Vltava Day is a young tradition in Prague. This year at its ninth anniversary, the celebration is an occasion for tourists and locals alike to explore the Old Town from the river, as boat rides will be free.
Sunday, March 19, local residents and tourists alike will have the chance to enjoy a free boat ride on the Vltava River in Prague.
Boats leave from Dock Na Františku, Prague’s redeveloped waterfront along the Dvořák Embankment (Dvořákovo nábřeží). The official schedule of the rides features six different boat tours from six locations:
- Slapy – Dock Na Františku – platform no. 11, departure: 9, 10, 11 a.m. (duration of the cruise: 45 minutes)
- Classic River – Dock Na Františku – platform no. 17, departure: 10, 11 a.m.; 1, 2 p.m. (duration of the cruise: 45 minutes)
- Czech Boat – Dock Na Františku – platform no. 16, departure: 9.30, 10.30, 11.30 a.m., 12.30, 1.30 p.m. (duration of the cruise: 45 minutes)
- Saloon Speedship Nepomuk – Dock Four Seasons – Platnéřská 191/2, departure: 10, 11, a.m.12.00, 1, 2 p.m. (duration of the cruise: 45 minutes)
- Fidelio – Dock Výtoň – Platnéřská 191/4, departure: 10 a.m. (duration of the cruise: 120 minutes)
– Dock Four Seasons – Platnéřská 191/4, departure: 12.30, 1.30 p.m. (duration of the cruise: 45 minutes)
– Dock Four Seasons departure: 2.30 p.m. (duration of the cruise: 120 minutes), reservation: 727 957 602 - Maria – Dock Na Františku, Platform no. 16, departure: 10 a.m., 2 p.m. (duration of the cruise: 45 minutes)
Besides free boat tours on the river, Vltava Day will also be marked with an artistic and cultural program featuring a free live sailing songs concert by Matilda Band at the Dock Hergetova cihelna.
During cruises, at Saloon Speedship Nepomuk you can attend a boat knots workshops with the captain of the vessel. There will also be demonstrations of diving equipment at Dock Hergetova cihelna, and even swimming in the river at U Karlova mostu at midday.
Last, but not least, the Charles Bridge Museum can be visited free of charge too from 10:00 to 15:00.
From 23 to 25 February, the NGO People in Need will hold a series of events in Prague to commemorate one year of war and humanitarian aid in Ukraine and the Czech Republic.
These events will include light installations on the Ministry of the Interior building on Letná, special screenings at the Světozor cinema, and an exhibition that maps the war month by month.
“We wanted to bring the everyday life of people in the midst of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to life. We will give viewers a space to stop, reflect, and let the motifs and symbols associated with life in war resonate within them,” says People in Need’s media coordinator, Petr Štefan.
On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings, visitors to Letná plain will be able to watch two screenings.
The first one, on the facade of the Ministry of the Interior, will offer a story based on the feelings and emotions of people in Ukraine living in the midst of the war and will capture the atmosphere of life in an occupied country.
The second projection, which will take place among the trees, will present a time loop that will show the misery, destruction, and devastation that the people of Ukraine have been facing for a year.
“We chose Letna for the projection because it is a symbolic place for key moments in Czech history, and people are used to coming here for important moments in modern history,” Štefan adds.
🇺🇦 Blíží se smutné roční výročí války v #Ukraine. Při této příležitosti vás zveme ke sledování živého vysílání debaty:
👉 Josef Pazderka
👉 Šimon Pánek
👉 role moderátorky se místo Jany Peroutkové zhostí Karolína Koubová.
Více info ve FB události 👉 https://t.co/ZLp2hzgEvj pic.twitter.com/sCM7KFVvTM— Člověk v tísni (@CLOVEKVTISNI) February 20, 2023
Other programs will take place at the Světozor cinema, where two documentaries will be screened on Thursday – A House Made of Splinters, which was nominated for an Oscar, and the new film Jaro v Buči. Additionally, the cinema will also host several debates.
People in Need also invites you to an exhibition by photographer Albert Loress, entitled When War Comes to Your Home.
On Thursday afternoon at the Langhans Centre on Vodičkova street, visitors will be able to take a virtual reality look directly into the scene of the fighting in Ukraine.
Czech President-elect Petr Pavel has irritated the Ukrainian government by calling for realism in the country’s ongoing conflict with Russia and warning against pushing for a result that could see the collapse of Russia and lead to greater problems for the region.
Pavel offered his thoughts on the war during the Munich Security Conference on Saturday. He said an attempt to liberate some parts of Ukraine from occupied Russian forces would inevitably lead to “unbearable loss of life” and Ukraine and its allies should “prepare for the worst.”
“We need to be careful about pushing Ukraine to a certain result. Maybe at some point, Ukraine will change its vision,” the former NATO general added.
Pavel, who will succeed outgoing Czech President Miloš Zeman on March 9, argued that a resounding Ukrainian victory that resulted in the collapse of the Russian Federation could be catastrophic for the region, and the West should avoid advocating for such a result.
“It is possible that this will lead to the collapse of Russia,” Pavel said, referring to a Ukrainian victory that sees the country liberate and retain the entirety of its territory. “If Russia collapses, then we may have more problems, we have no one to negotiate disarmament with,” he stressed.
He said such a situation would be undesirable for stability in Europe, and a collapsed Russia would become a huge security risk.
His comments were met with criticism by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who responded by claiming, “We must trust Ukraine, not prepare for the worst.” Kuleba reiterated that any concessions are considered unacceptable by the Ukrainian government and equated the response suggested by Pavel as akin to surrender.
Kuleba found support among Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson, who argued that “to be realistic is to be short-sighted.”
Pavel took to social media following the event to clarify his position.
“My remarks on the Ukraine panel at the Munich Security Conference in no way questioned aid by all means until Russia is defeated. But as an ex-soldier, I don’t want to be guided by hope or faith. I prefer a realistic view and fact-based analyses,” he tweeted.
At the conference, Pavel insisted support for Ukraine by Western allies was not in danger and said his country would continue to support Ukraine during his presidency. He did, however, warn that NATO’s minimum requirement for members to spend at least 2 percent of its GDP on defense may not be sufficient in the future.
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Some 94,400 refugees from Ukraine had jobs in Czechia at the end of January, the Czech News Agency reported on Sunday, citing an official from the national labour authority.
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President-elect Petr Pavel has asked the Ukrainian administration to propose a date for his planned trip to Kyiv. He made the announcement at a press conference in Prague on Monday, adding that he expected the visit to take place in the near future.
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Czechia has so far donated about CZK 4.8 billion in unused military materiel from the stocks of the Czech Army to Ukraine, a spokesperson for the Czech Ministry of Defence told the Czech News Agency on Sunday.
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Czech sound engineer Viktor Prasil received the British film award BAFTA for the best sound for his work on the German film All Quiet on the Western Front, the BAFTA has tweeted.
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A 41-year-old record held by Czech runner Jarmila Kratochvílová has been broken. On Sunday the Dutch athlete Femke Bol set a new indoor world record in the women’s 400 metres at the Dutch national championships in Apeldoorn in a time of 49.26 seconds, taking 0.33 of a second off the Czech’s long-standing record.
Replicas of the most famous works by Renaissance masters, including Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raffaello, and Sandro Botticelli, will occupy the space of Mánes in Prague for three months.
This exhibition has already been visited by over half a million people in Austria and Germany.
The most challenging work for the organizers was transporting the nine-meter-high sculpture of David, which was the first work to be installed in the gallery.
Covering the glass ceiling of the gallery was as well a technical challenge because the parameters of the exhibition require dim light.
The exhibition will also feature replicas of other famous works, including da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, seen by over ten million visitors each year at the Louvre in Paris, the Sistine Madonna by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino, the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, and Botticelli’s Birth of Venus.
“The painting The Birth of Venus is considered a milestone in the history of art. Visitors to the exhibition will be impressed by its original size of 278 x 175 cm. The monumental painting was created at the end of the fifteenth century and has been exhibited in the famous Uffizi Gallery in Florence since the beginning of the twentieth century. The work has been admired and analyzed for centuries. Today, Venus is considered one of the major works of the Renaissance, along with the Mona Lisa and the Sistine Chapel,” the organizers said.
The exhibition brings together works from twelve of the world’s leading galleries and museums in European capitals such as Madrid, London, Paris, Florence, Venice, and Vienna.
It will be open from March 1 to May 30.
Delta Airlines will resume direct flights between Prague and New York (JFK) on May 8, 2023.
The carrier will once again fly between the two cities on a daily basis until October 28. The destination will be served by Boeing 767-300 aircraft.
The tickets are already on sale. The cost of a one-way flight at basic fare is CZK 13,000. Travel time is 9 hours and 20 minutes.
“We are pleased to return to the Czech market with direct flights, able to offer passengers a comfortable and fast connection from Prague to New York and to further-away destinations on the American continent,” Guido Hackel, Air France, KLM and Delta Air Lines Country Manager for Austria, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, noted.
Delta operates more flights to Europe out of JFK than any other US carrier, with its flight to Prague operating in conjunction with its joint venture partners Air France, KLM, and Virgin Atlantic.
Delta Air Lines is one of the major airlines of the United States and a legacy carrier. One of the world’s oldest airlines in operation, Delta is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.
The airline, along with its subsidiaries and regional affiliates, including Delta Connection, operates over 5,400 flights daily and serves 325 destinations in 52 countries on six continents. As of the end of 2022, it had 90,000 employees.
Delta is ranked second among the world’s largest airlines by number of passengers carried, passenger-miles flown, and fleet size. It is ranked 69th on the Fortune 500.
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Some 94,400 refugees from Ukraine had jobs in Czechia at the end of January, the Czech News Agency reported on Sunday, citing an official from the national labour authority.
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Czechia plans to terminate long-term contracts with Russia on the free rental of land on which buildings owned by the Moscow government stand, Czech Television reported. A draft proposal to that end should be discussed by Czech ministers next week.
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Imports of gas from Russia to Czechia fell to zero last month, the Czech minister of industry and trade, Jozef Síkela, said on Twitter. The state replaced Russian imports with liquefied natural gas from the Netherlands and Belgium.
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Former football international Ladislav Vízek has questioned the wisdom of current national team player Jakub Jankto coming out publicly this week. The 27-year-old is the highest profile current player to have revealed their homosexuality.
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Czech Post will raise tariff wages by an average of 5% beginning April 1. At the same time, postal employees will receive more valuable 100-crown meal vouchers without contributing more. The company will spend CZK 397.3 million on the wage increase and higher meal vouchers by December, company spokesman Matyáš Vitík said on Wednesday.
The Czech tourist board is changing its branding and website from Visit Czech Republic to Visit Czechia, as part of a wider rebranding across the central European country.
The new branding and #VisitCzechia will be seen online, in publications and at travel trade events.
A statement from the tourist board said Czechia and the Czech Republic are synonymous and are both official names.
“The decision on whether to use the shorter or longer version depends on the area and whether there is an obligation attached to the state designation,” it said.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the longer name, Czech Republic, must be used only in official government documents, in the names of embassies, and other legal documents.
“The Czechia brand will be used in all other cases. It is more practical and less formal,” added the statement.
Czechia will also be seen when people represent the state in culture, science, sports and other spheres. For example, the Czech Olympic Committee has already switched to Czechia.
The “European Starlink” called IRIS² will be based in Prague, writes Hospodářské noviny. It plans to send 170 satellites, starting next year.
The Czech Republic will thus expand its activities in this area, as the EUSPA space agency already operates in the capital.
The multi-orbital constellation, IRIS² (Infrastructure for Resilience, Interconnection and Security by Satellite), is projected to be operational in 2024 and will be focused on providing secure satellite communications to EU governmental users.
“IRIS² establishes space as a vector of our European autonomy, a vector of connectivity and resilience. It heightens Europe’s role as a true space power”, Internal Market Commissioner and the real driver of the initiative, Thierry Breton, said.
Allowing the private sector to facilitate the rollout of high-speed broadband to “dead zones” that currently lack connectivity is also listed as a critical goal of the project.
“IRIS² will provide connectivity to the whole of Europe”, said Breton, “including areas that do not currently benefit from broadband Internet, as well as to the whole of Africa, using the constellation’s North-South orbits.”
The system is also set to contribute to the EU’s broader goal of heightened strategic autonomy, outlined as a key motivation at the project’s announcement earlier this year.
Renew Europe MEP Christophe Grudler (Mouvement Démocrate, France), Rapporteur on the EU secure connectivity program, declared:
« With the war, Ukraine needed satellite telecommunications, but the EU didn’t have something to offer. Ukraine should not have to rely on the whims of Elon Musk to defend their people. With IRIS², the EU will have its own telecommunication constellation, able to offer secure communications to European governments and allies.
I’m proud that this constellation will also set a worldwide example in terms of sustainability, as we requested. Now it is time to build these new European satellites, and prepare them for launch!».
Starbucks has opened its first Reserve Store in Central Europe in Prague, offering unique coffee and preparation methods.
The coffee shop chain has reopened a branch on Jungmannovo náměstí, bringing the Reserve store concept, a completely new format of Starbucks coffee shops.
Starbucks Reserve is a series of premium Starbucks cafes that serve rare blends of coffee worldwide.
The coffees served at Reserve are carefully selected after a lengthy tasting process by company members and coffee professionals.
“We are opening the first Central European Reserve store in the Czech Republic because Czech customers are extremely receptive to novelty,” says Grzegorz Kazmierczak, Starbucks Regional Director for the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “We believe that the coffee and the exceptional environment will attract even the most demanding coffee enthusiasts to Starbucks.”
The core of Prague Reserve store is a first-class hi-tech Black Eagle coffee machine, which allows baristas to individually adjust and control the individual preparation stages, such as the amount and ratio of beans, the preparation time, or the water temperature.
Customers can also fine a special offer of desserts that are suitable for the local coffee specialties. Likewise, the café will offer a selection of packaged coffee beans and original merchandising.
The 100+ seat establishment offers a designer interior, but above all rare coffees from small growing regions and carefully prepared blends exclusively for Reserve cafés, such as Microblend No.10 or Microblend No.21.
Saxophonist Felix Slováček and other friends, colleagues of Karel Gott have opened a memorial café, Café Karel, in the centre of Prague.
The café is located on Dlouhá Street in the arcade next to the theatre. It is dedicated to the most successful Czech singer of popular music of all time.
Often referred to as the “golden voice of Prague” and the “Sinatra of the East,” singer, actor, and painter Karel Gott’s career spanned six decades.
Emerging in the early ’60s, Gott’s first solo single, a rendering of Henry Mancini’s “Moon River,” helped put him on the map, and as the years progressed he dabbled in everything from pop, rock, and country to opera and swing.
Able to entertain in Russian, English, German, and Italian, as well as his native Czech, Gott was hugely popular in Eastern Europe, but also found favor with audiences in Western Europe and the United States.
By 1960, he was studying opera and voice at Prague Conservatory under Konstantin Karenin, who taught Gott to embrace popular music as well as the classics. He released his first single, a duet with Vlasta Pruchova, on Supraphon Records in 1962.
His first solo single appeared in 1963 as a Czech version of the aforementioned “Moon River.” Gott subsequently ended his official studies at the conservatory, quickly building an impressive career as a singer and composer.
In 1967 he signed with Polydor/Deutsche Grammophon, where he would remain for the entirety of his professional career, releasing over 100 albums and selling an estimated 50 to 100 million of them.
Gott was diagnosed with cancer of the lymph nodes in 2015 but continued to perform and record. Sadly, in the summer of 2019, he developed acute leukemia and succumbed to the disease later that October.
He released his final single, a duet with his daughter Charlotte titled “Srdce nehasnou” (“Hearts Will Go On”), earlier that year.
He won a total of 42 awards in the Golden Nightingale and later Czech Nightingale polls.
Purchasing an e-car in the near future is completely unimaginable for most Czechs as the high cost of e-cars and misunderstandings on emissions rules ensure they remain skeptical about e-mobility, said Czech expert Helena Truchlá.
According to Ekovozy.cz, which monitors the number of e-vehicles in the Czech Republic, around 12,000 electric cars were in the country by mid-2022.
“The Czech public perception of electromobility is still negative. This is related to the fact that electric cars are still simply too expensive for a large part of the population, and a bit too sci-fi for everyday life,” added Truchlá, an analyst at sociologist agency STEM.
“For more than a third of the (Czech) public, such a purchase is completely unimaginable,” Truchlá pointed out. The Czech public is also opposed to plans to restrict the sale of new cars with internal combustion engines from 2035.
According to the expert, people’s attitude towards restricting the sale of conventional cars is often linked to a misunderstanding of the regulation.
“Only 27% of people in our survey last year correctly said that after that date (2035), everyone can still drive whatever they want in Europe,” Truchlá said. Half of those surveyed also believed the change to be a total ban on non-electric cars, including used cars.
Czechia has one of the oldest car fleets in the EU, with an average car age of 11.93 years, compared to the 11.8 EU average, 2022 data from the Association of Car Importers shows.
Moreover, about one-fifth of Czech people are considering buying their own electric car, Truchlá said – the lowest proportion amongst EU members, a survey by the European Investment Bank (EIB) reads.
According to the survey, Czechs are the only ones counting on a petrol or diesel car for their next purchase. Other countries rely on electric or hybrid cars, mainly for financial reasons.
“For more than a third of the (Czech) public, such a purchase is completely unimaginable,” Truchlá said.