Charles Bridge Museum together with the City of Prague is holding St. Martin’s celebrations on Thursday 11th November.
The celebration will start at 11.11 am. On this day, Czechs traditionally roast a goose and at exactly 11:11 they open the first bottles of young wine, which are called St. Martin’s (Svatomartinské víno).
St. Martin was a Roman Catholic saint, the bishop of Tours, who lived in the years 316 – 397. The most-repeated story about his life says that while he was a soldier, he encountered a scantily dressed beggar at the gate of the city of Amiens.
He cut his military woolen cloak in half and shared it with the freezing man. The following night he had a vision of Jesus Christ, surrounded by Angels, and arrayed in the half of the cloak. As a consequence of the experience, he received baptism, left the army and became a monk.
People in the Czech republic associate the feast with the onset of winter and snow. There are a lot of proverbs in Czech, which feature predictions for the winter weather. According to the most popular saying, the first snowfall of the season can be expected on this day since Martin may arrive on his white horse.
St. Martin´s celebrations are particularly popular with children, who create colourful handmade lanterns. After darkness falls, kids participate in lantern processions and sing songs. The candles in the lanterns flicker and the kid´s eyes are brimming with excitement.
It is a tradition to eat roast goose because a flock of geese betrayed St. Martin’s hiding place as he was trying to hide from the people, who wanted to make him a bishop.
In Prague, it is customary to drink young wine called St. Martin’s wine (Svatomartinské). The Prague Botanic garden annually offers the tasting of young wine from St. Claire’s vineyard.
Lively celebrations take place on the Vltava river bank, in Náplavka, and include music, traditional culinary delights, fantastic wine and breathtaking views of the city.
LGBT+ organisations are set to hold a rally named “Together Against Violence” on Prague’s Wenceslas Square on Wednesday, October 26.
The LGBT+ groups say they expect up to 10,000 people to attend the event, where speakers will include Roman Samotný, the owner of the Bratislava gay bar Tepláreň, outside which two young homosexual men were recently shot dead.
Musicians such as David Koller, Emma Smetana and Jordan Haj will perform on the stage.
What happened
The shooting took place at the entrance of the gay bar Tepláreň in downtown Bratislava.
In addition to the two persons shot dead, a third person was wounded in the attack. The suspect was identified as 19-year-old Juraj Krajčík, the son of a far-right politician. Before the shooting, Krajčík had posted anti-LGBTQ+ and anti-Semitic messages on Twitter.
Following the tragedy, thousands took to the streets of Slovakia to protest against homophobia in the nation. President Zuzana Caputova shared her views at the march, stating: “Hate crimes are an attack on the whole society, of which the LGBTQI+ community is a valuable member.”
From legal discrimination to institutionalized hate speech
While the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, known collectively as the Visegrád Group, are all members of the European Union and have legislation banning gender-based discrimination, legal inequality persists in all four countries.
In the Czech Republic, where same-sex civic unions are allowed and which hosts one of the region’s largest Gay Pride parades, President Miloš Zeman has stated clearly that he would veto a proposal to legalize gay marriage if it were approved by Parliament.
In Slovakia, same-sex civic unions and gay marriage are not legally permitted. In Hungary, same-sex partnerships have been legal since 2009, but gay marriage was constitutionally banned in 2012. In Poland several bills seeking legal recognition of same-sex partnerships have failed to pass into law.
In both Poland and Slovakia, the Catholic Church is one of the main sources of stigmatization of LGBTQ+ people.
When Zuzana Čaputová was running as a presidential candidate in 2019 and made her support for the LGBTQ+ community clear, members of the Slovak Catholic Church declared that voting for her would be “sinful”.
In 2020, the archbishop of Kraków, Poland’s second-largest city, publicly described gay rights as the new “plague” and called on Polish citizens to fight against them.
In Hungary, the LGBTQ+ community has become a major target of various campaigns by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz Party that have resulted in the banning of gender studies from university curricula and removal of the right to change identity papers based on reassigned gender, as well as the dismantling of the Equal Treatment Authority charged with protecting citizens against racial, gender discrimination.
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The number of Ukrainian refugees who have received temporary protection status in Czechia has now passed 450,000. During the last week 3,288 more people were given these special visas, bringing the total number to 450,090, according to the Ministry of the Interior.
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Organisations representing sexual minorities are set to hold a rally named Together Against Violence on Prague’s Wenceslas Square on Wednesday, October 26. The LGBT+ groups say they expect up to 10,000 people to attend the event
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The Prague Sounds music festival kicked off in the Czech capital on Sunday with a concert by US group Snarky Puppy at the Lucerna Grand Hall. Eight other events are taking place in the festival previously known as Strings of Autumn.
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The ANO party will now announce their plans for the presidential election on Monday October 31, instead of next Wednesday as originally promised. The reason given is that leader Andrej Babiš is in isolation after testing positive for Covid-19.
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Czechia will change its quotas for employing non-EU foreigners as of November, making work visas available for more people from Armenia, Moldova, Philippines, North Macedonia and Georgia now that skilled workers cannot arrive from war-stricken Ukraine.
During this winter season, Prague Airport will offer another direct connection to a warm and exotic part of the world.
The SalamAir carrier will offer its flights from Prague to Oman twice a week.
Beautiful beaches, gorgeous mountains, spectacular deserts, numerous waterfalls, modern cities, and ever-present history await travellers in Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman, and in Salalah, located in the Dhofar province on the Arabian Sea coast. Connections to both cities will be operated using modern Airbus A321neo aircraft.
“The connection from the Czech Republic to Salalah in Oman certainly has strong tourist potential. Moreover, in the case of the direct Muscat route, we can see additional business potential and the possibility of transfers to flights to more remote destinations in the Middle East and Asia,” Jaroslav Filip, Prague Airport Aviation Business Director, said.
The carrier will fly from Prague to Muscat every Wednesday, and to Salalah every Friday. The flight from Prague to Muscat will take approximately six hours and fifteen minutes, the flight to Salalah will take an hour longer.
“We consider the start of operations of flights from Prague to Muscat and Salalah flights by our airline an important milestone. The new connection creates an excellent opportunity for the citizens of the Czech Republic to explore Oman and visit incredible destinations. Oman’s capital Muscat is a city of extraordinary beauty, an oasis of history and culture surrounded by sea, mountains, and desert. Muscat is a vital hub for commerce, economic and trade activities, and is considered the economic and administrative centre of Oman,” Captain Mohamed Ahmed, SalamAir CEO, noted.
About SalamAir
SalamAir commenced its commercial operations in 2017, intending to set new standards in the aviation industry in Oman.
SalamAir meets the country’s increasing demand for affordable travel options and aims to generate further opportunities for employment and business creation in various Oman sectors.
In five years, SalamAir has achieved growth in its operations and expanded its region’s reach. Awarded Oman’s Most Trusted Brand 2021 and The Youngest Fleet in Asia for 2021 and 2022 by Ch-Aviation, SalamAir operates six Airbus A320neo, and four Airbus A321neo aircraft.
A uniting wall. Visited by millions of curious people every year in Prague, the Lennon Wall arrived in Paris today.
On Thursday, October 20, and Friday 21, 2022, the Lennon Wall comes to the Pantheon, in Paris 5th arrondissement.
As part of the Czech Presidency of the EU Council, 27 artists from the European Union (including French Anaëlle Bouard) and two special guests from Ukraine (Viktoriia Savchuk) and Norway (Pippip Ferner) have been invited to create a mural themed on liberty and energy on the famous Lennon Wall in Prague. After a day’s work, the 29 artists created a large work of art of 35 x 5 meters.
Once the artists concluded their work on the Lennon Wall in Prague, it was photographed and printed on an inflatable wall of the same size (35 x 5 metres).
The replica was earlier unveiled in front of the Palace of Europe in Strasbourg, and is now on display –for two days – at the Place du Panthéon, in Paris. Pavel Štastný says he added a special feature:
The project is also meant to highlight the EU motto “United in Diversity”.
Behind this cultural project titled “Wall of Freedom and Energy / Lennon Wall Prague” stands Czech artist Pavel Šťastný. “This is a wall not dividing us but uniting us. When traveling across Europe, it displays a unique and common vision of artists about human liberty and the energy of art”, he says in a release published on October 16.
“Each wall is dividing. Sole the wall dedicated to John Lennon unites. And this is why, although we fill it with the air of Prague, Brussels, Paris, the air of liberty, we will eventually make it disappear. Human relationships rely on the will of being together, wall-less. The Lennon Wall will stay in Prague as a symbol of liberty that would knock down all walls”, Czech Ambassador in Paris Michel Fleischmann says.