AuthorMartin Hladík

The pangolin pup was born early on a Thursday morning. It is not only the first ever born pangolin pup in the Prague Zoo, but also in all of Europe. Photo Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

Born just before 4 a.m., it weighs 135 grams and resembles a living spruce cone. The first pangolin pup that was born not just in the Prague Zoo, but also the first one ever in all of Europe.

„We are incredibly happy, but at the same time we do realize that the following days might be critical,“ warns the Prague Zoo director Miroslav Bobek. „The female pangolin Run Hou Tang that we got from the Taipei Zoo had already raised an offspring, so the chances are relatively high.“

The Chinese pangolins, the female Run Hou Tang and the male named Guo Bao, were obtained by the Prague Zoo directly from Taiwan in April 2022. Prague Zoo became only the second zoo in Europe that keeps these peculiar and highly endangered mammals.

During the pregnancy, a special bar was used for ultrasound screenings of the female. It allowed for a quiet examination, while the female feeded undisturbed leaning against this unique construction. Photo Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

„The birth of a pangopup in the Prague Zoo is a significant and cute outcome of economic diplomacy. We have the rare pangolins in Prague only thanks to a close partnership with the Taiwan metropolis Taipei that we had established three years ago,” says Zdeněk Hřib, the mayor of the city of Prague.

Breeding the pangolins is extremely difficult as they require a specially prepared nutritious mash, the main component of which being the bee larvae. Also the whole gravidity term was closely observed.

„We started doing regular ultrasound screenings of Run Hou Tang since the fourth month of her gravidity,“ recalls the zookeeper David Vala. „We constructed a special bar that allows for a quiet examination, while the female feeds undisturbed leaning against this unique construction.“

Pangolins are the most illegally trafficked mammals in the world and the Prague Zoo has been striving to protect them in their homeland for a long time now, both in Africa and Asia. Prague Zoo will keep the public informed about the possibilities to see the pangolin pup in a close future.

The Chinese pangolins, the female Run Hou Tang (in the photo) and the male named Guo Bao, were obtained by the Prague Zoo directly from Taiwan in April 2022. Prague Zoo became only the second zoo in Europe that keeps these peculiar and highly endangered mammals. Photo Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

Photo: Prague Castle Administration

Czechs assessed President Miloš Zeman’s ten-year performance in the country’s top post with an average 4 on a five point scale, the equivalent of a “D” in the Western school grading system, according to the results of a survey conducted by NMS Market Research.

As the country elects a new president, Czechs were asked to assess the performance in office of the outgoing head of state President Miloš Zeman. Mr. Zeman is now winding up his second five-year term in office, due to end on March 8.

In a survey conducted among 1,300 respondents around the country, President Zeman received an average 4 on a five-point scale for “overall performance”. In the individual areas assessed, Mr. Zeman received the best average grade, 3.4 , for actively supporting Czech entrepreneurs during trips abroad, and the worst average grade, 4, for the selection of his closest associates and for his role as a moral authority. People were also critical of the way in which he represented the country abroad and claimed that he divided society.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Ondřej Deml, ČTK

Retired army general Petr Pavel is set to become Czechia’s next president after winning a sweeping victory in the second round of presidential elections. He beat his contestant for the top post, former prime minister Andrej Babiš by the biggest margin in the history of Czech presidential elections.

Petr Pavel celebrated a triumphant victory on Saturday in an atmosphere reminiscent of the heady days of the Velvet Revolution. The war hero who served as chief of the Czech Army’s General Staff and later as chair of NATO’s Military Committee, led a campaign highlighting values such as “honour, dignity and responsibility”.

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Author: Daniela Lazarová

The newly-elected Czech president Petr Pavel has promised sweeping changes at Prague Castle. He wants to open up the historic seat of Czech kings to the public and return to the tradition of employing a Prague Castle architect.

Asked what he would do differently from his predecessor in office, Miloš Zeman, the newly-elected head of state quipped: everything. In addition to a different style of communication, Pavel wants a more “civil” presidential role better suited to the 21st century. He has no plans to reside in Prague Castle and says that his administration will only take up a small part of the premises. The rest should be open to the public. Moreover, he is the first head of state after Václav Havel, who wants to employ a Prague Castle architect. The man whom he would like to see in the post is the respected Czech architect Josef Pleskot.

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Authors: Daniela Lazarová, Olga Vasinkevič

Steriani Elavsky is an associate professor at the University of Ostrava who has spent years researching the benefits that physical movement has on our mental and physical wellbeing. Steriani spent 17 years at the University of Illinois and Pennsylvania State University before continuing her research at the University of Ostrava and is now considered one of the leading Czech specialists in this field. So when she made time for Radio Prague International I began by asking her to enumerate the benefits we get from regular exercise.

“Exercise or physical activity has numerous beneficial effects –it increases our heart rate, breathing rate and as a result of that we produce certain chemicals, neuro-transmitters like serotonin and dopamine that effect our mood. There is a whole array of physiological benefits which are responsible for the fact that we feel well after exercising. We have an elated mood due to the fact that our body has started producing some chemicals in our brain. Among the many psychological benefits that exercising gives us is a new level of confidence, or perceived competence about what we can do; we have a more positive attitude about ourselves and how we view our bodies, which in turn can increase our sense of self-worth and self-esteem and that can also contribute to feeling better and having a better quality of life.”

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

Photo: Filharmonie Brno

The Brno Philharmonic is embarking on a ten-day tour of the United States. The orchestra, which last performed in North America nearly 50 years ago, will play seven concerts at seven different locations. The tour will kick off with a performance of Philip Glass’s symphony No 12 called Lodger in Carnegie Hall in New York City. I discussed the details with the philharmonic’s managing director Marie Kučerová.

“We performed this symphony already at the Prague Spring Festival in 2021 and also at the Moravian Autumn Festival in Brno. We also recorded this symphony for our own label, which was nominated for the International Classical Music Awards.

So we are very glad that we can bring this symphony to New York, because it is going to be the New York premiere and we very much hope that the performance will take place in the presence of the composer himself.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Ladislav Renner

A captivating picture of Bezděz castle won the 2023 competition for the most beautiful Czech postcard. The photographer, Ladislav Renner, told Czech Radio how he managed to capture the arresting shot.

A stunning medieval Gothic castle snaking its way up a tree-covered hill shrouded in mist, low clouds clinging to its back and softly lit by the backdrop of a rising sun. This is the picture postcard that won the competition for the most beautiful Czech tourist postcard of 2023. The photographer, Ladislav Renner, took not just one but an incredible five out of the top ten winning images. He told Czech Radio about how the striking picture came to be:

“It was a bit of a fluke – one evening an acquaintance reached out to me on Facebook to say that a place for a hot-air balloon ride had become available at the last moment. The next day I set out early in the morning towards Bezděz. It was my first ever hot-air balloon ride so I was a bit anxious, but I survived and the conditions for taking photographs were perfect.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Anna Fodor, Jolana Nováková

Have you ever tried in vain to identify the pests that are eating your houseplants? A new technology, developed by a Czech start-up, could make it easier. It can classify over six thousand insects using Artificial Intelligence. All you need to do is take a picture with your mobile phone and upload it to the Insect.id website.

The Czech start-up, called FlowerChecker, has already developed a successful plant identification technology, as well as a mobile app for gardeners and plant enthusiasts, which can identify around 30 million different plant species.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Martina Schneibergová, Radio Prague International

Events marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and millions of other victims of Nazism are being held around Czechia on Friday. A special commemorative event attended by foreign diplomats and members of the Jewish community in Czechia is being held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

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Photo: Miroslav Chaloupka, ČTK

A meeting of lovers of PC, board, arcade and retro games, Pokemon, comics and cosplay took place in Plzeň at the weekend as part of the second year of the science fiction and fantasy festival Co.Con.

Source

In the UK and US, people attempt a month without drinking alcohol under the banner of Dry January, but in Czechia, February is the nationally recognized month for abstaining. Suchej únor (Dry February) is now in its 11th year, and this time is being held under the slogan ‘Not Drinking Is An Art!’

Suchej únor launched in Czechia in 2013, the same year that Dry January launched in the UK, and has only increased in popularity since then. Last year, 13.5 percent of the adult population in Czechia participated in the event – and according to a survey, more than half of those who participated were still drinking less than previously even four months later.

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

The following post is an editorially edited press release by NGI.

Multilayer Internet infrastructure is becoming crucial to the European economy. European businesses and citizens are starting to recognise the real benefits of an interconnected world, and it is time for Europe to grab new opportunities by strategically supporting digital commons. That is why the New Generation Internet (NGI) Outreach Office was hosting a high-level expert Webinar on digital commons and digital sovereignty this week.

Digital commons are among the core assets to pursue Europe’s Digital Sovereignty. Indeed, they can play a genuinely important role for individuals and organisations by ensuring open, inclusive and decentralised access to digital resources and achieving the combination of broad democratic accountability and meaningfully distributed opportunity that was core to the equitable economic growth of democracies in the 20th century.

Much of the most admired digital world functions as commons

As experts at the World Economic Forum have pointed out, there is already evidence that a move towards common-pool digital public goods could have widely shared benefits. Parts of the digital world – often the most useful and admired parts – already function as commons: Internet protocols, which are governed by international institutions and open standards, the open-source software that enables these protocols, which are often community-stewarded, and much of the crucial information layer of the Internet, including Wikipedia, the Digital Library of Commons and the range of content under Creative Commons, all of which have their own, commons-inspired governance structures.

However, in order to ensure that such approaches can grow and become viable alternatives over the current concentration of Internet resources, it is crucial to pull resources. Therefore, policymakers, regulators, public authorities and all other relevant players in the internet arena must converge to define collaboration policies and targeted institutional and financial plans to guarantee interoperability and community governance.

That is the reason why the NGI Outreach Office hosted a High-Level Expert Webinar on Digital Commons and Digital Sovereignty on 31 January 2023. The webinar was held online with key speakers, including Gemma Carolillo, Deputy Head of Next Generation Internet Unit and Nele Leosk, Ambassador-at-Large for Digital Affairs of Estonia, and together with a list of high-level panel speakers, including Paul Keller, Director of Open Future, Kasia Odrozek, Director of Mozilla Foundation, Melanie Dulong de Rosnay, Director of CNRS Center for Internet and Society, and Laureen Van Breen, Director of WikiRate.

Three-pillar plan for next year

“Next Generation Internet is one of the Commission initiatives that nurture digital commons. NGI has already delivered a wide portfolio of open source solutions, both hardware and software, covering all layers of the Internet. The plan for the next year revolves around three pillars: structuring the human-centric internet ecosystem, piloting the NGI solutions in key sectors, mapping active communities of commoners to devise a plan to better support those according to their needs,” says Gemma Carolillo, Deputy Head of Next Generation Internet Unit, European Commission.

For the first time ever, the high-level expert webinar was discussing the role of the NGI initiative as a way to foster digital commons and European digital sovereignty. The event aims to steer conversations around European digital priorities supporting an open, free, interoperable, and secure internet by exploring the latest evolution of digital commons. Therefore, policymakers, regulators, public authorities and all other relevant players in the internet arena will converge, defining collaboration, policies and targeted institutional and financial plans to guarantee the development and uptake of digital commons across the European Union.

The NGI’s path to Europe´s digital sovereignty

The NGI initiative is funding “commons” and open-source projects, both at the European and national levels. Several initiatives, including some digital commons communities, call for specific needs that the NGI initiative groups and connects these networks within the NGI Ecosystem, enabling sharing of expertise, knowledge, and the current concentration of Internet resources. The NGI is also actively promoting open calls launched by the European Commission and by the NGI project partners targeting strategic digital commons and giving opportunities for researchers and innovators to fund and support their ideas.

Photo: Václav Chochola, © Archiv B&M Chochola

Václav Chochola, a native of Prague’s Libeň district, is often associated with snapshots of city suburbs. But he also photographed famous Czech and world personalities such as Jan Werich and Salvador Dali.

Chochola’s famous series of portrait photographs of the then 70-year-old Dali holding an egg or sitting on a divan with a walking stick became his best known works worldwide. Dali himself was full of praise for them. How much he liked them is proven by another iconic photo, where Dali holds an image of himself taken by Chochola while striking his well-known pose.

See the rest here.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the six countries which the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs is currently focussing on in its development cooperation programmes. Due to its linguistic and cultural proximity to the Balkan state, Czechia has been developing close partnerships there since the 1990s and has also been supporting it in its preparations for EU accession.

The partnership between the Czech Republic and Bosnia and Herzegovina began during the war of 1992–1995, which erupted as a result of the collapse and breakup of the socialist multi-ethnic state of Yugoslavia. At that time, Prague provided humanitarian aid to the region of south-eastern Europe, says Štěpán Šantrůček, the Czech Consul in Sarajevo: “At first it was just individual charitable activities during the war. In fact, the delivery of humanitarian aid to Bosnia and Herzegovina was one of the first activities carried out by the humanitarian organization People in Need, at that time outside the official framework of foreign development cooperation. Then, in the second half of the 1990s, immediately after the end of the war in 1995 and onwards throughout the early 2000s, Bosnia and Herzegovina was included as one of the priorities for foreign development cooperation.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Anna Fodor, Daniela Honigmann

Frilled lizards are now on display in Prague Zoo’s Feline and Reptile Pavilion. Being predominantly insectivorous lizards, they mainly get crickets and grasshoppers. Photo Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

Prague Zoo now has frilled lizards on display. This is the first time the zoo has kept these striking reptiles. Visitors can find the Australian lizards, which inspired the creators of Jurassic Park, in the Feline and Reptile Pavilion.

“These are extremely attractive animals that are valuable not only as an exhibit, but also educationally. Lizards have various horns or growths, but only this species boasts such a characteristic frill of skin,” said reptile curator Petr Velenský, adding that the frill is made of loose skin reinforced with long cartilage and can be up to 26 centimetres wide.

According to Velenský, the frilled dragon, as it is also known, benefits from spreading its collar when threatened, as it makes itself look bigger and can startle a predator more easily driving it away when combined with its threatening hiss. Of course, the animals will not be so stressed at Prague Zoo. “The frill also serves other functions: the lizards like to shake it when courting or only partially open it for internal temperature regulation,” assured Velenský.

The frilled lizard is unmistakable because of its frill of skin. It uses it when threatened, but also as a means of internal temperature regulation or during courtship. This attractive lizard was once the inspiration for the creators of Jurassic Park. Photo Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

Frilled lizards inhabit the dry forests and bush in northern and north-eastern Australia as well as southern New Guinea. They can grow up to 90 centimetres in length, with almost half that length being the tail. They are mostly insectivorous, so in Prague they mainly get crickets and grasshoppers. Their diet is supplemented by vegetables – lettuce, carrots and napa cabbage.

Prague Zoo has four specimens that are just under two years old: a male and three females. Visitors can find them in the Feline and Reptile Pavilion in a terrarium that is also home to Malayan flat-shelled turtles. Frilled lizards are diurnal animals and during the day they like to sit in upright positions pressed tightly against a tree trunk or branch, so it is a good idea to look for them at the top of the exhibit, near the light source.

Roman Červinka | Photo: YouTube

Sixteen-year-old violinist Roman Červinka from České Budějovice won the most recent season of the popular classical music reality TV competition Virtuosos V4+. He beat thousands of other applicants to take the prize.

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Author: Anna Fodor

Prague, January 16, 2023 – The University of New York in Prague (UNYP) will be hosting a panel discussion on the practice of sports sponsorship on February 1st, at the O2 Universum. The panel will be discussing the best practices from the point of view of the sponsor, the athlete, the sports agent and will highlight the case studies that have come from the experience of the speakers.

The link to the event can be found here.

The link for registration can be found here.

The speakers of this event are:

Martina Sáblíková, a Czech speedskater, three-time Olympic Winner, world record holder, and 21 time World Champion. Martina holds seven Olympic medals, and was the first Czech to win two Olympic gold medals at one Winter Games in 2010.

Petr Hercík, the current Executive Director and Chairman of the Board of SPORT INVEST Marketing, a.s., throughout his career he has functioned as an Event Manager, Athletes Manager, Executive Manager, and Executive Director having experienced all aspects of sports marketing, sponsorship, management, and business.

Hana Kovářová, the Executive Director for Brand Strategy and Communications of the Komerční banka Group, and formally the Marketing Director of Raiffeisenbank, has worked on countless sponsorship projects throughout her career including sports such as ice hockey, golf, running, horse jumping, racing, and esports.

Mark Anderson, the Marketing Director for the University of New York in Prague, has worked with the Czech Olympic Team as a Partner with GE Money Bank, and now as the Educational Supplier to the Czech Team, is the Official Partner of Sparta Floorball, Partner of Prague Lvi Volleyball and works together on various projects with AC Sparta Praha on the sponsorship of their Arena in Podvinny Mlyn as well as the Czech Floorball Federation and even Rytíři Kladno hockey club.

The event is open to the public and to the press/media, is free of charge and will be held primarily in Czech language with simulcast translation to Czech and English. The event is meant for people in the marketing industry that work within sponsorship projects, sponsored athletes, sports clubs and federations and students of sports from any school.

The event is run with the auspices of the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.

Press room with Czech and English downloads can be found here.

The live stream of this event can be found here.

Media Partner:

Photo: Julian Faik, Radio Prague International

A recent video by a pair of Prague theatre students has caught the attention of people on social media and sparked a debate about ‘trdelník’ – the sweet chimney or funnel cake which turns on a spit and has become ubiquitous in Prague’s city centre over the past couple of decades. Many of the vendors selling the cinnamon-dusted confection have signs alluding to the long rich history of trdelník as an old Czech tradition – a tradition which, as the video points out in an amusing way, is totally made-up.

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Vladimír Pryček, ČTK

During the eleventh year of the international championship in historical skiing in Staré Hamry – Gruň in the Beskydy Mountains, a competitor skis the slope in telemark style.

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Lou Reed, Jan Macháček and Václav Havel, Photo: Archive of Jan Macháček / Paměť národa

Folk, rock, jazz, pop music – the musical tastes of Czechoslovak and later Czech presidents differed significantly. Václav Havel had the most friends among musicians, including world stars.

“Ach synku, synku” (“Oh son, son”) is a well-known Czech folk song. It was reputedly the favourite song of the first Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk and was played almost every time he visited the countryside. However, according to a biography written by Zdenek Nejedlý, the song TGM liked most was “Teče voda, teče” (“Water is flowing, flowing”).

See the rest here.

Photo: Netflix

Four Czech filmmakers will compete for an Oscar at the upcoming 95th Academy Awards. They have been shortlisted for Netflix’s World War I drama All Quiet on the Western Front. The first-ever German-language adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s famous novel won nine Oscar nominations, including top categories best picture and best international feature.

Edward Berger’s powerful adaptation of Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, first published in Germany in 1929, premiered at the International Film festival in Toronto last September and was launched internationally on the Netflix streaming platform a month later.

The drama, following the story of an ordinary German front line soldier in the trenches, evolves mainly in France. However, most of the filming actually took place in various locations in and outside of Prague.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Martin Hrnčíř

Photo: Magda Arnoštová, Czech Radio

There has only been one Czech Nobel Prize winner in a scientific field to date – Jaroslav Heyrovský, who won it in chemistry in 1959 for his invention of the polarographic method. But another one could have followed just a year later, if not for the Soviet scientific terminology that Czechoslovak scientists were made to use in the 1950s.

Peter Medawar, described by popular science writer Bill Bryson as the “patron saint” of the immune system, was one of the greatest twentieth-century British scientists, winning the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1960 for his discovery of acquired immunological tolerance. In short, he figured out why the body rejects skin grafts from one person to another, revolutionising organ transplantation.

Medawar’s key insight was that the immune system learns early in life not to attack its own healthy cells – essentially, it figures out early on what is self and what is other. By experimenting on mice, he discovered that a mouse exposed to skin from another mouse when it is very young is able to accept a skin transplant from that other mouse later in life – the immune system has in a sense been trained at a young age to recognise it as self.

See the rest here.

Authors: Anna Fodor, Eva Kézrová

Dina Gottliebová-Babbitt | Photo: YouTube

It was her skill as an artist that saved Brno-born Dina Gottliebová-Babbittová from death in Auschwitz’s gas chamber. She was protected by the angel of death himself, SS doctor Josef Mengele.

The Czech-American artist was born on January 21, 1923. During the Nazi occupation period she was kicked out of her studies at the local art school because she was a Jew. Then, in 1942, Gottlieb was transported into the Terezín Ghetto. A year later, she was sent to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

See the rest here.

Photo: Czech Foreign Ministry

The Czech government’s humanitarian aid program MEDEVAC provides medical assistance to people in need the world over. In war-torn Ukraine it is literally helping to save lives.

Last year, 16-month-old Yulia was close to death. With burns on 60 percent of her body, she lay in a hospital in Lviv where doctors were unable to help her. Her life was saved by a complex emergency aid effort organized by the Czech Interior Ministry’s humanitarian program MEDEVAC. The aid operation involved dozens of people in Ukraine, Poland and Czechia.

See the rest here.

Authors: Daniela Lazarová, Ľubomír Smatana

Photo: Botanická zahrada Praha

Visitors to Prague’s Botanical Garden in Troja have a rare chance to see the world’s smallest water lily in bloom. The plant, called Nymphaea thermarum in Latin, isn’t just tiny; it is also one of the rarest plants in the world.

Nymphaea thermarum is the world’s smallest water lily yet described, with the leaves measuring only one centimetre in diameter. By comparison, the leaves of the largest water lily, Victoria Amazonica, can reach up to three metres.

The world’s tiniest water lily was only discovered in 1987. Less than 30 years later it was considered extinct in the wild, due to the destruction of its native habitat. It was saved from extinction when it was grown from a seed at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew in London in 2009.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Roman Verner, Czech Radio

Josef Lada is undoubtedly one of the best-loved Czech painters of all time. He is known for his illustrations of children’s books as well as for his landscape and village paintings, many of which have appeared on Czech Christmas cards. The self-taught artist is also noted around the world for his illustrations of Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk.

See the rest here.

Authors: Barbora Navrátilová, Tomáš Pancíř

Photo: René Volfík, iROZHLAS.cz

A special tram commemorating the 30 year anniversary of President Vaclav Havel’s election began making rounds across Prague this Thursday. Havel was elected as Czechia’s first president on January 26, 1993.

The vehicle is operating on the route normally taken by the number 18 tram. Its interior is decorated with a wide range of citations from Václav Havel that emphasise his contributions to the Czech state. The Czech News Agency reports that the tram is part of the Havel for travellers (Havel pro cestující) event, which aims to commemorate the former president’s significance in the history of the modern Czech state.

“Vaclav Havel was independent Czechia’s first president, but his opinions and attitudes are still relevant, even three decades after his election,” Prague’s Mayor Zdeněk Hřib stated in connection to the event.

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Cigarette butts, one of the most hated types of street debris, could actually be useful. A team of scientists from the Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín, say that they have developed a method of using cigarette butts to catch hormones in wastewater.

Whether it be on the pavement, in parks or even in the sea, cigarette butts can be found almost anywhere. Aesthetically displeasing and difficult to clean up, it is hard to find anyone who would appreciate this smokers trail. But that didn’t stop a team of scientists at Tomáš Baťa University in Zlín from trying to find a way to redeem this type of refuse. Dušan Kimmer, a researcher at the university’s Faculty of Technology, explains.

“We found out that cigarette butts are the third most common type of waste found in the world’s oceans. It’s also a problem on land, of course. We asked ourselves the question: What can be done with this? And so we tried recycling them and making something useful out of them.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Thomas McEnchroe, Roman Verner

Photo: Galerie výtvarného umění v Chebu/Společnost Jana Zrzavého, z. s.

Jan Zrzavý was a painter, illustrator and scenographer, and a leading representative of the Czech avant-garde. He was a mysterious, solitary artist living in his own world, rarely open to anyone else. Although he was never admitted to the Prague Academy of Arts, his paintings now sell for millions of dollars at auction.

See the rest here.

After two “COVID” years Prague Zoo returned to normal in 2022. Despite the lower number of foreign visitors and the deteriorating economic situation a high number of visitors returned: in 2022 a total of 1,419,122 visitors passed through its gates. In a way it was a breakthrough year in both a positive sense (the Dja Reserve opening) and a negative sense (especially the increase in energy prices).

#1 THE DJA RESERVE OPENING

After almost three years of construction, the Dja Reserve was opened in Prague Zoo – a generously designed house for gorillas and other representatives of fauna of the Congo Basin. The Dja Reserve is to a large extent inspired by a biosphere reserve of the same name, which is in central Cameroon and where the Prague Zoo’s education and awareness raising project Wandering Bus takes place. Its central part is planted with numerous plants which evoke tropical rain forest, and the atmosphere is enhanced by surround sound. Other additions to the house are, for example, a school classroom brought from Cameroon, or a tent of the reserve rangers equipped with replicas was well as with many original artifacts. Prague Dja Reserve has gained great responses from both visitors and international experts.

The aerial photograph of the Dja Reserve shows very clearly how sensitively this exposition complex is incorporated into the landscape. Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

#2 MOJA’S STORY CONTINUES

The decision to keep Richard and his two sons Kiburi and Nuru in the old gorilla house made creating a new breeding group in the Dja Reserve possible. The Coordinator of the European Ex-situ Programme for gorillas suggested to add to the three “Prague” females – Kijivu, Shinda and Kamba – and the young male Ajabu, a new leading male, and another female, with the provision that two females in such a created group will be allowed to reproduce. He recommended to bring Kisumu, the male who had until now lived in Austrian Schmiding, and Duni, the female from Cabárceno, the daughter of famous gorilla Moja, to Prague. This recommendation exceeded all our expectations: Moja’s story can continue in Prague thanks to her daughter.

Kisumu and Duni in the Dja Reserve shortly after they were connected. Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

#3 OTHER INHABITANTS OF THE DJA RESERVE

Although the Dja Reserve is by force of habit referred to as the new gorilla house, it actually presents eleven species of vertebrates and eight species of invertebrates. For the very first time visitors to Prague Zoo can see here straw-coloured fruit bats or some representatives of invertebrates, for example the red-legged golden orb-web spider or horrid king assassin bug. Other species already appeared in Prague Zoo, albeit a long time ago. An example can be the very attractive de Brazza’s monkey, which was shortly kept in 1954 and in 1968 – 1969. Other mammal species of the Dja Reserve are bread traditionally; they were located in different parts of the zoo. These are eastern black-and-white colobuses, which now share the exhibit with the western lowland gorillas, northern talapoins, red river hogs, African brush-tailed porcupines and Gambian pouched rats.

A female of de Brazza’s monkey in the enclosure in the Dja Reserve. Photo: Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

#4 GREAT YOUNG

450 mammals were born, and 475 birds and 318 reptiles and amphibians hatched during the year 2022 in Prague Zoo. Altogether these comprised 218 species of the abovementioned four groups of vertebrates; in case of the reptiles the breeders achieved a record of forty reproduced species. The aardvark female and the triplets of maned wolf have probably gained the highest popularity among visitors. Media were very interested in the hatching of the Asian leaf turtles – a species, which Prague Zoo received before it was scientifically described, and which reproduces in the Indonesian Jungle house without human intervention. From the breeding point of view the reproduction of the Chinese goral, long-nosed potoroo, Cabot’s tragopan, Salvadori’s fig parrot and princely mastigure are considered the most valuable.

The young of the princely mastigure are the first breeding of this species within EAZA. Photo: Tereza Mrhálková, Prague Zoo

#5 THE BEGINNING OF PANGOLIN BREEDING

A couple of Chinese pangolins, the male Guo Bao and the female Run Hou Tang, arrived at Prague Zoo from Taipei Zoo in April 2022. So, Prague Zoo became one of the only two zoos in the world where these scaly mammals can be seen. Pangolins deserve the attention of the public not only because of their exceptionality, but principally because they are the most illegally traded mammals of the world. After all, Prague Zoo is involved in their protection both in Asia and Africa. The arrival of the pair of pangolins was preceded by a great deal of demanding preparations, including a complete rebuilding of the night exhibit in Indonesian Jungle. After more than half a year it seems that we have managed taking care of these extremely demanding animals and that the first European pangolin baby might be born right in Prague.

The Chinese pangolin male Guo Bao in the night exhibit of the Indonesian Jungle house. Photo: Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo

#6 REBUILDING OF THE PLAINS

After a water reservoir was expanded in the south-east part of the so-called Plains, the new construction of stables and enclosures for Przewalski’s horses has started. It will be complemented by an exhibit of Pallas’s cats and “olgoj chorchoj”. It presents the first phase of transformation of the entire Plains, which will be dedicated exclusively to Asian fauna. So, Prague Zoo will return to breeding rhinos, among other, about which visitors often ask. Besides the works on the Plains (and of course finishing the Dja Reserve) a lot of smaller construction works and, last but not least, the preparation for construction of the Arctic exhibit complex were undertaken. It will be intended especially for polar bears, whose breeding Prague Zoo would have to terminate without the construction of a new breeding facility. In the ideal situation the construction of the Arctic could start at the end of 2023.

The visualization of the new design of the main enclosure and the background areas for Przewalski’s horses, which should evoke the environment of the Dzungar Gobi. Credit: ABM Architekti

#7 GREAT GRANDCHILDREN OF OUR PRZEWALSKI’S HORSES IN GOBI

Between 2011 and 2019 nine air transports of Przewalski’s horses to western Mongolia were realized. The tenth one did not take place due to COVID – and the great news is that it may even not be needed. Thirty mares transported from Prague to Great Gobi A Strictly Protected Area have not only had eighty foals so far, but have also had eleven grandchildren and even the first great grandchildren. The total number of Przewalski’s horses in this reserve has reached the sufficient number of more than four hundred individuals. However, the activities of Prague Zoo in Mongolia do not end here. Its employees in cooperation with local colleagues are preparing a brand new Przewalski’s horses reintroduction project in eastern Mongolia. Currently the best locality has already been selected.

A Przewalski’s horse mare with a foal in Takhin Tal locality in the Great Gobi A Strictly Protected Area. Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

#8 WE ARE SAVING CRUCIAN CARP

Prague Zoo continues to implement or support many projects on biodiversity conservation on five continents, but it is also engaged in conservation of the fauna of Czech Republic. One of the species it has been focusing on since 2021 is crucian carp, once a common and typical fish of our waters. It reached the brink of extinction due to changes in water management and spreading of invasive Prussian carp. After the methodology to find last remaining crucian carps of Elbe genetic lineage was developed in cooperation of the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the Czech University of Life Sciences, the carps were moved to four tanks at the premises of Prague Zoo. The first breeding success came in 2022, therefore in October the first 99 reproduced fish could be released into a pond in Vinoř.

Releasing the crucian carps bred in the premises of Prague Zoo into the pond in Vinoř. Photo: Miroslav Bobek, Prague Zoo

#9 HELP TO UKRAINIAN ZOOS

Immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine Prague Zoo announced fund-raising collection to help Ukrainian zoological gardens and, in cooperation with its Polish partners from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria, it started to send via Poland feed and equipment to Ukraine. Financial support to selected Ukrainian zoos followed and at the end of the year a powerful diesel generator was purchased for Mykolaiv Zoo. By December 29, 2,756 contributions totalling 5,263,352 CZK have been made to the Ukrainian collection. So far 4,076,896 CZK has been spent out of this sum for the abovementioned help. Another form of help was a symbolic entrance fee of 1 CZK for women and children fleeing the war; this event lasted from February 28 until April 30.

The diesel generator destined to Mykolaiv Zoo before its transportation to Ukraine. Photo: Oliver Le Que, Prague Zoo

#10 A LOOK AT THE FIRST YEARS OF PRAGUE ZOO

In Vienna’s Österreichisches Filmmuseum the local curator of the amateur film collection started examining 13 reals of 9.5-millimetre films. It was discovered that part of them depict Prague Zoo during the early days of its existence, specifically the period between 1935 – 1937. It is an extremely valuable material, all the more so because the substantial part of the Prague Zoo archive was destroyed by the floods in 2002. The discovered films portray Professor Jiří Janda with his wife, his assistant Dr V. J. Staněk, many keepers and of course a lot of animals, both famous and completely forgotten ones. Unfortunately, we have not yet been successful in discovering the identity of the author of these amateur films, we only know that he was most likely a lieutenant colonel of the Czechoslovak Army.

The films, taken by a so far unknown amateur, capture also the feeding the sea lions Batul and Hýta, donated to Prague Zoo by Vlasta Burian. Credit: Österreichisches Filmmuseum

We thank all who help Prague Zoo as well as those who visit it and appreciate it!

Miroslav Bobek, Director of Prague Zoo

The visualization of the new design of the main enclosure and the background areas for Przewalski’s horses, which should evoke the environment of the Dzungar Gobi. Credit ABM Architekti

The new exhibit complex for Przewalski’s horses and other representatives of fauna of inner Asia is currently being created in south-east corner of the Plains in the upper part of Prague Zoo. Until its opening in spring of 2024 Prague inhabitants can see Przewalski’s horses only at Dívčí hrady, where a herd of six now roams. At the same time Prague Zoo is preparing a new reintroduction project for Przewalski’s horses in the east of Mongolia.

“Przewalski’s horses are iconic animals of Prague Zoo. Therefore, the transformation of the Plains starts with their stables and enclosures, which will be complemented by exhibits of other animals, for example Pallas’s cats or animal-legend olgoi-khorkhoi,” Director Miroslav Bobek outlined Prague Zoo’s plans.

The long-term project of reconstructing the Plains in the upper part of the zoo started by removing the original stables of Przewalski’s horses the year before last, the expansion of the water reservoir followed and last October the construction works on the exhibit complex for Przewalski’s horses began. After its completion reconstruction of other parts of the Plains will follow step by step ending with the Obora Kiosk. Following the completion rhinos will also return to Prague Zoo.

At Prague’s Dívčí hrady people can now see a six-headed herd of Przewalski’s horses, which now consists of the gelding Nepomuk and the mares Vereda, Xicara, Gruhne, Khamiina and Lana. The last two mentioned mares were for some time last year placed in the breeding station in Dolní Dobřejov and covered by the stallion Granola.

“We decided to breed the mares in Dolní Dobřejov gradually to prevent gravidity of all the mares coming at the same moment so that we would have enough time to properly place the foals born. We still don’t know if the mares Khamiina and Lana have conceived successfully, the possible nearest dates of birth would be at the turn of March and April,” explained Curator of ungulates Barbora Dobiášová.

Whether the possible descendants of Khamiina and Lana would be transported to the country of their ancestors, Mongolia, is of course still an open question.

The newly put together six-headed herd of Pzewalski’s horses is grazing at Dívčí hrady. From the left the gelding Nepomuk and the mares Lana, Vereda, Khaamina, Xicara and Gruhne follow. Photo Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo.

“Preparation of the new reintroduction project will take several years, but it is not impossible,” Miroslav Bobek says. “Now we have already selected the most suitable locality, which we will check together with our Mongolian colleagues in the winter conditions in the second half of January. Then we start planning construction of the acclimatization enclosures and premises for the staff.”

Current inhabitants of Dívčí hrady

Nepomuk is a gelding, who at Dívčí hrady fulfils the role of a stallion. He was born in Slatiňany in May 2009, from there he came to Dolní Dobřejov one year later. Nepomuk was released at Dívčí hrady last year in March.

Vereda was born in Prague in May 2017. Her father is the stallion Len, who is a descendant of the mare Orlica III – the last Przewalski’s horse captured in the wild. Vereda was released at Dívčí hrady together with Nepomuk.

Gruhne comes from Belgian Reserve d’Animaux Sauvage, where she was born in July 2017 and from where she travelled to the breeding station of Prague Zoo in Dolní Dobřejov two years later. The mare Gruhne was released in April 2021 together with Xicara, Lana and Khamiina.

Xicara was born directly in Prague Zoo in July 2018. She was released at Dívčí hrady in April 2021.

Lana was born on 1st August 2016 in Germany’s Kölner Zoo. She was released at Dívčí hrady in April 2021, but one year later she was together with the mare Khamiina moved to the Breeding and Acclimatization Station in Dolní Dobřejov to get a chance to conceive after being covered by the seven-year-old stallion Granola. She returned to Dívčí hrady last September together with the mare Khamiina.

Khamiina comes from Berlin’s Tierpark, where she was born in September 2017. Together with Lana they returned to Dívčí hrady last autumn after being covered by the stallion, where they may both have foals at the beginning of this year.

Thirteen-year-old gelding Nepomuk (in the front of the photo) is guarding the mares and he is adequately dominant; therefore he fulfils the needed role of a stallion in the herd. Photo Petr Hamerník, Prague Zoo.

You can support the project Return of the Wild Horses by transfer of any amount to the collection account We Help Them to Survive (č. ú.: 43–680 466 0247/0100) or by buying souvenirs at the e-shop of Prague Zoo at the section called We Help Them to Survive: https://eshop.zoopraha.cz/suvenyry/pomahame-jim-prezit.html. And last but not least of course also by visiting Prague Zoo.

Photo: Vodasoft

A short demo just released on Steam for an upcoming game is said to be reminiscent of Warcraft 3 – but instead of orcs, you are commanding Hussite soldiers. And instead of the giant team that was behind Warcraft, this game is the work of a single Czech developer.

Songs of the Chalice has a lot in common with Warcraft 3 – a real-time strategy computer video game with three-dimensional stylized graphics and soldiers obeying every command of the hero who leads them. But while in the classic game that gave rise to the even more famous World of Warcraft you send orcs and knights into battle in a fantasy world, in this new game you command Hussite soldiers with lances and crossbows.

And while Warcraft 3 was created by the colossal Blizzard Entertainment studio, Songs of the Chalice was created by just one person – Jan Vodička, alias Vodasoft. Vodička works as a software developer in Pilsen, but comes from southern Bohemia – just like famous radical Hussite Jan Žižka. Although he says in an interview with new site CzechCrunch that his birthplace is not the reason he chose the theme of the game, he nevertheless refers to the game as “Hussite Warcraft”.

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Ian Willoughby, Radio Prague International

Among those taking part in elections for the next president, which begin on Friday, will be many thousands of Czechs living abroad. With postal ballots not an option, registered voters need to travel to a Czech embassy or consulate and cast their ballots in person. Jan Pěnkava, who has been living in Derby, England for eight years, says he is planning to go to London – for the second round in two and a half weeks’ time.

“We left [Czechia] shortly after the Schwarzenberg-Zeman presidential election, and while we were here in the UK the second term of Zeman started – and we participated in those elections.

“That was still at the time when we considered, Oh, we might be actually going back. “We didn’t know how long we would be staying.

“So I was in a similar situation to people who are abroad on a short-term basis – and they are, of course, then using the embassy to cast their vote.

“In the meantime, that has changed [the family has settled in the UK].

“But I keep my citizenship – and these are elections that I’m really interested about.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Dagmar Hazdrová and Jan Vondráček, Photo: Petr Hejna, Dopravní podnik hl. m. Prahy

For decades now Prague city dwellers have been used to hearing a calm, modulated and well-known voice citing the names of the various stops on tram, bus and metro routes around the city. Who will have the privilege to be the voice that hundreds of commuters hear every day is decided by a public poll on test announcements read by some of the best actors and voiceover artists in the country.

Jan Vondráček, whose voice many Czechs associate with Moe the bartender from The Simpsons, has been chosen to be the new voice on trams and busses making the rounds in the capital city.

See the rest here.

Authors: Daniela Lazarová, Klára Škodová

Miroslav Sekera, Photo: Tomáš Vodňanský, Czech Radio

Czech composer Bedřich Smetana is probably best-known for his set of symphonic poems Má Vlast, or My Country, as well as for his folkloristic operas and string quartets. However, the Czech music great has also written a number of piano compositions. Czech pianist Miroslav Sekera recently released an album dedicated to Smetana’s piano works, confronting them with those by Franz Liszt.

“Smetana’s compositions are not as well-known as Franz Liszt’s works, and yet in many cases they are true piano masterpieces of the 19th century. I would like to prove that Bedřich Smetana was a composer comparable with Franz Liszt and that his music deserves to be performed at major concert venues worldwide.”

It was with this goal in mind that Miroslav Sekera recorded the album, simply called Bedřich Smetana and Franz Liszt: Piano Works.

The connection between the two composers is not accidental: both were excellent pianists and the piano played an important role, especially at the beginning of their artistic careers.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Patrik Uhlíř, ČTK

People in Brno paid tribute to Monty Python’s famous Ministry of Silly Walks sketch last week on the occasion of the 10th edition of the annual international day of silly walking.

Source

Photo: Czech School Without Borders London

The Czech School Without Borders has been running in London since 2007, allowing children with a Czech parent to enhance their language skills and meet other kids from bilingual families. On a recent visit to the UK, I stopped by the school to meet the teachers and children and see how this unique school operates.

It is around 9am on a bright autumn day and a year 1 class at a school in North London are about to start their first lesson of the day.

But this is no ordinary school in England. For one thing this lesson is taking place on a Saturday. And secondly, the kids are reading out loud what they did at the weekend from their diaries – which they wrote in Czech.

The person behind the Czech School Without Borders is Zuzana Jungmannová, the partner of artist Hynek Martinec, who immortally portrayed her in a hyper-realistic painting that won the BP Young Artist of the Year award in 2007. She is the face in the portrait, but also the brains behind the school.

She says she first got the seeds of the idea for the school after completing her diploma. She studied art with a focus on classical textile weaving and for her final project, she helped people with special needs make a series of tapestries. In doing so, she discovered that she loved working with people even more than with objects. It was her first sign that perhaps she was better suited to working with others rather than sitting alone in a studio.

“We moved to London and I was thinking, ‘maybe it’s time to start something new.’ It was tiny steps – we started with a small group and continued. In 2010, we decided to make an official statute, a charity, cooperating with the Czech side as well, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture. We have lovely relationships here in London as well with the Czech Centre and embassy, and now we are a settled and complete school for bilingual kids.”

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

The Plzeň 35th Regiment, Photo: VHÚ

The Plzeň 35th Regiment, whose fame is reflected in a song familiar to many Czechs, was founded in 1683.

The military annals of the Austrian monarchy state that Emperor Leopold I commissioned George Frederick, Duke of Württemberg, to set up an infantry regiment in January 1683.

The unit received the number 35 under Empress Maria Theresa, when it fought under General Laudon against the Prussians under King Frederick II.

It was an elite regiment that, in the spirit of the motto “We will endure until we win” on its banner, fought in the Napoleonic Wars and had a very long history after that.

The Thirty-Fivers, as they were known, had a famous song written about them by the Czech musician Karel Hašler, in 1918 Entitled Hoši jako květ (Boys Like Blooms), it went on to become an anthem of Plzeň’s soccer and ice hockey clubs.

See the rest here.

The 10th edition of Prague’s ÍRÁN:CI festival of Iranian film gets underway on Wednesday. This time it is taking place in the shadow of four months of unprecedented protests and brutal repression in Iran – a situation which has greatly shaped this year’s festival. Just before it began, I spoke to founder Kaveh Dashemand.

“The focus of the 10th edition of ÍRÁN:CI is going to be on the main theme of all the uprisings that are happening at the moment, which is Women, Life, Freedom.

“We are bringing some of the films that can reflect on this very urgent topic.

“Of course it’s impossible to bring films that actually show what is happening in Iran, because it’s only four months that all the uprisings are happening.

“But we have put a theme together that can bring some of the most outstanding, but at the same time controversial and oppositional, films from Iran to the 10th edition of the festival.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Czech scientists, in cooperation with their colleagues from Great Britain, are carrying out research aimed at tracing the origins of medieval Gregorian chants. They are doing so with the help of computational algorithms, that are commonly used in biology.

The Gregorian chant is a form of unaccompanied sacred song in Latin, which originated in Europe in Medieval times. The chants could be heard in cathedrals and small churches and served to pass sacred texts onto the next generation.

That’s why strict care was taken to ensure that they didn’t differ in any way, says Jan Hajič from the Masaryk Institute and the Archives, who is heading the research team:

“In practice, however, it turns out that it wasn’t so uniform. That’s what makes it interesting in terms of cultural evolution.”

To trace the origins of the famous melodies that are hundreds of years old, Jan Hajič and his colleagues will draw on a digital database of more than 15,000 Gregorian chants.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, zuzana machálková

Photo: Masaryk University Brno

A team of scientists from Brno has announced a unique discovery that could contribute to an innovative and sustainable way of lighting in the future, possibly even replacing electric light bulbs. The results of their study, based on the inner mechanisms of a bioluminescent sea coral, was published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature Catalysis.

More than four decades ago, scientists discovered that organisms living at the bottom of the ocean are able to produce light thanks to a glowing enzyme called luciferase. Until now, however, it has not been clear how the mechanism works.

Scientists from Loschmidt Laboratories, RECETOX and the Faculty of Science at the Masaryk University in Brno, who have been studying luciferase isolated from the sea pansy called Renilla reniformis, have now come up with an answer.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

See the rest here.

The 2023 Dakar Rally was only a few days away from ending and Czech rally raid truck driver Aleš Loprais was in the lead. But he has now confirmed that he is dropping out of the famous race following an incident where a spectator died after being hit by his truck.

The tragic accident took place on Tuesday evening in the ninth stage of the competition. Loprais said that he had not even been aware that the collision had happened at all.

“A human life was lost and it was de facto my fault because I was behind the wheel, but I have to say that I didn’t know anything about it and neither did any of the crew. But there is video proving it and in any case, that doesn’t change the fact that a human life was lost. Therefore I want to express my sincere condolences to the family, his loved ones and friends – I’m very sorry and this will stay with me for the rest of my life.”

Author: Anna Fodor

See the rest here.

Despite the Velvet Divorce, relations between Czechia and Slovakia still remain very close. This is perhaps most evident in the Moravian Slovakia region, which lies on the border between the two countries. Radio Prague International visited the area in December and has this report.

See the rest here.

Authors: Zdenka Kuchyňová, Guillaume Narguet, Thomas McEnchroe

Although still a largely unknown sport among the majority of Czechs, cricket has been played in Czechia since at least the 1990s. Today the country boasts several leagues as well as a national team that has even set some records. The sport is especially popular among expats from Commonwealth countries, but there are also promising signs that the next generation of players may be home-grown.

Strolling through the fields of Vinoř near Prague on a summer weekend, you may find yourself wondering whether Czechia is not in fact part of the Commonwealth of Nations. Cricket, England’s iconic sport, has recently been experiencing a significant boom in the land more commonly known for its ice hockey legends.

“Every year you see a lot of people joining us, the count increases drastically. That kind of shows that it is getting popular in Czechia,” says Satyajit Sengupta, the captain of Spartans Cricket Club, one of Prague’s many teams that have sprung up in recent years.

Taking a look at the team you may be excused for thinking that Czech cricket is the domain of Indian expats. Indeed, the majority of players on the pitch are from South Asian countries, with some Britons, Australians and New Zealanders getting ready to play too, but Satyajit says that the locals have also expressed willingness to learn how to use a bat.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

See the rest here.

Photo: Jolana Nováková, Czech Radio

Prague’s Municipal Library has recently become a hit among foreign tourists visiting the Czech capital. The reason? An artwork called Idiom that has been in the library’s lobby since 1998, and which has just recently become a hit on social media.

Since late December, long queues of people have been forming in front of the entrance to the city’s Municipal Library in the city centre. They haven’t come to borrow books, however, but to check out an artwork called Idiom, created by Slovak artist Matěj Krén. One of the thousands of tourists to visit the place in recent weeks is Craig from Canada:

“I do a lot of travelling and when I go to a new country, I do a Google search on top 10 things to see in that country and this came up as a destination to see. What I do then is I find it on a map and when I get to the country, I go and check it out. So I never saw it on an Instagram account and never saw a video of it, but when I got here, I took a video and photos and I of course posted it on my Instagram and TikTok account!”

The circular structure, known as Column of Knowledge, is made out of 8,000 books. When you look inside, mirrors installed within the column create an impression of an endless tunnel.

The artwork was installed in the lobby of the Municipal Library in 1998, when it reopened after a three-year renovation, but it has only now become such a sensation, after becoming a hit on social media, including TikTok, explains journalist Janek Rubeš:

“Kids that were in Prague looking into their phones suddenly saw a cool thing that they liked and they wanted to see it as well. And as it is in today’s world, everyone wants to have the same picture or same video, because it looks cool and they can get likes. So that’s why there is a big line of people taking the same picture.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Adina Biguine, Photo: Barbora Navrátilová, Radio Prague International

Adina Biguine was born in Kyrgyzstan, but spent more than half of her life in Prague. She originally came to the Czech capital to study at the Faculty of Humanities, but instead of psychology, she decided to pursue the art of pastry making. Today she is an executive pastry chef at Prague’s Café Milléme which has become known for its wide variety of international flavour fusions, mixing all sorts of unusual ingredients, from yuzu lemon, matcha tea and wasabi to blueberries and saffron. I met with Adina to discuss her life and work and I started by asking her when she first visited Prague:

“I first visited Czechia in 2006 when I was 15 years old. Prague was the first European capital that I had ever seen. Until then, Europe was something I only knew from films. I immediately fell in love with the place and with its parks, streets and architecture.”

What were your first impressions of the city?

“I remember it was summer and there were a lot of tourists and everybody was friendly and spoke English with me. I was 15 and it seemed like another world to me!

“Everything was different, including the climate and the air, which was much cleaner and not as hot as in Kyrgyzstan. We also visited Karlovy Vary and Český Krumlov and I just immediately grew fond of the country.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

The Czech government has approved an amendment to the Road Traffic Act that will mean higher penalties for the most serious transgressions such as speeding and drink-driving, while allowing young people to start driving a year earlier, from the age of 17, under the supervision of a parent. The proposed changes are expected to go into force next year.

Czech roads are not the safest in Europe. According to preliminary statistics, 468 people died and over 1,600 were seriously injured in road accidents in Czechia last year.

The most serious transgressions, which often result in fatal accidents, are speeding, drink-driving and using a hand-held mobile phone while driving. Under the proposed bill, all of these transgressions will result in steeper fines. The penalty points system will be simplified to two, four or six points for a given violation. Transgressions such as speeding and drink driving will result in higher fines and a maximum six penalty points. With a maximum limit of 12 points this means “two strikes and you are out” for serious transgressions and “three strikes and you are out” for less serious ones. On reaching 12 points the driver’s license is confiscated for the duration of a year after which they have to take tests anew.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

On moving to the Czech Republic, many foreigners are surprised to find famous women such as Hillary Clinton and Meryl Streep referred to in the Czech media as ‘Hillary Clintonová’ and ‘Meryl Streepová’. Now one Czech news outlet has sparked debate on the matter, after dropping this practice for foreign women’s surnames.

Deník N published an editorial on New Year’s Day announcing that it was no longer going to use the suffix ‘-ová’ for foreign women’s surnames – a decision that has divided its readership, with some welcoming it and others strongly criticising it.

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

Photo: Office of Czech Government

Monday saw no fewer than nine former Czech prime ministers attend a special dinner hosted by the country’s current head of government, Petr Fiala. The get together was organised on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the establishment of independent Czech and Slovak republics. A special concert, attended by Slovakia’s Prime Minister Eduard Heger, was then held in Prague’s Rudolfinum, where both leaders paid tribute to Czechoslovakia and its modern day successors.

After the traditional New Year’s lunch with the president on Monday, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala sat down to a special dinner with his predecessors in office over the past 30 years.

“Despite some of us being political opponents who hold different opinions on things, I think it’s a good idea. I want all of us to be together. All of those who held the responsibility and had the opportunity to lead this country’s government, be in charge of the executive and help forge this country’s future. I want us to meet and celebrate this important anniversary.”

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Photo: Michaela Říhová, ČTK

Days after it ended, cabinet members publicly assessed Czechia’s presidency of the European Union on Tuesday. The Europe minister said the country’s success during six months at the helm of the EU had surprised fellow members – and improved its international image.

A special news conference on Tuesday looking back at the Czech presidency of the Council of the EU began with a glossy video.

Images of Czech leaders in action – and visiting European dignitaries – were accompanied by swelling music.

The government’s evaluation of Czechia’s six-month stint as the face of Europe was similarly upbeat, with the minister for European Affairs, Mikuláš Bek, telling reporters that the Czech presidency had been a “surprising success” in the eyes of many EU states.

“We have been receiving major commendations from our partners.

“This is undoubtedly in part because expectations weren’t so high; the Czech Republic had a name as a Hungarian satellite, somewhere on the periphery of Europe.

“And during those six months we managed to significantly shift perceptions of the Czech Republic.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Next year Prague is set to see the goodbye concert of Kiss, a return of Maroon 5 and the first ever visit of Jack Black’s Tenacious D. In Brno, locals can look forward to bands such as Deep Purple or the Hollywood Vampires led by Johnny Depp and Alice Cooper.

It’s not a Kiss concert unless it’s accompanied by lots of fireworks, flames, masks and effects. June will see Kiss perform its 10th concert in Czechia and, since this is part of the legendary band’s End of the Road World Tour, it’s guaranteed to be an epic goodbye in Prague’s O2 Arena. Czechia’s largest indoor stadium is set to host two Iron Maiden concerts in May.

The world-famous pop rock band Maroon 5 is also set to play in Prague. Three years after their last showing in the O2 Arena, the band led by American singer and songwriter Adam Levine is set to perform as part of the June Prague Rocks Festival. The concert will take place in Letňany.

See the rest here.

Authors: Klára Stejskalová, Thomas McEnchroe

Czechs and Slovaks are marking 30 years since they parted in what has become known as the Velvet Divorce. Although the two nations have gone their separate ways, culturally they remain very close and nowhere is this more evident than in the sphere of music.

Almost every year at least one Czech and Slovak duet hits the airwaves and many of them have become hits. We have selected some of the best Czech-Slovak duets born after the break-up. The first by the Czech band Chinaski and Slovakia’s No Name, recorded in 2007 is about the friendship that survived the divorce.

In the years following the break-up there was inevitably a feeling of nostalgia for the common state which lasted for over seven decades. This was a sentiment that Chinaski and the Slovak singer Bára Hosnedlová reflected in their song Česká vlajka má Slovenský klín – the Czech flag has a Slovak wedge –referring to the blue triangle wedged between the red and white strips of what is now the Czech flag.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

Stigma around mental health issues and seeking professional help to deal with them has traditionally been high in Czechia. But a survey suggests attitudes may be changing, even among the older generation.

According to OECD data, Czechia seems at first glance to be a country where people suffer from mental health problems significantly less than elsewhere on the continent – only 15% of the population reported having a mental health problem in 2016, the fourth lowest proportion in Europe.

But the reality may be somewhat different. As the Ministry of Health points out in its Mental Health Action Plan for 2020-2030, the stigmatisation of mental illnesses is still extremely high in Czechia by European standards, both in the general population and among doctors. Because of this, people are afraid to admit that their mental health is suffering, so while it may seem that Czechs are mentally healthier than most of the rest of Europe, this may not be the full picture.

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

František Kupka was the first artist in the world to publicly exhibit abstract art and received a lot of negative reviews for doing so. But nowadays his abstract paintings sell for millions – in 2021 one of his works fetched over GBP 7.5 million (over CZK 230 million) at an auction at Sotheby’s in London, the highest amount a Czech painting has ever sold for at auction.

See the rest here.

Monument of Jaroslav Hašek in Lipnice, Photo: Eva Odstrčilová, Czech Radio

Jaroslav Hašek, author of the most translated Czech book The Good Soldier Švejk, died 100 years ago today ( January 3, 1923) before he had reached the age of forty. Vit Pohanka looks at the life and work of this improbable titan of Czech literature.

The adventures of the Good Soldier Švejk during the World War is considered to be one of the gems of European, if not world literature. This satirical anti-war novel was not an immediate success when it was first published. Some Czech critics even considered it “pulp fiction”. But a century after the author’s death Švejk is more than just a classic literary character: he is a phenomenon. Professor Pavel Janoušek works at the Institute of Czech Literature of the Czech Academy of Sciences:

“Švejk is a literary type that reaches the level of Don Quixote by Cervantes or Anna Karenina by Tolstoy. These are characters that in a way leave the original literary work and live their own life. People know (or think they know) who they are even without reading the books. There is no doubt that if Hašek had not written The Good Soldier Švejk he would never have gained such a high level of international acclaim and recognition.”

See the rest here.

Author: Vít Pohanka

Photo: John Wilson / Netflix

One of the biggest movies in the world at present, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, has a Czech connection. The Netflix hit heavily features crystal sculptures made by a small company from North Bohemia.

The current number one film globally on Netflix is Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery.

Rian Johnson’s big budget movie stars such names as Daniel Craig and Kate Hudson – and a large number of Czech-made crystal sculptures.

They are the work of the company Pačinek Glass, which is based in Kunratice u Cvikova in North Bohemia.

Founder and master glass maker Jiří Pačinek says collaboration began when the film’s producers came across the name after entering “Czech glass” in a Google search.

It was a demanding commission, with 60 or so pieces – originals and copies – having to be completed in around a month.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Millions of people round the world have got used to seeing the New Year in with a grandiose fireworks display. Now Czech scientists from the Academy of Sciences are warning about the damage that the harmful chemicals from fireworks can do to our health.

On New Year’s Eve tons of harmful chemicals from a vast variety of fireworks are released into the air. The substances are not banned and no one monitors how much of them gets into the environment. Scientists can only make a rough estimate based on the amount of fireworks sold. Petr Klusoň from the Czech Academy of Sciences says the health hazard is underestimated.

“Many people who attend the celebrations feel bad the day after and sometimes for longer. They naturally put it down to having drunk too much champagne. In actual fact they are more likely to be feeling the effects of acute smog poisoning. On New Year’s Eve about 12 and a half tons of magnesium, ten and a half tons of barium, a ton of strontium, almost a ton of titanium, half a ton of copper and 1.2 tons of rubidium pollute the air in Czechia. That is the amount that eventually descends on us and that we breathe in. If ten percent of that mix was produced once a year by any factory, its management would end up in prison.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Daniela Lazarová, Martin Srb

Viktor Fainberg, Photo: Vít Šimánek, ČTK

Soviet-era Russian dissident Viktor Fainberg, one of the eight brave human rights activists who risked their lives to protest against the Soviet-led occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968, has died at the age of 91. Fainberg was locked up in a psychiatric hospital for five years for his brave action and later emigrated to the West where he remained a vocal defender of human rights the world over.

On August 25th, 1968, just four days after Soviet tanks rolled through Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring reform movement, eight brave Russians gathered in Moscow’s Red Square to protest against the invasion, unfurling banners that read “Hands off Czechoslovakia!” and “Shame to the Invaders!”. They were linguist Viktor Fainberg, academic Konstantin Babitski, student Tatiana Bayeva, philosopher Larisa Bogoraz, poet Vadim Delone, manual worker Vladimir Dremliuga, mathematician Pavel Litvinov and Natalya Gorbanevskaya, a young mother of two pushing a pram with her 3-month-old-baby. Their brave protest was short-lived. The square was full of secret police in plainclothes who cracked down on the group, knocking Fainberg’s teeth in and beating Litvinov over the head, before throwing them all into a police van. In an interview for Czech Radio, years later, Fainberg explained what made him take the risk.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

Demand is falling and the economy is headed for recession according to the head of the Czech National Bank Aleš Michl. Meanwhile, the IMF’s chief Kristalina Georgieva has said that half of the European Union will experience a recession in 2023. So is a recession coming and how hard will Czechia be hit? Those are some of the questions I put to Cyrrus bank economist Vít Hradil.

“I do agree and I would be more specific than that. I would say that we actually are in a recession as we speak. Recession is defined as two quarters of real GDP decrease. We already saw the first one in the third quarter of 2022. Now we are just waiting for data for the fourth quarter, but I am pretty sure that there is going to be a decline there as well.

“So we already are in a recession, at least as far as I am concerned. I think that we will probably be more affected than most of the other countries in the EU.”

Mr Michl also said that getting on top of inflation would remain the priority for the Czech National Bank also this year and that the recession could help with this process. Do you think inflation will start decreasing noticeably in the spring, as the head of the Czech National Bank promised?

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

See the rest here.

The European Commission recently approved a new prostate cancer drug called Pluvicto, co-developed by a Czech researcher. The revolutionary treatment, designed for patients with advanced prostate cancer for whom other treatments have proved ineffective, is being administered in Czechia as part of a clinical trial at the Olomouc University Hospital.

Ladislav, who has suffered from prostate cancer for several years now, is one of the first patients in Czechia to receive the new radioactive drug. Two years ago he started hormone treatment and since February he has gradually switched to a clinical trial with Pluvicto.

The revolutionary treatment that delivers radiation to specifically targeted cancer cells was developed at the German Cancer Research Centre in Heidelberg.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Andrea Skalická

Czechoslovakism, the idea of a unitary political Czechoslovak nation with two ethnic and linguistic branches, was one of the foundational ideas of the First Czechoslovak Republic. It was born of both political pragmatism and 19th century nationalism. However, by the time of the Second World War, the idea was clinically dead and would instead be replaced by a new strive for federalisation.

When the Czechoslovak state declared its independence from Austria-Hungary in October 1918 it identified as a unitary political Czechoslovak nation with two ethnic and linguistic branches. But where did this concept come from? And why did it fail?

The origins of Czech and Slovak identity

“We have to understand that national identities at the beginning of the 19th century were not yet completely defined. For most of the agrarian population, the fact that they spoke some kind Slavic dialect was not related to some sort of national identity.

“They usually had some territorial, local identity. They had very developed confessional identities, but not national ones as we know them today. That means that, for all nations in Central Europe, including Czechs and Slovaks, there were always more options in the 19th century.”

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Vladimír Mečiar and Václav Klaus|Photo: ČT24

This January marks 30 years since the end of the common Czech and Slovak state. While some of the phenomena that ultimately led to the Czechoslovak split can be identified already in the early and mid-20th century, the separation of the two nations ended up being driven by politicians. Three decades on, Czechs still regret the end of Czechoslovakia more than Slovaks.

The state of Czechoslovakia was born in an atmosphere of pan-Slavic brotherhood in October 1918. It survived both the Second World War as well as four decades of Communist rule. However, less than three years after the country re-emerged as a democratic nation, Czechoslovakia would end up becoming two countries – the Czech and Slovak republics.

Contemporary historiography argues that the causes of the Czech-Slovak split stretch back far into the past. They include the failure of Czechoslovakism to truly take root during the First Republic period or the inability of the 1968 constitution to successfully address the question of how to federalise.

See the rest here.

Author: Radio Prague International

“A language is a dialect with an army and a navy.” This is the maxim often cited to explain the sometimes arbitrary distinctions between languages and dialects. So what about the case of Czech and Slovak, which are generally considered to be mutually intelligible? Were they always considered to be separate languages, even when Czechoslovakia was one country? And has anything changed linguistically since the nations went their separate ways politically?

Tomáš is a computer programmer from Košice, Slovakia, who has been living in Prague for 13 years. He first moved here at the age of 18 to go to university and says the language was never a problem for him to understand, and he was able to pick up how to speak it after about a year. However, he says his spoken Czech is far from perfect.

“There was a prime minister in Czechia called Babiš, who is a guy of Slovak origin who moved in and learnt to speak Czech. But whenever he got angry he switched back to Slovak, and now he doesn’t speak either language properly. And I think I’m quite similar to him in this regard. I do understand Czech 100%, but when I speak I don’t get the declinations right – which doesn’t prevent me from getting the point across, but people recognise it after the first sentence, that I’m not from here.”

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

Traditionally, the arrival of the New Year kicks off the largest and most successful fund-raiser in the country. The Three Kings Collection involves thousands of children taking to the streets in groups of three dressed as the three wise men, singing carols and collecting money for charity.

Organized by the Catholic charity Caritas CR, the Three Kings Collection is the largest and most trusted charity event in the country. It was inspired by the Christmas tradition of caroling and, since its launch 23 years ago, it has collected over 1.3 billion crowns for the needy.

Throughout the country thousands of volunteers, mostly young children, take to the streets dressed as Kaspar, Melichar and Balthazar – the three wise men, later known as kings, who followed the star of Bethlehem to find the new-born Jesus. They go caroling from house to house, wishing people Happy New Year and leaving their initials – ‘K + M + B’ – on door frames as a symbol of blessing. The letters also stand for “Christus mansionem benedicat” (May Christ bless this house) and the chalks they write with have been blessed by a local bishop. In smaller towns and villages, people put their names on lists of households that the children have been asked to visit, so as to make sure they will not be left out.

See the rest here.

Author: Daniela Lazarová

It weighs just two kilograms and can be packed for travel, but it sounds just like the wooden original. The 3D printed cellos made by the Přerov-based company Sensio.cz are being exported across the world and the business has plans to expand its instrument range further.

It was during the coronavirus pandemic that Ondřej Kratochvíl and his friend Jan Tobolík decided to buy a 3D printer from Prusa Design and start printing cellos.

“We tried to maintain at least the outlines of the instrument, so that our cello would resemble the original. It may have a slight modern futuristic feel, but it still contains everything that the musician needs. It even has a phone case for notes,” says Mr Kratochvíl.

See the rest here.

Authors: Thomas McEnchroe, Alžběta Havlová

In response to the Taliban‘s crackdown on women’s rights in Afghanistan, several international aid organisations, including the Czech NGO People in Need, have suspended their programmes in the country.

Last weekend the Afghan Ministry of the Economy issued an order that all female NGO employees are no longer allowed to work until further notice.

Among the organisations that have been impacted by this measure is the largest Czech human rights NGO: People in Need. Tomáš Kocián is responsible for the Middle Eastern region within People in Need.

„Currently, women make up around a third of the 140 employees that we have in Afghanistan. Right now, we have to let them stay at home or we would lose our registration which allows us to operate in the country. We will have to see how the situation develops in the coming days and weeks.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Thomas McEnchroe, Petr Král, zuzana machálková

Czech artist Yemi Ayinkemi Dele (professionally known as Yemi A.D.) is one of eight people selected to join Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa on a trip around the Moon on board Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket next year. The dancer and choreographer with Nigerian roots, who has worked with Madonna and Kanye West, was handpicked from more than a million candidates. I caught up with him shortly after the news was announced to discuss what it feels like to be Czechia’s first space tourist, and started by asking him how he got involved in the project:

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

‘Dormant’, Toyen (1937)|Photo repro: Karel Srp, ‘Toyen’/Argo

Toyen was unconventional in many ways for a woman of her time and even by today’s standards, both in her life and art. She rejected gender conformism, favouring a gender-neutral pseudonym over her birth name, referring to herself in Czech using masculine grammatical forms when speaking in the first person, and often dressing in masculine-style clothing. She portrayed themes of violence and sexuality in her works at a time when this was very unusual for women, and joined several avant-garde artistic movements, including male-dominated surrealist groups. Her surrealist artworks are still highly prized by art collectors today.

See the rest here.

Lucy Erent’s father and grandparents, Leningrad 1977, Photo: archive of Lucy Erent

This is the last episode in our series A Stitch in Time, where young people tell stories from their family’s past. We have a taste of sugarcane from Guangdong province in China, we meet a Jewish boy in Baltimore who remembers his own circumcision, and a teenager from Brno takes us to a twilight zone of the unexplained.

These three very different stories reflect the complexities and some of the mysteries of the world we live in. Nathalie Rowe from Brno recounts an experience her father had as a soldier, for which no one has ever been able to offer a rational explanation. An-Li Frisk imagines her biological parents having to leave their life in rural China to go to the city, and Lucienne Erent tells the story of her father, leaving the Soviet Union as a thirteen-year-old for a new life in the United States.

See the rest here.

Author: David Vaughan

Ester Ledecká, Photo: Roman Vondrouš, ČTK

Ester Ledecká has been crowned Czech Sportsperson of the Year for the second time. The 27-year-old took her third Olympic gold medal in Beijing – but perhaps surprisingly says that wasn’t the high point of her 2022.

Ester Ledecká was named Czech Sportsperson of the Year at a ceremony at Prague’s Hilton Hotel on Wednesday night.

She received 1,593 votes in the 64th annual poll of sports journalists.

The 27-year-old finished more than 250 points ahead of her closest rivals, the tennis doubles pairing of Barbora Krejčíková and Kateřina Siniaková, while ice hockey star David Pastrňák came third.

Ledecká was previously named Sportsperson of the Year in 2018, the year she took Olympic gold in both parallel giant slalom, a snowboarding event, and the Super-G in alpine skiing.

It was the first time in history that a woman had topped the podium in two different sports at one Olympics.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Technologie hlavního města Prahy

The number of electric vehicles in Czechia is growing and according to official estimates their number could reach 100,000 by 2030. Most of them will be in the capital city. Prague has therefore decided to increase the number of charging stations available. Drivers will find them, among other places, in the smart lampposts lining the streets of Prague’s Vinohrady district.

The electric chargers are built into selected city lamps, to prevent new installations cramming sidewalks. Drivers should look for a black box with cables and pictograms explaining how to use the station. Most of the stations allow two vehicles to be charged at the same time, and a total of 13 new chargers have now been installed in Prague’s Vinohrady district.

Until the end of the year, Prague residents can charge their cars for free without registration, they just need to connect the cable. As of next year, it will be possible to charge in two ways. The first is a one-time recharge without registration via a QR code, the second is via registration, where drivers get a recharge chip. Tomáš Jílek, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Prague Technologies explains.

See the rest here.

Authors: Daniela Lazarová, Karolína Burdová

Virtually every Czech household will be eating some form of potato salad as part of their Christmas Eve dinner – but everyone seems to have their own recipe and surprisingly the list of ingredients can spark heated debate between the “traditionalist” and “liberal” camps. To find out what most Czechs put into their potato salad, and whether there are any significant regional differences, a team of data journalists at Czech Radio polled a number of listeners and did a statistical analysis on the results.

Petr Kočí, part of the team behind the survey, describes how the data was collected.

See the rest here.

Author: Anna Fodor

This edition of Sunday Music Show marks the Fourth Sunday of Advent, called Golden Sunday here in Czechia, when people light the last candle on their Christmas wreath. To help you get into the festive spirit we’ll be listening to some of the best known Czech Christmas songs, featuring Karel Gott, Eva Farna and other Czech pop stars.

See the list here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Running a successful small business requires a combination of hard work, planning, and the ability to adapt to changing conditions. In order to achieve success, you must be prepared to go the extra mile and make smart decisions that will benefit your business in the long run. Operating a small business can be one of the most exciting and rewarding experiences, but it’s also one of the most challenging things you will ever do. Luckily, there are some important factors to consider when running a small business that will allow you to turn those challenges into opportunities.

A digital marketing strategy

As more people move online for information about new services and products, it’s crucial for your business to be present on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This can help you build your brand and get potential customers excited about what you have to offer. Not only that, but you should also create a professional website which can feature relevant blog posts for you chosen domain. Digital marketing strategies revolve around optimizing your content with SEO principles, which will make your pages rank high on the web. You can also advertise by creating video content on YouTube or by leveraging email strategies such as newsletters.

Good customer service

People want to do business with companies they trust, so it’s important that your company provides good customer service from start to finish. This includes making sure your employees are friendly and knowledgeable about your products or services, answering questions in a timely manner via email or calls. Customer service can also be enhanced if you automate a part of your responses using AI chatbots on your website.

Improving the work culture

It’s important for employees at all levels of an organization to understand why their work matters within the context of the overall mission. There are ways you can make this happen and ensure that everyone’s motivation and productivity is high. The workplace itself is a reflection of your work culture. And in order to keep everyone motivated you should maximally improve the way your office building feels and looks. You can do this by hiring Strata maintenance professionals to help you keep the company premises in perfect condition, whether that’s waste management, painting the walls or landscaping. In addition, you can include team building events and employee training to level up your work culture.

Planning measurable goals

Planning ahead for future growth opportunities can help ensure that your company continues scaling over time without having any issues with cash flow at any given point in time when things might get tough financially due to unforeseen circumstances, such as losing employees or dealing with sudden market changes. If you don’t have a plan, how do you know what to focus on? A good plan has a few key components: actionable goals that will continually inspire your workforce, and a timeline for achieving those goals so you know when to celebrate successes or when to try something else. Tactics are another important component, as they make your goals into a reality. They may vary depending on what kind of business you’re running, so think carefully about which ones will work best for you and your clients. Lastly, metrics allow you to measure how well your tactics are working, so that you know how and when to pivot.

Cutting costs

When you’re running a small business, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and forget about your resources. You might be so busy taking care of customers, hiring new employees and vendors, and ensuring that everything is running smoothly, that you don’t have time to focus on asset and resource management. That includes everything from how much money each department is spending on supplies to making sure your office space isn’t being wasted by housing too much furniture or not having enough electricity fixtures installed correctly so they actually work properly without having any power issues which could lead to safety hazards and added costs.

As you can see, planning your business is one of the best ways to ensure that everything runs smoothly and effectively. You should also pay attention to all the other business aspects such as improving your customer service, creating a better work culture, and cutting costs.

By Peter Minkoff

Peter is a lifestyle and travel writer at Men-Ual magazine, living between Ústí nad Labem and Antwerp. Follow Peter on Twitter for more tips.

The number of cross-cultural marriages in Czechia is on the rise. Last year alone close to 5,000 Czechs tied the knot with a partner from a different cultural background. Kevin Loo explores the challenges and joys of being married to a Czech partner and making a new home in Czechia.

Starting a new life with someone from a different cultural background can be exciting and challenging in equal measure. There are language barriers, cultural differences and even clashing values within the broader family to be overcome.

How hard is it for the foreign nationals who fall in love with and marry a Czech to settle here, make new friends and bring up their children far from home? Kevin Loo spoke with the spouses of Czech partners to find out more about their experience.

Lauren, who comes from the US, admits to initially being fascinated with classical European notions of romance.

See the rest here.

Author: Kevin Loo

Josef Moravec (left) was the first lung transplant patient in the Cz.rep. In the photo with doctors Pavle Pafek (right), Robert Lischek (second from left) and Jaromír Kabát (December 22, 1997), Photo: FN Motol

The first lung transplantation was performed by the team of Professor Pavel Pafko from the Prague Motol University Hospital on December 22, 1997.

The first patient with a lung transplant in Czechia is Josef Moravec, from Nymburk. The man, who was 41 years old at the time, was in the final stage of an inflammatory disease of the lung chambers that could lead to respiratory failure. A lung replacement was his only hope. The donor was a 26-year-old man who suffered a deadly gunshot injury. Moravec lived with his new lung for six years.

The lung transplant programme in Motol is currently headed by Robert Lischke. In 2014, he headed a team that performed the second ever combined lung and heart transplant in Czechia.

See the rest here.

For readers around the world, Josef Lada’s illustrations of the Good Soldier Švejk are inextricably linked to the famous character created by Jaroslav Hašek. But Lada did far more than illustrate Hašek’s novel, and his idealised paintings of carol singers and family gatherings are an enduring symbol of Christmas for many in Czechia.

Josef Lada was born in the village of Hrusice, just outside Prague, in 1887. His father was a cobbler and the family were poor, and little Josef lost an eye when he fell out of his cradle and landed on one of his father’s knives.

However, Lada seems to have had a happy childhood – and loved Christmas. Years later he recalled with relish the traditional foods his family prepared, and said he loved their small and modestly decorated Christmas trees more than wealthier boys whose trees reached the ceiling.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Kino Pilotů, Photo: Martina Kutková, Radio Prague International

Independent Prague cinema Kino Pilotů received a prize for Best Programming at the Europa Cinemas Awards earlier this month – the first time a Czech movie theatre has won. But what makes the small “kino” so special?

Film buffs and cinema enthusiasts are never at a loss for places to go in Prague – the city is home to several top-notch independent cinemas. One of the most popular is Kino Pilotů in Prague’s Vršovice district, which gets its name from the fact that it was operated by the former Union of Czechoslovak Pilots in the 1930s. The cinema has a history dating back to the early 20th century when it was a purely open-air cinema that screened films outdoors, before the present-day building was constructed.

But the cinema in its current form opened its doors in 2016, under the management of married couple Jan Macola and Alžběta Macolová. Alžběta spoke to Radio Prague soon after the prize was announced.

See the rest here.

Authors: Anna Fodor, Martina Kutková

Over a million Christmas trees are sold in Czechia each year, many of them having been imported from as far as Denmark and Norway. A new initiative, called Zachraň stromek or Save a Tree, has come up with a more sustainable way of celebrating Christmas. It offers locally grown trees that would never make it to the market due to their imperfections. I discussed the project with one of its authors, Jana Brišová, and first asked her how she got the idea to sell crooked Christmas trees:

“We were actually on a hike with my friends in South Bohemia and as we walked through a forest, we saw a tree that was really twisted. My friends were making fun of it and I felt sorry for the tree, so I said I would have it in my living room at Christmas.

“This is how we got into a discussion about imperfect trees and whether every tree that farmers grow is perfect. We did a bit of research and found out it was just the opposite.”

Where do these imperfect, crooked trees come from?

“After our research, we approached small business and farmers in South Bohemia and we offered to buy these imperfect trees from them. Because they all have such trees that they have to get rid of. So we were decided to offer them to people so as to save them.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Nobody is as impacted by the freezing weather we have had recently in Czechia as the homeless. However, some are being helped by the Iglou, which offers an alternative to night shelters. The portable emergency shelter was introduced to this country by Frenchman Manu Chilaud and his partner Pavla Klečková – and the two are now bringing it to states as far afield as Canada. Chilaud spoke to me from Ostrava, where he has lived for some years and, alongside non-profit work with Iglou, is senior director of manufacturing for a major international firm.

“The Iglou looks like a small tunnel made of polyethylene foam, which is a professional insulation material, and which the person sleeping inside can close at both ends, with two doors that are made from the same material.

“This makes it so the person inside is warming the inside by their own body warmth and body temperature.

“This means you don’t need anything else than having the user inside to get 15 to 20 degrees Celsius additional inside, compared to outside.

“You can imagine, it’s minus 10 outside these days and a person sleeping inside would have some plus temperature.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Illustrative Photo: René Volfík, iROZHLAS.cz

Czechia’s six-month presidency of the European Union is slowly coming to a close. Petr Fiala’s cabinet took over the role at a challenging moment, with Russia still waging war against Ukraine and energy prices rocketing. So what have been the main achievements of the Czech presidency? That’s a question I put to Filip Nerad, head of the international news department at Czech Radio.

“I would say generally it was keeping the EU united during these very difficult times.

“Because you still have the Russian aggression against Ukraine and the energy crisis and the EU discussed a lot of measures to deal with these things.

“And even though there were some problems, some disagreements, in the end the Czech presidency reached an agreement and kept the EU united.

“From this general point of view, I think that was the biggest achievement.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

On Saturday, December 24, many Czechs will be putting up and decorating Christmas trees – and enjoying the common seasonal dinner of carp and potato salad. But while Czech seasonal traditions are much loved, some are relatively new – and have fascinating regional variations.

As the director of Czechia’s National Institute of Folk Culture in Strážnice, Martin Šimša is an expert on customs of all kinds, including Christmas ones.

Virtually every Czech home will be adorned with a Christmas tree on Saturday, with a lot of families erecting and decorating their tree on Christmas Eve itself.

But, Mr. Šimša told Czech Radio, the festive tree is a relatively new phenomenon in this part of the world.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

As our Christmas gift to you, RPI is showcasing some Czech Christmas traditions for you to try at home. Do you already practice any of these?

Watch the video here.

Despite the economic crisis, Czechs have donated a record amount to charity this year. According to preliminary statistics of the Czech Donors Forum, the final sum collected in 2022 is expected to reach some CZK 15 billion. This year, the money was mostly raised to help war-stricken Ukraine.

In recent years, Czechs have shown themselves to be increasingly charitable and 2022 has only confirmed the trend. According to preliminary data, private donors, including firms and foundations, have already raised around nine billion crowns. The final sum, however, will be much higher, says head of the Donors Forum Klára Šplíchalová.

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Český Krumlov, one of Czechia’s best preserved historic towns, is celebrating three decades since it was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. The listing placed the town on the global tourist map with tens of millions of visitors having traveled there since.

While today Czechia boasts no fewer than 16 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, in the immediate years after the fall of Communism there were none. That changed in December 1992, when the international organization decided to admit the historic centers of Prague, Telc and Český Krumlov into the exclusive club.

The man in charge of administering the iconic castle in the center of the city, Dr Pavel Slavko, still recalls the moment when he got the news.

See the rest here.

Authors: Thomas McEnchroe, Petr Kubát

Photo: Miloš Ruml, ČTK

Angels on stilts are one of the popular attractions that create a magical Christmas atmosphere in the historic center of Prague.

Source

Speech by H.E. Mr. Egemen Bağış, Ambassador of the Republic of Türkiye to Prague

Today on this cold winter day, most of us came here with our comfortable cars in our warm and cozy clothing. And we will stay here for less than an hour. However some people who were forced to be here in 1940’s were not as lucky. We are here to pay our respects to them.

Excellencies,
Director of Terezin Memorial, Mr. Jan Roubinek,
Historian Mr. Tomas Federovic,
Distinguished guests and the representatives of the diplomatic missions in Prague,

Together with you today, I have the honour to announce here, the placement of the memorial plaque by the Republic of Türkiye, in memory of the Turkish Citizens as well as all the other victims of the Holocaust who suffered in the Ghetto Terezin.

Although the Turkish territory remained outside the area where millions of Jews and others were brutally mass murdered during the Second World War, as a nation we have always been fully aware of the unique nature of the Holocaust. We condemn antisemitism in the strongest terms and continue to exert every effort to fight against it.

As some of you may already know, during the second World War, Turkish diplomats serving in Europe were the heroic pioneers of saving lives of the Jewish people who were suffering from the brutal regime and helped them secure their lives throughout Europe and Türkiye. I would like to mention here the names of Ambassadors; Mr. Selahattin Ülkümen, Mr. Necdet Kent and Mr.Behiç Erkin with respect and gratitute.

One of these heroes, Ambassador Ülkümen also lost his beloved pregnant wife after a subsequent air raid of the Turkish diplomatic mission. She was wounded and lived just long enough to deliver a healthy baby. In retaliation of then Consul General Ülkümen’s support to Jews, Nazi planes bombed the Turkish consulate in Rhodes. Killed after the bombing were Ülkümen’s wife Mihrinissa Ülkümen, leaving behind their newborn son Mehmet. The Germans quickly detained and deported Consul General Ülkümen to mainland Greece and confined him for the remainder of the war.

As Mr. Fedorović could much better inform us later, according to the information provided by the Ghetto Memorial, 9 people whose names are among the Terezin prisoners were or claimed to be Turkish nationals before being declared stateless by the occupying forces. Out of a total of 9 people, eight of them survived, and one woman unfortunately died.

There was also another group that included individuals who were either born in Türkiye or had Turkish origin, but their nationality was unknown. In this group, there were 23 people, only 9 survived but 14 died. Among the 24 names, one name in particular stands out, he was recorded as having parents who came from Istanbul. And that name was Siegmund Freud…

Our lands have always been a safehaven for Jewish people. Our country embraced Jewish people as she embraced all other people who were in need of security and peace. Through the centuries Jewish citizens of our country lived in peace and I believe that, as a nation, we display an excellent example of peaceful coexistence in a country which is a mosaic of cultures and religions.

Our country and government are fully concerned about the distortion and/or denial of the Holocaust as a rising phenomenon. With this understanding Turkiye became co-sponsor of the resolution titled “Holocaust denial” adopted on January 20, 2022 at the UN General Assembly. Turkish Republic also has become one of the signatories of the “Terezin Declaration” in 2009 and an observer country to International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) since 2008. We continue to contribute to the valuable work of the Alliance by promoting Holocaust remembrance, education and combating antisemitism.

Türkiye, in addition to actively supporting IHRA’s goals and work on the subject as an observer country, also takes part in the activities of other relevant international and regional organizations in this field. We should all be vigilant about new manifestations of contemporary forms of racism, antisemitism, xenophobia and anti-Islam. This arises from our common responsibility to make sure that such a tragedy never takes place ever again.

I would like to thank accomplished musician and writer Ms. Renan Koen who came all the way from Istanbul to represent the Jewish community of Turkiye. We will be listening to her piano recital during the second part of our ceremony.

I would also like to thank and extend our gratitude to Mr. Jan Roubinek, the Director of Terezin Memorial and his team for their support to the organization of the ceremony and to all our guests participating in this special ceremony which is very meaningful for us.

This event is another important step in Holocaust remembrance, reflecting and tackling injustices from the time of the Holocaust and combating antisemitism.

Photo: Mirekk, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0

The best place to live in Czechia is the Central Bohemian town of Říčany, followed by Prague according to this year’s Quality of Life Index put together by the Obce v Datech project. The annual list is created by using big data analysis to crunch a wide array of statistics ranging from community services, to work, education and health conditions.

If you’re looking for the ideal place to settle down in Czechia then Říčany, a town with a population of around 16,000 which lies to the east of Prague, is probably your best bet. At least according to the annual Quality of Life Index, which has placed it at the top of its list for the past five years in a row.

The town has the best access to health services, the best environment and the best access to jobs in the whole country, the index suggests.

Prague came in second overall in this year’s list, ranking highest in areas such as access to services, transportation, security and activities. However, the index placed it as one of the worst places in the country when it comes to affordable housing.

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Photo: Jan Zwilling, BioRescue/Zoo Dvůr Králové

An international team of scientists working to save the northern white rhino from extinction has announced a major breakthrough. They have succeeded in cultivating primordial germ cells, the precursors of rhino eggs and sperm, from stem cells. I discussed the latest achievement with Jan Stejskal of Dvůr Králové Zoo, which is spearheading the international effort to save the rhinos:

“Basically, what is necessary to for us to save the northern white rhino, is to produce embryos, and there are two ways to achieve that.

“One is to collect the eggs from the last living donors that are now in Kenya and the other way is to produce eggs through reprogramming tissue in vitro.

“We started work on producing eggs in a laboratory environment years ago. The first step was to derive so-called induced pluripotent stem cells from a tissue sample. This was done in the Max Delbruck Centre in Berlin.

“Now, our colleagues in Osaka have made another breakthrough. They succeeded in creating primordial germ cells from these induced pluripotent stem cells. So it is one more step, and a very important one, on the way to acquire eggs in a laboratory.”

What other steps are needed to complete the process of creating artificial eggs and sperm?

“Now we have to learn how to turn these primordial germ cells into eggs and sperm. What might be interesting to your listeners is that primordial germ cells still contain two sets of chromosomes. So our colleagues have to learn how to produce cells that would have only one set of chromosomes.”

See the rest here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

The Ambassador of Pakistan H.H Mr. Muhammad Khalid Jamali host at his resident a reception for the participants and organizers of 7th interfaith conference jointly being organized by Czech ministry of Foreign affairs, IIR, Anna lindh foundation and OIC informal Prague group.

Ambassadors representing the Muslim countries in Prague and other distingue guest attend the reception.

Next day the conference took place in Prague.

Photo: Barbora Nováková, ČTK

A new street dedicated to the late Czech president, dissident and playwright Václav Havel was unveiled in Luxembourg on Tuesday. The ceremony, marking a symbolic end to the Czech presidency of the EU Council, was attended by Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala and his Luxembourg counterpart Xavier Bettel.

Dozens of people gathered in the Kirchberg district in Luxembourg on Tuesday to see the unveiling of Rue Václav Havel, a street named after the world-renowned dissident, playwright and former Czechoslovak and Czech president.

The street was inaugurated by Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala, who said it was a great honour to have a street named after Václav Havel in Luxembourg. He also said it was proof that his government’s decision to build on the legacy of Václav Havel in its foreign policy was the right one.

Read more here.

Author: Ruth Fraňková

Photo: Winternitzova vila

Architect Jan Kaplický earned an international reputation for futuristic projects that often resemble something out of a sci-fi movie. Now one of his earliest realised projects, a London apartment designed in the 1980s, has been brought back to life at an exhibition in Prague.

The exhibition Interior Dialogue at Prague’s Villa Winternitz recreates an apartment that Jan Kaplický designed in London in 1983.

The project was commissioned by the director of the city’s Design Museum, Deyan Sudjic.

It was one of Kaplický’s first realised projects – but already bore the hallmarks of the Prague-born architect’s futuristic style.

Adam Štěch is the curator of the exhibition.

“Jan Kaplický basically parked, symbolically, a cosmic spaceship into a conventional house in London.

“This was the concept of the interior, because Jan Kaplický envisioned a bachelor pad – because at that time Deyan Sudjic was still single – and he envisioned the interior as several interconnected modules made of aluminum.

“Everything which was technical, in terms of electricity and the water system and so on, was hidden covered with metal, aluminum panels.”

Unfortunately, the apartment had to be dismantled after a few years. Parts were damaged and when Deyan Sudjic had a child the sharp edges made it unsuitable as a home.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Juan Pablo Bertazza, Radio Prague International

Celebrated Argentine tenor, composer and conductor José Cura has a long-standing relationship with Czechia: in addition to recording an album of love songs by Dvořák in 2003, he was also a resident artist for three years with the Prague Symphony Orchestra between 2015 and 2018. Now the orchestra has invited him back to give two concerts at Prague’s Municipal House in celebration of his 60th birthday. In this exclusive interview with Radio Prague International, the artist reflects on his relationship with the city of Prague, the effects of the pandemic on him and on the classical music industry, as well as problems the industry is currently facing.

“A beautiful birthday present.”

That is how José Cura describes the invitation extended to him by the Prague Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of his 60th birthday this month.

“The orchestra told me that, when I turned sixty, they wanted to celebrate with two birthday concerts, that’s why the concerts are called ‘Happy Birthday, José’. And they also told me that the idea was not only to present my vocal work, but the entire spectrum of my musical activities: composition, singing and orchestra conducting.”

See the rest here.

Authors: Anna Fodor, Juan Pablo Bertazza

Photo: Odpovědné občanství

Václav Havel is coming to Czech schools. Well, not exactly, but an AI version of him is to be introduced into the civic education curriculum of several Czech secondary schools from January of next year with the aim of educating children about topics such as freedom, democracy and human rights. To find out more about the project I spoke to Alena Resl from the Czech office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, one of the organisations behind the project, and began by asking her what exactly DigiHavel is?

“DigiHavel is a modern deductive tool for civic education teachers. It’s actually an application based on artificial intelligence. You can imagine it as a digital human whose ideas were inspired by the first president of Czechia, Václav Havel. It is actually the first time that a digital human as a technology will be used in the Czech school system.

“It is not a clone of Václav Havel, because AI is not yet able to do that, but this digital human was programmed in a way that represents the ideas of Václav Havel about democracy, human rights and totalitarianism.

See the rest here.

Author: Thomas McEnchroe

Czechs are not very mobile or quick to act. At least that is the generally accepted truth. But are Czechs as a nation really lacking in enterprising spirit, curiosity, and mobility?

There is a well-known Czech fairy tale character called “Hloupý Honza” or Silly Jack in English. He is a simple guy of humble origin unwilling to leave his cozy home. Driven into the big wide world by his parents, he wins riches and a wife by luck or miracle rather than personal initiative and returns home to live happily ever after.

So, is this what being a Czech is really about? Enjoy your beer and song in a pub, let the world go past, don’t worry, be happy!

Statistically speaking, this stereotype of a Czech who prefers the relative comfort of home to risking an uncertain if perhaps more interesting and profitable work and future somewhere abroad seems more or less right. Authorities estimate that compared to their Polish or Slovak neighbors, a significantly smaller percentage of young Czechs are willing to go abroad to work or gain experience. However, statistics can be misleading. Let me tell you two stories:

Czech plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahač works in America. He led the team of doctors that performed the first full face transplant in the United States. He has earned admiration and numerous awards for his work in the United States and at home in the Czech Republic. But when I spoke to this graduate of the Faculty of Medicine of the Palacký University in Olomouc some time ago in Boston, I wasn’t that interested in the details of his work, but rather what prompted a native of Ostrava, a graduate of Palacky University, to leave the safety of home? Why did he set off in search of uncertain happiness and success across the Ocean?

See the rest here.

Author: Vít Pohanka

Photo: Google Arts & Culture

A new project on the Google Arts & Culture platform is a real treasure trove, bringing together over 3,000 Czech art works from some of the country’s top institutions. Entitled The HeART of Czechia, it was launched within the Czech EU presidency. I discussed it with Liudmila Kobyakova, program manager at Google Arts & Culture.

“The basic idea was really to show the artistic and culture scene in Czechia.

“The project is dedicated mainly to three main topics, which is art, architecture and design.”

What are some of the most important works that are to be seen on this online gallery?

“Of course there are many. The exhibition is really huge – it’s actually one of the biggest projects that we have done in the Czech Republic.

“There are more than 3,000 art works, more than 40 Street Views that we have taken, and more than 100 stories that were shared by partners.

“But to speak of some of the highlights, the first is definitely the Slav Epic [by Alphonse Mucha].

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: René Volfík, iROZHLAS.cz

With Christmas just around the corner, there’s no better time than now to stop by one of Prague’s many Christmas markets. Czechs may be buying less this year but they are enjoying the good cheer.

It’s the most festive time of the year and despite the economic woes –a spiraling inflation and the energy crunch – Praguers are enjoying the city’s many Christmas markets.

The Christmas market season traditionally begins on the 26th of November and runs until the 6th of January, it’s also open on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years Day. The markets are spread out across the city, from Old Town Square to Náměstí Míru, and provide a wide range of traditional Czech Christmas fare, that people can buy as artisan gifts for friends or sample on the spot.

See the rest here.

Author: Amelia Mola Schmidt

Photo: Patrik Uhlíř, ČTK

Czech scout troops have collected the Light of Bethlehem, a modern symbol of the Christmas season, from their colleagues at the Austrian border this past weekend.

They will now distribute it across the country, placing it in churches and various institutions, from where people can light their own lamps.

The tradition of the Bethlehem Light was established by a regional studio of Austrian state broadcaster ORF in 1986. Czechia has been taking part since December 1989.

Source

Photo: Czech Army

Ukrainian soldiers have begun training here in Czechia, days after the country’s legislators approved such a move. Meanwhile, the country’s commitment to helping the country is reflected in a report that one Czech factory is producing a tank every four days for Ukraine.

Only last week both houses of the Czech Parliament passed a bill allowing for up to 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers to train on this country’s territory between now and the end of 2023.

Troops from Ukraine have already begun exercising that right, with the chief of staff of the Czech Army, Karel Řehka, saying on Sunday that some were in action in the army’s Libavá military zone in the Olomouc Region in the east of the country.

When exactly they arrived, or in what number, was not disclosed for security reasons.

See the rest here.

Author: Ian Willoughby

Photo: Karel Cudlín, Památník ticha

Unique photographs from the WWII Terezín ghetto are set to be shown at the European Parliament in Brussels as the six-month Czech presidency of the EU comes to a close. The photos had been lost for decades and only recently came to light.

Journalist Milan Weiner, who survived the Terezín ghetto and Auschwitz death camp, passed away in 1969.

However it was only recently that an album of 41 photographs from Terezín (Theresienstadt in German) among his possessions received attention.

Taken between 1942 and 1944, they are the only known photos capturing life in the ghetto other than stills from Nazi propaganda films.

See the rest here.

Authors: Ruth Fraňková, Ian Willoughby