A driver captured the crazy moment a Formula 2 car was seen flying down a motorway heading into Germany from the Czech Republic.
Several videos went viral on social media as an F2 car was seen hurtling down a normal motorway road. The old Ferrari was filmed flying down the two-lane D4 motorway, between Příbram and Dobříš.
The car heavily resembled an F2 chassis – but it is illegal to drive such vehicles on the motorway in the Czech Republic. Police have investigated a similar incident that occurred in 2019 in the same area.
In 2019, the same car was spotted driving down the same section of motorway, which led to an inquiry. Officers managed to track down the owner of the Ferrari, but the suspect denied he was behind the wheel at the time.
Subsequently, police could not prove their case as the driver was wearing a racing helmet that concealed identity, so no charges were brought against the suspect. And fortunately so for whoever was behind the wheel, as they avoided a fine and a one-year ban from driving.
One account to post a video of the incident on Twitter was @F1_Images, who said: “Just a GP2 car in Ferrari colours cruising up a highway in the Czech Republic. Police have not been able to identify the illegal joyrider and are looking for him for questioning.”
Just a GP2 car in Ferrari colours cruising up a highway in the Czech Republic. 😳 Police have not been able to identify the illegal joyrider and are looking for him for questioning. #F1
pic.twitter.com/D5GZLzU32b— F1 Images (@F1_Images) August 14, 2022
The post prompted some favourable responses, with @Haaalo14 mocking the recent strategic errors that have derailed Charles Leclerc’s world title bid: “You would think they would go for hard tires (because longer stint)…..but Ferrari strategy always amazes me,” read the reply.
@Street1Racing added: “Guys out here living his best life.” Meanwhile, some F1 fans expressed envy, with @FrenkHU writing: “Ahww that sound, very rich people play big like this.
Back in F1, the Scuderia will hope to get their campaign back on track when the current break in the schedule finishes. Drivers and teams will return to action in Belgium on the weekend of August 26-28.
On Sunday the 14th of August 2022, a Hawker Hurricane (OO-HUR) belonging to the Aviation Museum in Tocna near Prague crashed during it’s display at the Aviation Days in Cheb, Karlovy Vary Region. Sadly it was confirmed that the pilot was tragically killed in the accident.
According to witnesses the plane suddenly lost altitude while turning and disappeared from sight. The plane has crashed into a family house but thankfully no one on the ground has been seriously injured.
Petr Paces was named as the pilot who lost his life, he was a very experienced ex-Mig-21 fighter pilot, a flight instructor as well as the captain of the Boeing 737 airliner.
Passionate about flying Petr Paces started flying gliders at the age of 14 before moving onto powered aircraft three years later. After school, he flew as a Mig-21 fighter pilot until 1992, leaving the army to join Air Traffic Control. Almost twenty years ago, he started flying the Boeing 737 airliners.
He has also often displayed historic aircraft sharing his love for flying with thousands of people each year.
Hurricane Mk. IV was one of the final variants of the Hawker-manufactured fighter, produced between 1942 and 1944. At that time, Hurricane was no longer a pure fighter aeroplane, performing mostly the ground-attack missions (and therefore often nicknamed as ´Hurribomber´).
The aircraft was manufactured sometime between end of 1942 and March 1943, the exact date and serial number are not known, as the aircraft was previously intended for storage and all manufacturer plates (and also the original engine) were lost somewhere between 1946 and 1983.
Its long and interesting history can be followed since March 1943, when Hurricane Mk. IV became operational with the 6th Squadron, Royal Air Force.
In early 2021 the aircraft received a new livery and was bought by a group of Czech aviation enthusiasts from the Aviation Museum Tocna. As a tribute to the Czechoslovak airmen who served in the RAF during WW II, OO-HUR was painted in the colours of Hurricane Mk.IIc “BE150”.
If your day doesn’t start until you’re up to speed on the latest headlines, then let us introduce you to our new morning fix.
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About 60,000 people joined the Prague Pride parade yesterday, crossing the city centre and reaching Letna Plain where the programme continued until the night, Prague police spokesman Jan Rybansky told CTK.
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A pilot died after his aircraft crashed into a house during an air show in the Western Bohemian town of Cheb on Sunday. The pilot died and one person was injured, the Czech News Agency reported.
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A Czech Film Week gets underway in Israel on Monday, presenting the best of Czech and Czechoslovak films in cinemas in Tel- Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa. The program will also mark the 90th anniversary of the birth of the Oscar-winning director Miloš Forman,
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Armenian national Norair Tsaturian, who shot at two men outside a shopping mall in Prague in 2016, was sentenced to seven years in prison on the basis of a plea bargain that the Prague Municipal Court approved today, court spokesman Adam Wenig has told CTK.
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The Czech Banking Association (ČBA) has improved its forecast for the growth of the Czech economy from May’s previous estimate of 1.8 percent to 2.4 percent. In an on-line conference, representatives of the ČBA said that this was due to the Czech economy developing better in the first half of the year than was previously expected.
Just a few steps from the Prašná Brána in the heart of Prague’s Old Town on a street traditionally filled with bakeries is Kolacherie, a new bakery offering classic kolache with a modern twist.
The owner, Oscar, never expected to open a bakery in Prague. But following pandemic-induced rent reductions on prime real estate in the center of the city—as well as an increasing movement towards centering authentically-Czech, aesthetically-conscious businesses in the historic district, Oscar saw an opportunity.
The bakery and café—small, but cozy with a muted green interior that seamlessly blends into the centuries-old building—draws in tourists and locals alike. More importantly, it draws them back over and over again, relishing the pastries that are handmade every morning from high-quality ingredients and slow-risen dough.
The kolache on offer is, broadly speaking, nothing new: it’s classic and employs the traditional recipe and methods that have been practiced by Czech grandmothers for generations. What is new is the savory kolache that Oscar has debuted after a trip to the United States. The smaller, square kolache sport ham and cheese, apple-brie, or a spicier jalapeño pastry. While savory kolache are seldom found in Prague these days, the concept has a long history in Czechia, dating back to the 1800s.
Savory kolache crossed the Atlantic with Czechs migrating to the New World, only to be rediscovered recently. Oscar feels as though he’s completing a cycle of sorts, bringing back this Czech tradition to Prague from an overseas enclave of traditional Czech culture in Dallas, Texas.
This underscores Kolacherie’s philosophy: one that fuses the old and the new, and seeks to bring Czech culture—a culture simultaneously nostalgic and forward-facing—to the forefront of Prague’s downtown.
This broader movement has been spearheaded by Elegantní Česko, a project that Oscar has been involved in which hopes to maintain and revive an appreciation for the culture of the First Czechoslovak Republic, which is considered by some to be Czechia’s golden era between the World Wars.
None of this would be possible, however, without landlords—alongside assistance from the public sector—willing to take risks on establishments that represent Czechia for what it could be, and what it once was. Prague’s historic center cannot be made classier without landlords with aesthetic concerns that transcend basic greed.
Kolacherie isn’t flashy: it lacks any garish, bright signage, and instead relies on word of mouth and high-quality products to bring customers in and keep them returning.
For Oscar, it’s never been about the money. The emotional gratification is what motivates him—and with kolache, a food that stirs up intense nostalgia among Czechs and members of the Czech diaspora, the emotional value of kolache is clear.
Sitting on a windowsill in the storefront—Oscar has been battling a bureaucracy that doesn’t allow for tables in the small space, but the improvised seating arrangements give the place an undeniable charm—he recalled one customer that broke down in tears after a bite of a poppy seed kolache.
Looking towards the future, Kolacherie plans to open a second, larger location close to I.P.Pavlova.
Vegan options will also soon be available, as well catering services and Wolt access as the tourist season winds down and attention is turned to a more local, professional customer base.
If you’re looking for delicious kolache and good coffee at hard-to-beat prices, skip the supermarkets and hit up Kolacherie.
The capital city has more inhabitants than the official census indicates. According to the analysis by the Institute of Planning and Development (IPR), there are about 300,000 more people instead of the official 1.3 million.
The institute arrived at the number of residents based on anonymous data from mobile phone operators. During the day, hundreds of thousands more people will arrive for work, IPR director Ondřej Boháč told the Czech Press Agency.
According to the Czech Statistical Office, however, the census methodology is different and its spokesman Jan Cieslar said the office is not familiar with the way the IPR reached its conclusions.
“It turns out that there are about 1.6 million permanent residents of Prague, and if we include the residents of the Central Bohemian Region who commute to Prague daily for work, that is even 1.8 million people. However, only 1.3 million people have permanent residence here,” said IPR Director Ondřej Boháč.
Boháč said the increase in population means greater financial demands on the city, which among other things, must provide public transportation, parking, apartments, doctors and daycare centers. “So even though infrastructure costs are logically rising, Prague is still losing out on tax revenue,” Boháč said.
Available data shows that although the population of Prague has been growing recently, this has not always been the case. For example, Prague experienced a population decline in the 1990s. In contrast, the most dynamic population growth in Prague was between 2003 and 2009 and 2014 and 2019, a time of strong economic growth.
In addition to not mentioned, the purpose of the census is to find out where people actually live, where they have their household. This is regardless of the address of the permanent residence.
In reality, it actually happens that a person, for example, stays in a rented apartment in Prague because of their job, while having their family household more than 100 kilometres away,” Cieslar said.
However, since such a person regularly visits his family every weekend, they were counted in the place where they have their household and family background during the census.
“Thus, quite logically and in accordance with international methodology, these people do not appear in our data as residents of the capital city. Unfortunately, we do not know on the basis of which methodology the authors of the analysis arrived at the exact figure, so we cannot comment on its conclusions,” Cieslar added.
According to data from the Czech Statistical Office (CSO), approximately 1.28 million people lived in Prague as of 31 December 2021, an increase of 1.3 percent year-on-year. Last year, 15,993 people were added.
The increase was largely due to people moving to Prague. The average age of Prague residents was the lowest in the country last year at 41.4 years, 1.3 years younger than the national average.
Among the inhabitants of Prague, the highest number of people had a university degree and the highest number of foreigners lived in the metropolis.
Born in America, Brendan Hannigan is probably best known to Praguers as the guitarist and vocalist of Not A Phase Band, which plays, among other venues, at Vzorkovna on Wednesday and Friday nights.
He can also be found playing covers at Irish Times with his co-project with Vlaďa Hajek, 2Mofos, as well as at The Dubliner and the Marriott Hotel. In this interview, he shares his almost-accidental story of coming to Prague, his thoughts on song covers, and his advice for musicians and expats.
What brought you to Prague?
I was living in Colorado Springs, Colorado, literally a few blocks away from my childhood home. I was working as a guitar teacher, which I enjoyed up to a point, but I turned 30 and I could start to see the trajectory of my life unfolding. I would get married and keep working as a guitar teacher less than a mile from where I was born. And I wondered: is this really all there is for me?
And so for a better part of a year, I ruminated on this question – and then finally my sister, who was living in China at the time, invited me to come to visit her in China. And so we ended up spending five days in Hong Kong and five days in Tokyo, and that trip blasted my mind open. I was coming from a life that was, you know, just work, home, work, home.
I really wanted to get a TEFL certification, so I could work abroad as an English teacher. I had this gut feeling that I needed to do this as soon as possible or else it wouldn’t happen. At the time it seemed like one of those moments where you get an idea and if you don’t act on it right away, it just sort of fizzles. Of course, this was in November of 2019, so I was in some ways extremely lucky with the timing and with that sense of urgency that I felt because if I’d waited any longer, everything would have locked down and I might still be in America today.
And, as it happened, the course in Prague was starting the soonest. I didn’t know anything about this place, I don’t even think I could have found Prague on a map. But I thought, why not? I quit my job and within two weeks I was on a plane to Prague.
Then, when my course ended, I started questioning why I was in such a rush to leave. So I decided to stick around, teach some English, and explore.
And right in the middle of applying for my visa, COVID hit and put all my plans on hold. I ended up staying with my girlfriend at the time with her family in Svitavy during the first lockdown. I feel so lucky to have had the support that I did during that time.
And then when things started opening up, around the middle of 2021, I started getting invitations from other musicians that I knew to come and play gigs in different places. I hadn’t really been playing professionally, but music was always a really big part of my life, so I decided, why not?
What kind of music do you play?
Well, we [Not a Phase] are a cover band. There are a lot of musicians who don’t like playing covers, who think that it sort of threatens the artistic aspect of it. For me, it doesn’t. I really enjoy playing and singing, period. I add my own interpretations and my own experiences and emotions to the song.
These super popular songs that everyone knows – they’re connected with moments in people’s lives. It reminds them of home or it reminds them of a person or a time in their life. So you’re actually creating a very powerful experience for them, especially if they can sing along with you.
The experience is not about you as an artist onstage, it’s a collective catharsis. You’re not asserting your artistic vision, you’re helping to create an experience for someone. And when I look out and see people happy and singing with their friends, that makes the job so rewarding for me.
Do you have any advice for people who are living in Prague or looking to move here?
Every day I wake up and I’m like, how did this happen? And the answer I can come up with is that I kept saying yes to things that sounded interesting, and I showed up and did a good job. I truly believe that if you’re nice and you put good energy out there, and you show up for things, good stuff will happen.
You can follow @not_a_phase_band and @2mofos.music on Instagram, and you can also check out Brendan’s YouTube channel, Skeleton Keys Prague.
To start with, Volodymyr Zelensky was careful not to blame Russians for a war Vladimir Putin started. Appealing to them and speaking in his native Russian, he asked: ‘Do the Russians want war?’
He called on them to rise up to make Putin listen. But this did not happen. Zelensky appears to have decided that they do, in fact, want war.
So he has now said that western countries should ban all Russian citizens from entering their countries on the grounds that ‘the population picked this government and they’re not fighting it’. His foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said Russians ‘must be deprived of the right to cross international borders until they learn to respect them’.
His idea is gathering momentum with Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and the Czech Republic, who have already banned the issue of all kinds of visas to Russians.
Other countries such as Belgium, Denmark, Malta, the Netherlands and Slovakia are refusing to give visas to most Russian citizens – with exceptions for family members, students and workers. Finland has called on the EU to adopt a common stance and stop granting Schengen visas immediately.
Czech foreign minister Jan Lipavský is proposing an EU-wide travel ban on Russian passport holders. ‘We are trying to explain to our partners that the approach is justified and effective,’ Lipavský said yesterday. ‘We are convinced as a government that halting visas for ordinary Russian citizens gives a very clear and straightforward signal to the Russian society … Citizens of these countries should realise that such a militant policy has consequences.’
It’s hard to gauge the number of Russians who support the invasion, but polls suggest that most do. There was an initial Russian protest when the war broke out, promptly quelled by almost 1,500 arrests.
Some Ukrainians hoped for a Muscovite rendition of the 2014 Maidan Revolution, when we overthrew the then president Viktor Yanukovych. But those hopes have been in vain – and not just because of the overwhelming risk of police brutality. There’s some polling evidence – albeit with obvious caveats about reliability – that at least 70 per cent of Russians support the war in Ukraine.
Ukraine has launched dozens of projects to compete with Russian propaganda and tell them the truth about the war. But nothing has worked. A poll in July showed that 60 per cent of Russians would support a fresh offensive on Kyiv. Abroad, there have been reports of Russians harassing Ukrainian refugees.
Some western leaders aren’t sure about Zelensky’s calls for them to ban the entry of Russian citizens. Germany’s Olaf Scholz – who does not have the best reputation in Ukraine – simply said ‘this is Putin’s war’.
Might a travel ban remove the chance to flee Putin? Ukrainian officials disagree, saying that persecuted people ‘can always ask for political asylum’.
Ukraine hopes that a total travel ban will succeed where sanctions have failed, triggering Russians to rethink their support for the government. But even if it does, the chances of a successful uprising against Putin are slim.
Almost a third of Ukrainians speak Russian as a first language – but hope that cultural affinity would stem the aggression has been misplaced. While most in the West will continue to talk about Putin, Ukraine thinks this is now very much a Russian war.
Oil shipments from Russia through a critical pipeline to Czechia resumed Friday after more than a week, the Czech pipeline operator Mero said.
Czechia became the last central European country after Slovakia and Hungary to receive deliveries from the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline after a problem over payments for transit was resolved.
Russian state pipeline operator Transneft said Tuesday it halted shipments through the southern branch of the Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Ukraine to Czechia, Slovakia and Hungary. The northern leg of the Druzhba pipeline, which runs through Belarus to Poland and Germany, was unaffected.
Transneft cited complications due to European Union sanctions for its action on Aug. 4, saying its payment to the company´s Ukrainian counterpart was refused.
On Wednesday, the payment was made by Slovak refiner Slovnaft after both Russia and Ukraine agreed to the solution. Slovnaft is owned by Hungary´s MOL energy group.
But Slovnaft said the deal covered only shipments to Slovakia and Hungary and not to Czechia.
Slovak Economy Minister Richard Sulik said the problem was caused by the refusal of an unnamed bank in Western Europe to transfer the money due to the sanctions imposed by the EU on Russia for its war on Ukraine.
Czech Industry and Trade Minister Jozef Kisela said Friday that authorities had found a way to make the original money transfer possible. He declined to give details.
Two Czech oil refiners, including the one in Litvinov that processes Russian oil, are owned by Poland´s oil and energy giant PKN Orlen.
EU leaders agreed in May to embargo most Russian oil imports by the end of the year as part of the bloc´s sanctions over Moscow´s invasion of Ukraine.
The embargo covers Russian oil brought in by sea, but allowed temporary Druzhba pipeline shipments to Hungary and certain other landlocked countries in central Europe, such as Slovakia and Czechia.
The Czechs receive less than a half of the oil the country needs through the Druzhba pipeline.
Czechs frequently come to Poland to save money on a range of goods, especially for Czechs who live closest to the Polish border.
“Each visit is saving us money,” Czechs living near the border with Poland tell the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
In the village of Istebna in southern Poland, a convenience store parking lot is often occupied by Czech cars, with drivers coming from towns located 17 kilometers away.
One Polish reporter saw Czechs mostly had their shopping carts filled with dairy products, meat, cold cuts, and carbonated drinks. Two Czechs, Vaclav and Jana, said they have been crossing the border since spring when Polish authorities lowered the VAT for many products.
“We were told that the bargains will end in July, but Poles extended the discounts. We can still shop here,” they said. They are not interested in going to larger towns and instead only visit Istebna, which is closer.
On social media, Czechs are exchanging information about where to find the cheapest products such as building materials, windows, business suits, gravestones, and pet food. The border town of Cieszyn is a place where residents of Český Těšín, the Czech part of the town, cross the border even for their everyday shopping.
Each refueling done in Poland saves €8.50 to €17 (40-80 złoty) for Czechs depending on the car’s tank capacity. Guides showing where and how to obtain the lowest possible price at Polish gas stations can be found on the internet.
Gas stations in Polish Bogumin even offer the possibility to pay in Czech koruna. An additional incentive for clients from Czechia is the low price of cigarettes, even when bought at a gas station.
One of Prague’s well-known economists, Lukasz Kovanda, calculates that the extended VAT reduction in Poland means that Czechs save around €32 per trip. For many of them, driving and shopping takes just around 20 minutes.
“This will not change until the end of the year,” Kovanda stressed on Czech media.
The popularity of Polish gas stations and shops brings back memories from 40 years ago when the Czech stores near the border were struggling with waves of buyers from Poland.
“The situation has reversed. Poles used to plunder our shops. They were buying everything, chocolate, water, and they left empty shelves. Now we go to them. Nothing wrong about that. Business is business,” wrote one Czech internet user on social media.
French prosecutors have opened an investigation into Czech billionaire and former Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, on suspicion of money laundering related to his purchase of villas in the south of France.
France’s National Financial Prosecutor’s Office (PNF), which is responsible for scrutinizing serious economic and financial crime, launched its proceedings in February 2022, according to Le Monde, after the businessman was mentioned in the Pandora papers — a massive leak of documents that exposed how the rich and powerful use offshore companies to hide their wealth.
According to the documents, the former Czech leader failed to disclose a series of shell companies used to buy a multimillion-euro French property.
Babiš denied he had done anything wrong or illegal and said that the revelations were targeting his reelection campaign, which later failed.
French investigators are now focusing on how Babiš acquired his €14 million property in the billionaire haven of Mougins, which was purchased via a Monaco-based company owned by an offshore entity in the U.S.
The entire setup was allegedly hidden from French authorities and could constitute money laundering and a tax evasion scheme, Le Monde reported.
Karel Hanzelka, a spokesman for Babiš’s group Agrofert, said that “all our transactions took place in a perfectly legal manner and we paid all the required taxes.”
Babiš, the Czech Republic’s fifth richest man, also stands accused of having benefited from €2 million of European funds that were meant for small and medium-sized companies in the country. The billionaire is due to appear in court on September 12 for the case.
The National Theatre in Prague, built almost entirely using money raised through public collections, was a world rarity. For some thirty years, people gathered funds “coin by coin”.
The fire that destroyed much of it in 1881 was, therefore, all the more devastating.
Because of insufficient funds for its construction, money was collected from all social classes.
The foundation stone was placed in 1868, the historical date remembered as the beginning of this amazing edifice. Years passed and finally in 1881, the neo-Renaissance construction was opened for a first performance that took place in the honor of Crown Prince Rudolf.
On 12th August 1881, when the last details were being retouched, a fire broke out and destroyed much of the new building, destroying the roof, stage and auditorium, including the decorations for the upcoming premiere of Smetana’s Libuše.
The vestibule, foyer, loggia and a number of rooms, such as the archive, cloakroom and theatre office, were preserved.
The event was considered a national catastrophe, but the Czechs didn’t stand aside. They started a new campaign for the reconstruction of the National Theatre.
Rich and poor contributed and the result was the amazing one million florins gathered in 47 days.
In charge of the project was this time architect Josef Schulz, who had the difficult task to unite three different buildings into one harmonious style.
His work was successful and in the perfectly designed and equipped (electric lighting, a steel-constructed stage) new National Theatre opened its doors on 18th November 1883 with the performance of Smetana’s opera Libuše, specially composed for this gala occasion.
The theatre served its purposes with loyalty for almost a century, when in 1977 was closed for reconstruction. Everything went precisely by the plan and the theatre opened its gates again exactly on its 100th anniversary.
On 18th November 1983, Smetana’s Libuše resounded again as the symbol of national devotion and unity.
The Jewish community in the Czech lands was never very numerous, but its cultural influence was enormous.
Even today, we can walk through Jewish neighborhoods, bow our heads at Jewish cemeteries or explore one of about two hundred synagogues.
More than 50 Jewish monuments around the country will open to the public free of charge on Sunday, August 14, as part of this year’s Day of Jewish Monuments. In Prague, the Jeruzalem Synagogue – built in the late 1860s in the Moorish – participates in the event.
Visitors will be able to see synagogues, Jewish cemeteries and other buildings, some of which are normally not accessible.
Among the biggest attractions this year are two newly reconstructed synagogues – the Great Synagogue in Pilsen and the synagogue in Čáslav.
The Day of Jewish Monuments initiative is organized by Jewish community in Prague in collaboration with Matana, the administrative body for Jewish buildings and cemeteries; the Federation of Jewish Communities in the Czech Republic; the Jewish community in Brno; and the Jewish community in Teplice.
Some 200 synagogues and 370 Jewish cemeteries have been preserved to this day in the Czech Republic.
Around 70 synagogues were destroyed in the country during the Second World War and another 105 were demolished under the post-war Communist regime. by the end of the War.
The Jewish community in Prague owns 30 synagogues and 175 Jewish cemeteries. Others are owned by some of the 10 Jews communities or the Federation of Jewish Communities.
More info about the event here