Book Review – To the Castle and Back To the Castle and Back is Vaclav Havel’s semi-autobiographical work originally published in Czech in 2006 with the title “Please be Brief” and translated to English along with the new title “To the Castle and Back” by Paul Wilson in 2007. Vaclav Havel served three Presidential terms … Read More
Jachymov Work Camp When you meet a Czech communist nowadays and you try to engage in some discussion about what the Czech communists did to non-communist Czechs in the 1950s there’s often this defence about “not everybody was executed, many only went to work camps”. Let’s take a look at one of those places, specifically … Read More
The Žižkov Old Jewish Cemetery 1680-1890 Prague guidebooks will tell you that the Old Jewish Cemetery in Josefov closed in November 1787. That’s correct, but what they often don’t tell you is what happened next and how the Jewish community chose the place that took over burials. This would be the Žižkov Jewish Cemetery often … Read More
Museum of Communism 20 years ago I visited the old location of the Museum of Communism and found it quite uninspiring. Fast forward 20 years and the new location in V Celnice has a completely fresh outlook presented in a more understandable timeline with the majority of information about the exhibits translated into English. You … Read More
Politics and History – Charter 77 You don’t have to spend too much time watching Czech news to learn that famous people have died. Sometimes however the name is followed by a simple phrase “Charter 77 signatory”. In our current time of being able to say pretty much whatever we like and not have to … Read More
Nusle Bridge Not all bridges in Prague cross the river. The Nusle Bridge crosses the Nusle Valley and connects the south-eastern part of the city (Prague 4) with the centre (Prague 2). I’ve been driving over this bridge and using the metro that runs under it since 1996 and I really couldn’t imagine it not … Read More
Memorial to Eleven Ice Hockey Players Surely one of the strangest memorials to the communist era is at Pšstrossova 24 in the New Town. It states that eleven ice hockey players were arrested in March 1950 and sent to prison. In fact several of these guys were either Olympic silver medallists in 1948 and/or ice … Read More
Prague Expo 58 If you are thinking that Expo 58 was in Prague then unfortunately that would be wrong but we do have a little piece of Czech design that was built for Expo 58 in Brussels so if architecture and design interest you it might be worth a trip to the Adolf Loos Apartment … Read More
The Egyptian Who Won Wimbledon – Famous Czechs – Jaroslav Drobny If you are wondering what possible link there can be between Prague and an Egyptian who won the Men’s Singles Title at Wimbledon then read on because it’s an interesting story. You won’t find the name Jaroslav Drobný in many history books but look … Read More
Famous Czechs – Jan Zajic To set the scene you have to understand that the August 1968 invasion of Prague by Warsaw Pact countries extinguished the Prague Spring freedoms. Any political or social reforms were cancelled and Czechoslovakia regressed to its 1950’s state. As was increasingly common in the late 1960s, the method of the … Read More