 by Leon Jakimič, who was initially based in Hong Kong but is now back in his native North Bohemia. We spoke at Lasvit’s exquisite showroom – packed with wonderful lighting creations and glass pieces – in Prague’s Holešovice district.

I’d first like to ask you about your family background. You’re from Liberec but of course your name, Jakimič, isn’t Czech.

“Jakimič is a Serbian name. But it was in the 18th century that my many times great grandfather moved from Serbia to Kyiv.

“Then in 1920 my great-grandfather reached Příchovice u Tanvaldu, so North Bohemia, and married Marie Swarovski from the Swarovski family – from the branch that did not move to Austria but stayed in Bohemia.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

A very special exhibition of the Czechoslovak born painter Nicholas Egon was open today ( 18.11.2023 ) at GALERIE JAKUBSKA – Thunovská 183/18, 118 00 Malá Strana.

The exhibition will be open for the public until 1.6 , every day from 11 – 17:00.

Nicholas Egon was born in Brno, then Czechoslovakia, in 1921, only son of Count Kornel Vranov and his Hungarian wife, Olga Apponyi. From a loving home and exquisite education with private tutors, he was to leave the family castle aged 16 to pursue a career as a fine artist, with only a silk dressing gown and seven pounds in his pocket.

Working his way through Europe, including as a bell boy in Cannes, by 1939 he was living in England, designing cinema posters and saving pennies to buy books and gramophone records. He was commissioned as War Artist to the Czech Army in Exile, but resigned after disagreements with the regime about his ‘unpatriotic’ drawings. Then he was recruited as War artist for the British army and by 1947 was painting scenes from the Civil war and famine in Greece for a War Memorial commissioned by General Papagos, a bottle of Indian ink attached to his belt.

From 1946-50 he worked as Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at the University of London – the youngest ever in that post – and concurrently lectured weekly at the National Gallery. His early work included a number of abstract paintings, mainly oils, inspired by scientific subjects such as the discovery of DNA.

In the London of the 1950’s and ‘60’s, he became an acclaimed ‘society’ portrait painter, numbering Helen Mirren, Somerset Maugham and L.S.Lowry amongst his many sitters, and members of the aristocratic and royal families of Britain, Greece and Saudi Arabia. The author Maurice Collis was to write: ‘There is no one to my knowledge in England at present who can produce portraiture of such exquisite quality’.

The 20 paintings of flowers are from a much later period, 2007-2017 – the last decade of his life. They were selected for a tribute exhibition at the Benaki Museum, Athens in May 2019, and are representative of the ultimate stage of his ‘Nature and Landscapes’ period, which had commenced after moving to Greece in 1996. From his studio in the hills surrounding Corinth he had wonderful views of the sea and mountains, a natural panoply bathed in that Greek light which he considered unequalled in the world and a source of his greatest inspiration.

They combine watercolour and pastel chalks and are of Greek flowers, except two which are of autumnal trees inspired by a visit to South Korea in 2009. Well-represented are poppies, ubiquitous in Greece in Spring, and geraniums, a ‘signature’ flower of the Egons which overflowed perenially from terracotta pots in the main entrance of their home. Almond blossoms from orchards on our mother’s home island, Chios; Peloponnesian fields of wild flowers; and wilder bushes on mountain crags against blazing summer skies bear witness of his travels around his adopted country.

We see the culmination of his artistic endeavours, far removed from war memorials or high society, yet conceived along the same principles of excellence and truthfulness, and devoid of affectation. They are elegies to Nature, miniature hymns of praise to the natural world, swan songs, perhaps, with their deceptively simple style.

Nicholas Egon remained in contact with his parents until their communications were to cease abruptly without explanation. Affected deeply by their loss and the appropriation of the family estate, he was never to return to his homeland. He would have been amazed and grateful that his works have been brought to Prague by his good friend, H.E. Jan Bondy, and displayed under the kind auspices of the Galerie Jakubska. The family would like to thank them greatly.

One of the first challenges foreign students in Czechia face after arriving in the country is finding accommodation. While most universities offer places in dormitories, many foreign students prefer to stay in private housing. How difficult is to find a place to live in Czechia when you are a foreign student? And what are the advantages of living in a shared apartment? Find out more in the next edition of our miniseries dedicated five top Czech universities.

Some 20,000 students on average arrive in Czechia every year to study at one of the country’s universities. Most of the foreigners head for Prague, but many of them also study in other cities, such as Brno, Olomouc or Liberec.

Finding a temporary home may prove to be a challenge, especially for those staying in the capital, where the demand for housing has been steadily rising in recent years, and so have apartment rental prices.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Amelia Mola-Schmidt, Daniela Honigman

Photo: archive of Czech Radio

It was exactly a hundred years ago, on 18 May 1923, that listeners in Czechoslovakia were first able to tune in to regular radio broadcasts. Much has changed since then. Today Czech Radio has ten nationwide stations and fourteen regional studios, based in towns and cities around the country. And of course, there is also Radio Prague International, broadcasting in seven languages around the world. Back in 1923 there was just one station, which in those early days broadcast for a few hours every day from a scouts’ tent on the edge of Prague. To mark the anniversary, we take a journey through the radio archives.

We start with an unforgettable moment from twenty-five years ago. It is 22 February 1998 and Czech Radio’s Aleš Procházka is commenting the ice-hockey final at the Winter Olympics in Nagano. In the 49th minute Petr Svoboda scores what proves to be the winning goal against Russia, bringing the Czech team gold in a tournament studded with NHL stars. That moment is etched into the memories of many of us who were watching or listening, but what about the radio’s beginnings, seventy-five years earlier?

See the rest here.

Author: David Vaughan

Photo: Nachtigall Artists

Bass-baritone Boris Prýgl ranks among the most talented Czech young opera singers. One of the finalists of Plácido Domingo’s Operalia, Prýgl has performed at the Slovak National Theatre and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He is now a guest singer at the National Theatre Opera.

Boris Prýgl studied in Bratislava with Zlatica Livrova and first appeared on stage at the Slovak National Theatre where he performed Leporello in Don Giovanni. He later performed at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (2017 to 2021), where he appeared as Morales (Bizet: Carmen), Ping (Puccini: Turandot), Prince Ottokar (Weber: The Sorcerer), The Hunter (Dvořák: Rusalka) and Marco (Puccini: Gianni Schicchi). In March 2022 he took part in a rendition of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Semyon Byčkov at the Musikverein in Vienna and the Elbe Philharmonic in Hamburg.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

When I left my office to watch the couple of hamerkops that were tirelessly carrying material to their already gigantic nest in the aviary under the cliff, Helena Růžičková’s replica from the well-known Czech comic film Sun, Hay and Strawberries came to my mind: “If you build an extension, we´ll add a whole floor!” Except the hamerkops added two floors straightaway.

Having about a half meter in height, hamerkops are birds which I often used to see in the company of our black storks on their wintering grounds in Sub-Saharan Africa. However, usually it is said (1) that they were named after the shape of their head, which resembles a hammer in profile, then (2) that in Africa they are surrounded by many superstitions and legends, and finally (3) that they build really large nests. After all, Emil Holub has already written about them: “The nest is 50 to 95 centimetres high; you can measure the upper circumference of 2 to 2.5 metres; however, at the bottom it protrudes to a point, therefore it is not unlike an inverted truncated cone. The nest itself, into which a square hole wide and high from 20 to 26 centimetres leads, the hamerkop builds from brushwood and soil.”

Our hamerkop couple started building last year. At the “ground floor” they first raised a chick, but then they continued the construction and built the “first floor”. That was not surprising, hamerkops are passionate builders that build regardless of the necessity of their structures; perhaps it helps them to strengthen the relationship in the couple. This year hamerkops continued in the aviary under the cliff with a third floor. Currently they have stopped working and their cone-shaped nest has the upper diameter of about 160 cm and a height of two metres. It is really a mega-nest that you should not miss!

At the same time as hamerkops other birds were building their modest nests in the aviary under the cliff, so that the hamerkops would not dismantle them immediately and carry the material on their own construction, the keeper Aneta Kratochvílová took care of the supply of material. She carried to the aviary about twenty bags of dry grass, moss and other building material – but she still did not protect everything, for example, the visitors’ reed shelter from the hamerkops. There are serious holes in it.

I have consulted my colleagues from the construction department about how much the hamerkops’ nest might weigh. They estimated it at 300 kg. When it is dry. It will be much heavier when it gets wet. Therefore, I had supports added to it and I will wait anxiously if hamerkops continue with its construction after finishing nesting this year. After that, it may be worth entering in the birds’ book of records.

The Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in cooperation with the United Nations Office in Prague, National Museum of Agriculture in Prague and Apiculture Museum Radovljica, Slovenia organizes the commemoration of 6th World Bee Day (20 May) which will take place on 16 May 2023 at National Museum of Agriculture. The guest of honour will be Czech Minister of Agriculture Mr. Zdeněk Nekula. World Bee Day was declared by the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization in December 2017 following the proposal of the Republic of Slovenia. Nowadays, it is celebrated globally to raise awareness about the importance of bees and other pollinators for food security, climate change mitigation, environmental conservation, and human well-being. World Bee Day provides an opportunity for governments, organizations and concerned citizens to promote actions that protect and enhance pollinators, improve their abundance and diversity, and support the sustainable development of agriculture. Since 2018, Slovenia has co-created more than 300 pollinator projects with partners on all continents. Under the theme “Bee engaged in pollinator-friendly agricultural production”, World Bee Day 2023 calls for global action to support pollinator-friendly agricultural production.

General reflection on World Bee Day and its results (2018-2022)

In December 2017, following an initiative by the Republic of Slovenia and with the unanimous support of all Member States, the United Nations General Assembly declared 20 May as World Bee Day. The date was chosen to honour Anton Janša, a Slovenian pioneer of modern apiculture, who was born on 20 May 1734.

World Bee Day has contributed significantly to raising awareness of the importance of bees and other pollinators, and to promoting international cooperation to protect them. Thousands of actions have been realised worldwide since 2018. Pollinators have made their way in many more school curricula, policy debates, research agendas, business plans and agricultural practices. Above all, World Bee Day has contributed to general reflection on the environmental crisis and pollinators’ importance.

The observation of World Bee Day encourages every concerned citizen and environmentalist to help protect bees and their habitats. It is important to support beekeeping and conservation efforts in order to maintain a healthy and sustainable environment for both humans and other species.

General reflection on the environmental crisis and pollinators’ importance

Ecosystem crises has critically worsened since 2018, pollinators included. The latest IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report and the recent UN Water Conference were a strong reminder that the world remains massively off track in preventing ecosystem degradation.

The bee population has been declining in recent years due to a variety of factors, including habitat loss, pesticide use, and climate change. Intensive monoculture production and improper use of pesticides pose serious threats to pollinators by reducing their access to food and nesting sites, exposing them to harmful chemicals, and weakening their immune systems.

Pollinators are key to global food security. Every third spoon of food we eat depends on them. Pollinators are key to global ecosystem health. Nearly 90% of wild plants depend on them for reproduction. Pollinators are our key allies in addressing the major global challenges. Humanity will therefore stand or fall on its ability to protect and support them.

Pollination has a positive impact on the environment in general, helping to maintain biodiversity and the vibrant ecosystems upon which agriculture and humanity depend. A wide variety of plants critical to human well-being and livelihoods require pollinators. In fact, bees and other pollinators provide the important ecosystem service of ensuring out-crossing (that is, crossing genes) and, thus, reproduction of many cultivated and wild plants.

World Bee Day 2023: “Bee engaged in pollinator-friendly agricultural production”

Under the theme “Bee engaged in pollinator-friendly agricultural production”, World Bee Day 2023 calls for global action to support pollinator-friendly agricultural production and highlights the importance of protecting bees and other pollinators, particularly through evidence-based agricultural production practices. Pollinators are under threat – sustainable agriculture can reduce risk to pollinators by helping to diversify the agricultural landscape and making use of ecological processes as part of food production.

Slovenian bee diplomacy

Slovenia is particularly committed to actively contributing to raising awareness about the importance of bees and other pollinators for humans and nature, and the need to take measures to protect them. The so-called bee diplomacy has become part of Slovenia’s environmental diplomacy efforts, which are inseparably connected to climate and water diplomacy. Since 2018, Slovenia has co-created more than 300 pollinator projects with partners on all continents.

Against the backdrop of the intense environmental and social challenges, Slovenia upgraded its pollinator diplomacy this year and aligned it with its development cooperation. Environmental protection and social inclusiveness are our two big missions. We primarily support pollinator activities, which help restore the ecosystem and empower vulnerable communities. Slovenia’s flagship pollinator projects, for example, empower mine victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina, support social inclusion of female Afghan refugees in Iran or livelihoods of indigenous communities in the Amazonia, who take care of endangered autochthonous pollinator species.

Slovenia strongly believes in beekeeping’s unique potential to address social and environmental vulnerability. It has become, for example, an ever more popular means of climate adaptation in water scarce regions, where people are losing their main livelihood source and have to turn to other activities.

In 2023, Slovenia has been preparing more than 30 pollinators project all over the world.

Bees are also at home at the Embassy of Slovenia in Prague

Bees also have a very significant role at the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Prague, as they have lived in a traditional Slovenian beehive in the garden for over two years now. More specifically, it is Carniolan bees, from Slovenia, which are housed there.

Each year, the Embassy organises several events to raise awareness of the importance of bees and pollinators. In the past few years, it has also become a tradition to celebrate the Slovenian Traditional Honey Breakfast, which consists of fresh bread, butter, milk, apples and, of course, honey. Every year it falls on the third Friday in November. The Embassy has been educating children about the importance of bees for the world through the medium of the honey breakfast in different schools in Prague. These are our small but important steps for the protection and well-being of bees.

Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia
Pod Hradbami 15, Prague 6

The Press Release was prepared with support from the United Nations Information Centre Prague.
Prague, 15 May 2023

Prague City Hall has commissioned a new copy of the Old Town Square astronomical clock calendar that will replace the heavily-criticised version that was created in 2018. The artist who created the copy was lambasted by art historians and heritage enthusiasts for changing elements of Mánes’s 1866 original, to give it a more modern look.

The controversial copy of the astronomical clock calendar was commissioned as part of a broader overhaul and renovation of the Old Town Hall tower, on which the clock is mounted, and was finished and unveiled in 2018. For a few years nothing was said about it, but in 2022, Milan Patka from the Club for Old Prague filed an 18-page complaint about the copy to the National Heritage Inspectorate.

“I noticed it sometime before last Christmas when I was walking past the astronomical clock. Although I had seen the calendar many times before, it suddenly struck me that the pair of lovers were sitting not by a flowering bush, but by a pile of straw. I have a copy of Mánes’s calendar from 2002 at home which luckily I hadn’t thrown away. So I started comparing and found 10, 15, 20 mistakes which I wrote down and sent to the National Heritage Inspectorate.”

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

In Czechia, as well as in most Central and Southern European EU states, still wines are not subject to consumption tax. However, with the ongoing need to balance the budget, government experts have suggested introducing precisely such a tax, arguing that it could bring CZK 2 to 5 billion crowns into state coffers. This has angered the country’s winemakers who say that it would not just hit them hard in times of crisis, but also place a long tradition under threat.

Along with sparkling wine, still wine is currently the only alcoholic beverage in Czechia that is not subject to the so-called consumption or excise tax. In practice, this means that winemakers are not charged by the state if they produce fewer than 2,000 litres of wine per calendar year.

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Photo: Miloš Turek, Radio Prague International

Some of the most beautiful views of the Vltava River are at the river’s turn near Úholičky, an area linked to the rulers of the Přemyslid dynasty – Prince Bořivoj and his wife Ludmila.

This trail is ideal for day trip for cyclists and hikers. All you need to do is hop on a train from Prague to Úholičky, get off at Sedlec and you will find yourself surrounded by nature and history. The lookout at Stříbrník is a wonderful photo location from which the trail will lead you to the Řivnáč settlement site dating 2,000 years ago.

One of the highlights on this tour is St. Ludmila’s Lookout built on a historic site used by the rulers of the Přemyslid dynasty – Prince Bořivoj and his wife Ludmila. St. Clement’s Church, in its close vicinity, was built on the foundations of a rotunda dating back to those days.

See the rest here.

Author: Miloš Turek

Photo: Svět knihy

The annual international book fair and literary festival Book World Prague got underway on Thursday at the city’s Výstaviště grounds, featuring over 350 exhibitors from 30 countries. I spoke to Radovan Auer, the head of Book World Prague and asked him to tell me more about the choice of this year’s main theme, which is “Authors without Borders”.

“For the last two years we had very strong guest countries with very strong cultures, France and Italy, and we realised we didn’t give enough space to authors representing countries which stand a little bit on the borders.

“This is why we chose the theme Authors without Borders. But we are not talking just about geographical borders, we are also crossing the borders of genres and literature itself. And I must say that while Book World has always been very colourful, this year it will be more colourful than ever.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Aerofilms

The Czech opera singer and actress Soňa Červená, who gained worldwide fame for her rendition of Carmen in the world’s leading opera houses, has died at the age of 97. Červená started her career in the early 1950s but had to flee the country due to communist persecution, only returning to her home stage after the fall of communism.

Soňa Červená was born in 1925 and started her career in the interwar avant-garde Liberated Theatre, where she starred alongside the legendary actors Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich. She went on to perform with famous actors such as the comic Vlasta Burian before becoming an opera singer first in Brno and then at the National Theatre in Prague.

However, her promising career was cut short by the communist takeover in February 1948. Her husband, the owner of a chocolate factory, was forced to flee the country, while her mother died under unclear circumstances after police questioning.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Soňa Červená also received a Lifetime Achievement Trebbia Award in a ceremony covered by our magazine some time ago. You can see the coverage here.

Located just below Prague’s Vítkov Hill, the Czech Army Museum is one of the places to check out if you are into military history, thinking of honouring Victory Day, or just generally into great exhibitions. It features more than 7,000 exhibits displayed in various fashion. The largest exhibition hall covers the period encompassing the Second World War, including the Prague Uprising.

Czech military history is divided into seven segments within the four-floor museum. These range from prehistoric times, through the Habsburg period and the world wars, all the way to the present.

I met with historian Tomáš Plesl who works in the museum specialising in the period around the time of the Prague Uprising in May 1945. The exhibits covering this specific period of the Second World War are located in the upper part of a large hall that he says was originally used to store documents.

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Photo: Archive of Martin Nekola

Bohumil Pospíšil, a native of Přerov, was once a famous Czechoslovak traveller and adventure. The man, who spent five years on a journey around the world in the 1920s, was known as the Moravian Marco Polo. His estate, including thousands of photos, was thought to have been lost until recently, when it was discovered in the attic of his house in Auckland, New Zealand. Some of the unique photos are now on display as part of an exhibition in Břeclav.

I discussed the incredible life story of Bohumil Popíšil with Czech historian Martin Nekola, who is now in charge of his estate and I started by asking him when he first came across the name of Bohumil Pospíšil:

“Some three years ago I was working on a book about Czechs in New Zealand, and I had a chapter about Czech travellers and adventurers, who visited the country, including Josef Kořenský, Jiří Daneš and also Bohumil Pospíšil.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

The coronation of King Charles III is taking place at Westminster Abbey on Saturday. Although it has been 13 years since his last visit to Czechia, the former Prince Charles took a huge interest in the country during the 1990s and 2000s, visiting a total of five times, and even setting up a charity fund with Václav Havel to preserve Prague’s architectural heritage.

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Film Servis Festival Karlovy Vary

The organisers of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival have announced that Hollywood star Russell Crowe will attend the 57th edition. A previous star guest, Johnny Depp, is set to appear in this year’s trailer.

Antipodean movie star Russell Crowe, who is 59, will receive Karlovy Vary’s Crystal Globe for outstanding artistic direction to world cinema at the opening of the festival’s 57th edition, the organisers announced on Friday.

In a treat for fans, the actor will also perform to thousands of people at the outdoor opening concert with his rock group Indoor Garden Party.

In addition Crowe will introduce one of his best-known films, Peter Weir’s Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003), to audiences at the region’s biggest cinema event.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Musical Instrument Museum/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Prague music lovers can look forward to a treat on Wednesday. The US contemporary classical greats Kronos Quartet are set to celebrate half a century of existence alongside the Czech ambient artists the Havels, who are themselves marking 40 years together. The venue is a 17th century church.

The US-based string group Kronos Quartet have been on the go since 1973. Over the decades they have played with such well-known artists as David Bowie, Tom Waits and Bjork, as well as performing works by leading contemporary composers such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass and Terry Riley.

Wednesday’s concert in Prague is being organised by Václav Havelka from the venue Meetfactory.

“Kronos Quartet are one of the most famous avant-garde groups on the American music scene and they’re celebrating 50 years of existence with the concert this Wednesday in Prague.

“They will be playing pieces by people that they worked with through their career, for instance Laurie Anderson: there will be a piece by her performed during the performance, called Flow.

“There will be a piece by Michael Gordon, called Clouded Yellow. And also a piece by Terry Riley called One Earth, One People, One Love, from the cycle Sun Rings.”

See the rest here.

Photo: Petr Zmek, Česká zemědělská univerzita

The Czech University of Life Sciences is a place where an education rooted in science and agriculture is merged with other subjects like economics and business; a place where students from all over the world can get a truly unique and well-rounded education, grounded in multiple subjects.

24-year-old Taine Rose from New Zealand, a student of the Faculty of Economics and Management, says it’s the diversity in his education that he loves most about the study culture at CZU.

“One may think that it doesn’t make sense to study economics and management at an agriculture university, but I think the school has found a pretty good balance between having business basics but also integrating agriculture into it. A lot of people may not realize that there are a lot of business and economic careers that have to do with farming and agriculture. It never occurred to me before that if I wanted to start my own business that I could use agriculture, it doesn’t have to be something cool with technology, there are plenty of farms in New Zealand that are developing new technology, or working out better ways to do farming. That’s all a possibility with an economics and management degree from CZU.”

See the rest here.

Author: Amelia Mola Schmidt

Czechia is second on the crony capitalism index compiled by The Economist, after Russia and just ahead of Malaysia, Singapore and Mexico. According to the paper, the Czech share of crony capitalism wealth is over 15 percent of GDP. I asked political scientist Jiří Pehe to explain why cronyism thrives so well in this country.

“There are several reasons for the rise of crony capitalism in the Czech Republic. The first was the way that the privatization process in the 1990s took place. It was basically done by the political elite in cooperation with selected economic actors who, as a result of this political protection, became very rich, very quickly and that created the foundations of this system.

“There was a chance that this could be changed when the Social Democratic Party took over in 1998, but then the party decided to sign the so-called “opposition treaty” with the Civic Democratic Party which had presided over the privatization process in the 1990s. And so all of these new economic actors who became very rich by having political cover were cemented in their positions.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: René Volfík, iROZHLAS.cz

The Fiala government has unveiled an austerity package aimed at reducing the country’s deepening state deficit and plans for a radical reform of old-age pensions. To understate the gravity of the situation the package titled “Czechia in Good Shape” was unveiled at a press briefing scheduled for five minutes to twelve – signalling the lateness of the hour.

For months now, the government had made it clear that the country’s public finances were heading for trouble and the public must prepare to shoulder the burden of far-reaching consolidation measures that would impact each and every member of society. At a press briefing on Thursday, Prime Minister Petr Fiala told Czechs the fat years were over and the lean years were ahead.

“Our main goal is to stop the spiraling deficit in public finances, to turn around the negative trend that was established by former populist governments. The deficit in public finances has been rising at a horrifying rate. If we do not hit the brakes now the situation will get out of control and our children and grandchildren will have to pay the price.”

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-13768, CC BY-SA 3.0

The Czech-American community in Chicago will be marking 150 years since the birth of Anton Cermak, a Czech immigrant who became the mayor of Chicago and was assassinated in 1933, after only two years in office. Two such events are planned for the coming days.

The Czech-Canadian singer Lenka Lichtenberg will travel to Chicago from Toronto this Saturday to perform Bohemian, Moravian and Slovak folk songs on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Anton Cermak, the famous Czech-born mayor of Chicago.

The first event, organised by the T.G. Masaryk Czech School in Chicago, is due to take place this Saturday at the Bohemian National Cemetery and will be attended by members of the Czech community as well as by Cermak’s grandson Anton Kerner. Another, more official, event is scheduled for Tuesday May 9, Cermak’s actual birthday, at the Chicago Cultural Centre.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Group photo from the visit to Altyn Dala. Photo Miroslav Bobek

“200 km straight, then a mild curve to the left, again 200 km straight, right turn and after another 50 km we will stop for the night,” I wrote home with only a little exaggeration when we were heading by cars to the “Golden Steppe” Altyn Dala after the afternoon flight to Kostanay in northern Kazakhstan. The following day I lost the humour somewhat, as we crossed over from tarmac roads to dirt roads on which we drove within one day about the same distance as if driving from Prague to Ostrava. When fording a river, I shut the side window of Landcruiser so the water rolling over the bonnet would not splash inside.

Our five-day long journey to Kazakhstan, during which we travelled over two thousand kilometres by air and almost three thousand kilometres on the ground, immediately followed the visit of the Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala to Astana. At the occasion of the Prime Minister’s visit, on 24 April 2023 Nurlan Kylyshbayev, the Chairman of the Committee on Forestry and Wildlife of Kazakhstan, and I signed the Memorandum on Cooperation on the Return of Przewalski’s Horses to Kazakhstan. We had been discussing this cooperation for long time with the great support of Roman Vassilenko, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan. By signing the Memorandum in the presence of the Prime Ministers of both countries the agreement had reached the very highest level.

Przewalski’s horses. Photo Miroslav Bobek

The organization of our journey to Kazakhstan, thanks especially to Daniyar Turgambayev, the Deputy Chairman of the Forestry and Wildlife Committee, was not in the least inferior to the organization of a State visit. Our common goal was to assess the localities pre-selected for the reintroduction of Przewalski’s horses. From the beginning, most of our attention was focused on two localities: Altyn Emel (Golden Saddle) in the south-east of the country, and the abovementioned Altyn Dala (Golden Steppe) in central Kazakhstan.

Saiga antelopes in the steppes of Altyn Dala. Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

There are already Przewalski’s horses in Altyn Emel; two in the wild and three in a pen. These are remnants of the Kazakh-German project from the first decade of the century. However, its organization suffered from significant shortcomings and above all – as we together with Bára Dobiášová and Tomáš Hulík could see with our own eyes – the area of Altyn Emel is not suitable for Przewalski’s horses. It has vegetation of low nutritional value, a completely insufficient area for a viable population, not quite optimal terrain profile and, furthermore, domestic horses roam nearby. The only advantages are mild winters and very good accessibility.

Aerial view of the landscape surrounding the reintroduction centre Alibi in Altyn Dala. Photo Tomáš Hulík

On the other hand, the Altyn Dala area impressed us despite the demanding journey. It is an area of almost 7,000 km2 of fertile steppe without domestic animals, with a sufficient supply of water and a suitable terrain profile. As well as in Altyn Emel, also in Altyn Dala the basic infrastructure for the reintroduction project is already there. It has been built several years ago for the purpose of reintroduction of Przewalski’s horses, and when the project was cancelled due to insufficient legislative protection of the horses, it was used for reintroduction of kulans. Besides the difficult accessibility possibly only the harsh winters can be problematic in Altyn Dala, and perhaps also poachers. However, the winters in Altyn Dala are more favourable than in Mongolian Gobi B, where we have already successfully returned many horses, as well as in the Monastery Valley in the east of Mongolia, where we prepare their reintroduction. And regarding the poaching, the Przewalski’s horse has recently been added to the Red Book of Kazakhstan and very severe penalties have been set for its hunting; even so it will be necessary to strengthen patrolling in the area of Altyn Dala.

Kulans in the acclimatization pen. Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

Although we still must answer many questions and resolve many issues, Altyn Dala seems to be very promising for the return of Przewalski’s horses to Kazakhstan. And this return can happen much earlier than we had thought, given the extraordinary interest and professionality of our Kazakh partners. Let’s hope that in the next few years the Kazakh Golden Steppe will become another promised land for Przewalski’s horses.

Miroslav Bobek, Director, Prague Zoo

Photo: Ian Willoughby, Radio Prague International

Pilsner Urquell was created in Pilsen in the 1840s and is today the best known Czech beer around the world. Its producers Plzeňský Prazdroj run a fine museum in the West Bohemian city. Now, however, visitors to Prague can also learn a lot about the classic pale lager at the Pilsner Urquell Experience, which is intended to be analogous to the likes of the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.

The new attraction is located on 3,000 square metres across three floors in a magnificent Art Nouveau building just off the bottom of Wenceslas Square.

Nick Penny is the general manager of Pilsner Urquell Experience, which is operated by his Original Experience Company in cooperation with Plzeňský Prazdroj. We meet at the entrance, just days after the opening of the attraction.

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Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: APF Czech Radio

Czechia was the place where the last shots of World War II were fired in Europe. The generally accepted narrative is that, with most of the country liberated by the Soviet Red Army, the former Czechoslovakia was inevitably headed for the communist Soviet bloc. Vít Smetana from the Prague Institute of Contemporary History dispels some deeply-rooted myths perpetuated by the communists about what happened in the very last days of WWII in Czechoslovakia.

For many decades under Communism, the official storyline was simple: the Czechs with the help of mostly Communist-led resistance decided not to wait for their liberation and in many places started disarming the retreating German troops hard-pressed by the Red Army from the East. The regular Wehrmacht and elite SS troops were trying to flee to the West so as to be captured by the Western Allies rather than the Soviets because they rightly expected that the treatment would be better in their prisoner-of-war camps.

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Author: Vít Pohanka

Photo: Patrick Marek, Czech Radio

This week marked the 50th birthday of one of Czechia’s best-known violinists. Pavel Šporcl, often recognised for his signature head-scarf, has had a rich career filled with both domestic and international successes. He has performed with renowned singers and orchestras such as Karel Gott, Vojtěch Dyk, Ewa Farna, the Prague Philharmonic, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, or France’s Orchestre national.

Pavel Šporcl was born in the South Bohemian metropolis of České Budějovice on April 25, 1973. He took part in many competitions during his childhood and his teacher was the legendary Václav Snitl a highly accomplished soloist who was himself trained by preceding Czech violin great Jaroslav Kocian as well as the modernist composer Vítězslav Novák. Šporcl also studied in the United States, for example at Brooklyn College and the Juilliard School in New York.

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Photo: Západočeská univerzita Plzeň

Russia’s war against Ukraine has had widespread negative impacts outside the country’s borders. Among them is a drop in interest in Russian studies at Czech universities and a gradual loss of academic contacts.

More than fourteen months after the war in Ukraine started, Czech universities report a drop in the number of people interested in studying Russian language and literature, a loss of academic contacts with universities in Russia, cancelled internships and fewer study materials. However, schools of higher learning consider it important to maintain the high quality of education in the department of Slavonic studies for those interested in the field. Václav Hanáček is one of the Russian language students at the University of West Bohemia in Plzen.

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Authors: Daniela Lazarová, Martina Klímová

Photo: Viktor Daněk, Czech Radio

Czech President Petr Pavel arrived in Ukraine early on Friday morning, shortly after Kyiv and other cities were hit by Russian missiles. Accompanied by his Slovak counterpart, Zuzana Čaputová, Mr. Pavel visited the sites of atrocities and criticised Moscow’s attacks on civilian targets.

The Czech and Slovak presidents set off by plane on Thursday to Rzeszów in Poland, from where they were taken by car to Przemyśl, close to the border with Ukraine. They then boarded a train and from there continued their overnight journey to Kyiv together.

After arriving at the railway station in Nemishaieve, 38 kilometres northwest of the capital, the two presidents were welcomed by the Czech ambassador to Kyiv, Radek Matula, and the former Ukrainian ambassador to Czechia, Yevhen Perebyinis, among others.

Mr. Perebyinis said Mr. Pavel’s presence in Ukraine is significant for the country.

“Czechia is a significant partner for us, a country which supports us and provides us with aid, including of the military kind. Of course, this is President Pavel’s first visit to Ukraine and I know President Zelensky is very much looking forward to meeting him in person.”

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Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Natálie Flajžíková, Czech Radio

Archaeologists from the Moravian Museum in Brno have announced a unique discovery. During a survey near the city of Ostrava they discovered a stone with an engraving of a mammoth and a horse, which dates back about 15,000 years ago. According to experts, the artefact has immeasurable historical value.

The engraved black stone, which measures roughly five by seven centimetres, was discovered at the archaeological site Holý vrch near the village Hošťálkovice on the outskirts of the Moravian-Silesian capital of Ostrava. It depicts a mammoth and a horse on a river mound.

Zdeňka Nerudová, curator of the Centre for Cultural Anthropology at the Moravian Museum, says the stone was most likely brought to the site by prehistoric reindeer and horse hunters, who found it in the gravel of the Odra or Opava Rivers.

“Stone is a fairly durable material that can survive almost anything. At the same time, it is relatively soft, so it was possible to carve into it with another stone, most likely a flint stone, thanks to which the engraving survived until the present day.”

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Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Tomáš Pancíř

Photo: Vít Pohanka, Radio Prague International

Mrs Palermo’s Cottage is a novel by AR Parker, inspired by the Czech borderlands. Vit Pohanka spoke to the author about what brought him to Czechia and what led him to set his latest novel in the town where he bought a house and settled.

“The storm had raged the night Eva was born. The world around witnessing fierce winds smashing through the forest, twisting trees from crown to root and ripping away rotting limbs, sent crashing through the canopy to thud down on earth, obliterating all in the way.”

These are the opening lines of AR Parker’s new book. Mrs Palermo’s Cottage is a story full of nostalgia and sadness, but also quite a lot of humor. Nevertheless, there is a sinister and even tragic turn of events, when the change of government brings a new mayor and capitalism to the town of Boz (Krásná Lípa). As the publisher Europe Books puts it: “The tranquil environment of Boz is shattered and everything is put up for sale, including society’s soul.”

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Author: Vít Pohanka

Photo: Tom McEnchroe, Radio Prague International

As of this week, commuters in some of Prague’s busiest metro stations are seeing photographs of war-stricken Ukrainians sheltering in their own underground. The images were captured by Ukrainian photo journalists and were first displayed in the Berlin metro last year under the title “Next Station Ukraine”.

One of the key movers in the effort was Klára Jiřičná from the NGO ACT Alliance. I caught up with her in the Muzeum metro station, one of the locations where the photographs are being displayed, to find out more about it.

“They had this exhibition in the Berlin metro last November. I saw it through a colleague at ACT Alliance who is based in Germany and I was intrigued and said that we have to have this in Prague. So I got in touch, they agreed to it and here we are.”

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Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Photo: Jean-Francois Badias, ČTK/AP

Last year, the non-profit Centre for Civil Liberties was one of three recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize – the first time ever that a Nobel Prize has been awarded to a Ukrainian citizen or organisation. Ukrainian human rights lawyer Oleksandra Matviichuk started working for the organisation, which she now heads, in 2007. She has been involved in a number of activities relating to the protection of human rights, including the collecting of evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, so when Czech Radio’s Jan Bumba interviewed her recently, he started by asking her what specifically she is focusing on right now.

“I want to find answers for the people we are documenting all these crimes for. Who will provide a chance for justice for hundreds of thousands of victims of this war? It is not an abstract question.

“The Ukrainian national system is overloaded with an extreme amount of crimes and the International Criminal Court will limit its investigation only to several selected cases. So we need to change the world’s approach to war crime justice in order to achieve this goal.”

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Authors: Jan Bumba, Anna Fodor, Ruth Fraňková

A new iRozhlas.cz report has found a sharp rise in the number of single-occupant homes in Czechia, from 32 percent in 2011 to 39 percent a decade later. The jump is attributed to an increase in single people in major cities and more seniors, often widows, living by themselves. I discussed the findings with the report’s author, Jan Boček of Czech Radio’s data journalism team.

“There are two main causes. One of them is the increase in single-person households in the Sudetenland, which is probably mostly older people, especially ladies, because they live a bit longer than men – so most of them are widows.

“And then the other trend is the increase of single-person households among young people living in the big cities, like in Prague and in Brno and Ostrava, who are single people.”

But why are there so many? In Prague it’s 47 percent single-occupancy households – why is it so high?

“In the large cities you’ve got a lot of different lifestyles and people are using to living single, so it’s easier in bigger cities to live like this.

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Author: Ian Willoughby