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The board of the Czech National Bank is likely to raise the base interest rate by 0.75 percentage points or more at its meeting later this month, the outgoing governor of the central bank Jiří Rusnok said in an interview for Aktuálně.cz.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin should be prosecuted by an international tribunal for the atrocities committed in Ukraine, Czech President Miloš Zeman said in an interview for Radio Free Europe.
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The average wage in the Czech Republic fell by an average of 3.7 % in real terms in the first quarter of this year due to inflation, the Czech News Agency reported citing data from economic analysts.
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The Czech Post has started testing extended working hours for parcel deliverers in Prague. They will deliver parcels 12 hours a day instead of the current eight. The delivery will thus last until approximately 20:00.
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The Sudeten German Association has launched a new app Sudeten.net designed to help Sudeten Germans search for their ancestors, but also to re-establish old contacts and find people who still speak some of the old Sudeten German dialects.
Even though the number of Ukrainian refugees registering with Czech immigration police or requesting temporary protection is falling, some regions are overburdened.
The number of temporary protection visas issued by the Czech Republic to Ukrainian refugees keeps dropping as Czechia issued 340 on Saturday, 142 fewer than a week ago.
In total, Czechia has issued 364,431 since Russia invaded Ukraine at the end of February, the interior ministry tweeted on Sunday.
However, some refugees are already leaving Czechia as about 300,000 are currently staying in the country, Interior Minister Vit Rakušan (STAN) told the media last week.
Rakušan estimates that of the approximately 50,000 refugees who have already left the Czech Republic, around half have returned to Ukraine, and half have continued to other countries, mostly Germany.
So far, 280,927 refugees from Ukraine have registered with the Czech immigration police, 1,044 on Saturday alone. The duty to report to the immigration police does not apply to minors under 15, who make up about 30% of the incoming refugees.
Regional refugee assistance centres have been operating all over the country, offering aid with registration, accommodation, personal documents, job mediation and insurance to Ukrainians.
Prague Mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Pirates) announced on Wednesday (1 June) that the big regional centre in the capital would close as of 15 June because Prague was overburdened.
The city has had to resort to building tent cities where refugees have poor living conditions. The city’s mayor is demanding a system of relocation of refugees to the less overloaded regions of the country.
The Czech Republic will cope with the situation even if the Prague centre closes, Rakušan said. Prime Minister Petr Fiala (ODS) is to debate the issue with Hřib on 17 June.
In an interview with Seznam Zprávy last week, the government’s newly appointed Human Rights Commissioner, Klára Šimáčková Laurenčíková, stressed that in the coming months, it will be necessary to distribute the refugees evenly throughout the Czech Republic to places where they can find work, schools and accommodation.
The Czech Design Week design and art festival will take place at the Mánes Gallery from 2 to 4 September 2022.
The festival will display the most interesting works by Czech and international designers with an emphasis on authenticity and personal approach.
Come and see the best of interior and industrial design, glass, ceramics, fashion, jewelry, graphics and visual creation. There will also be a daily accompanying educational and music program.
Within three days from 2 to 4 September, Czech Design Week will offer a wide selection of contemporary Czech and foreign works by various designers, students, brands and studios across all fields of design: from interior and industrial design, glass, ceramics, fashion and jewelry to graphics and visual creation.
The installation format will also complement the daily accompanying program at the festival in the form of lectures, panel discussions,
music performances and now also fashion shows.
This year’s festival will be prepared by Idea & Maker studio, run by the Czech duo Johana and and her husband Maxim Kroft, whose digital
art extends to the world of the NFT.
Applications for Czech Design Week 2022 are open to anyone who is not afraid to show their work and go through curatorial supervision.
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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Former PM Andrej Babiš currently has the highest support of all candidates in the race for the 2023 presidential elections, according to the outcome of a May poll conducted by the Median agency. Babiš received 28.5% support, followed by General Petr Pavel with 19.5% and trade union leader Josef Středula with 7.5%.
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The Czech Republic, during its forthcoming EU presidency, will promote the acceptance of Ukraine for a candidate for EU entry, said Czech Senate deputy chairman Jiri Ruzicka. “We will explain to other EU states why the granting of the EU candidate status to Ukraine is also important in connection with the current Russian invasion”, Ruzicka said.
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Czechs’ awareness of sustainable development goals (SDGs) increased from 52 percent last year to 62 percent now, according to a poll conducted by the Ipsos agency for Association of Social Responsibility. The SDGs include eradication of extreme poverty, fight against inequality and climate protection.
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The presence of two new Omicron subvariants, designated BA.4 and BA.5, have been confirmed in the Czech Republic by the State Health Institute.
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The Sudeten German Association has launched a new app Sudeten.net designed to help Sudeten Germans search for their ancestors, but also to re-establish old contacts and find people who still speak some of the old Sudeten German dialects.
The Ministry of Finance has presented its first economic forecast, having also taken into account the war in Ukraine. It has thus significantly worsened its estimate of the Czech economy’s growth this year to 1.2 percent from 3.1 percent in January.
At the same time, in comparison to the January estimates, the office expects higher average inflation for this year at 12.3 %. So far this year, it has predicted a price rise of 8.5 percent.
Economic growth this year is expected to be driven by government and private sector investment and consumption.
At the same time, however, household consumption will be enfeebled by a significant increase in the cost of living, especially energy prices, and the CNB’s (Czech National Bank) tightening monetary policy.
For next year, the government body expects economic growth to accelerate to 3.6 percent and the average inflation rate to fall to 4.4 percent.
However, the ministry said the estimates are currently very uncertain, mainly because of the impact of the war in Ukraine.
“On the one hand, the influx of refugees from Ukraine could ease labor market deficiency and weaken upward pressure on wages growth, but potentially unsuccessful integration could pose a significant social problem in the future,” the ministry said. Year-on-year inflation is expected to be in double digits for the rest of the year, peaking above 13 percent in the second quarter.”
Annual inflation should approach the CNB’s two percent inflation target only at the end of next year,” the ministry said.
Czech economy grew by 4.8 percent in the first quarter of 2022
The Czech economy grew year-on-year by 4.8 percent during the first quarter of 2022, according to an estimate released by the Czech Statistics Agency. Compared to the previous quarter, GDP grew by 0.9 percent.
The estimate shows that the Czech economy grew slightly more than had originally been forecast by economists as the previous agency forecast lay at 4.6 percent growth in the first quarter.
FlixBus proves once again that it is an essential segment in the development of Croatia’s tourist offer with the addition of three destinations.
On May 30, began the operations between Prague and Rijeka began. Buses run five times a week. Ticket price – from CZK 749.
On June 1, the carrier launched a connection to Pula (Istrian peninsula), five times a week.
From June 2, you can also reach Split on a daily basis. Tickets start from CZK 999.
˝FlixBus, as a strong European brand, thanks to its wide network, high frequency and affordable and quality service during all these years, has established itself as an important segment in the development of Croatia’s tourist offer. And in these challenging times for all of us, we strive to respond positively to the needs of our passengers for travel and to update our offer while respecting all safety measures constantly,” said Ante Grbesa, director of FlixBus CEE South region.
Until this year, the increase in the number of tourists arriving from abroad by FlixBus buses, from season to season, has grown by up to 80% to certain destinations.
The FlixBus green bus network extends to 29 European countries and connects 2,000 destinations with 350,000 daily lines.
In 2021, FlixBus introduced new European lines in addition to the existing ones, so it is now possible to reach Dalmatian cities via Split directly from Brussels and Hanover, while Zadar is connected with Berlin and Maastricht.
It is also possible to travel to Zagreb from Antwerp and Amsterdam, and from Amsterdam, it will also be possible to travel directly from Slavonski Brod, which also connects with Frankfurt. The county will be connected with Antwerp and Bonn.
The Czech sculptor Jaroslav Róna will create a new memorial from the cut Jewish gravestones, which have been part of the paving on Wenceslas Square in Prague for decades.
The Jewish community in Prague is launching a crowdfunding campaign to build the memorial, stated in a press release Petra Schwarz Koutská of the Jewish community.
The memorial will be placed close to the Jewish cemetery not too far from the Žižkov TV Tower in Mahlerovy sady.
For many years, the Jewish community in Prague drew attention to the origin of the paving in the lower part of Wenceslas Square.
In 2020, dozens of paving stones made from Jewish headstones have been found during redevelopment work, confirming speculation that the former communist regime raided synagogues and graveyards for building materials.
The names of the dead are unidentifiable because the headstones have been broken to form cobblestones. One person appears to have died in 1877, when Prague was part of the Habsburg empire, while the most recent death is shown to have happened in the 1970s, during the height of communism.
The stones appear to have been taken from different cemeteries.
Thanks to a memorandum signed by Prague and the Technical Administration of Roads, the paving stones returned to the Jewish community.
The new memorial will have the shape of a horizontal circular lens of 200 gravestones with remnants of Hebrew and Czech inscriptions. The total budget is estimated at 750,000 crowns, and will be unveiled on September 7.
“We also ask those of you who care that the stones, as witnesses of past injustices, will experience lost piety. We therefore ask you to contribute to the reverential correction of past crimes, “says the chairman of the Jewish community in Prague and the campaign organizer František Bányai. He wants to raise 150,000 crowns, which should allow the surroundings of the new monument .
The seventh annual Praha žije hudbou festival brings live music to the streets and squares across the city on June 3 and 4.
Praha Žije Hudbou is a street art festival whose aim is to present street art to the public and support the idea of busking. Dozens of places in Prague will transform into stages, on which will perform popular Czech musicians, theatre ensembles, acrobats and others.
The program of the event includes approx. 500 concerts and performances in Prague.
The stars of this year include Aneta Langerová, Lenka Dusilová, Mucha, James Harries, Scott & Lila, Prago Union, Hellwana… and many others!
Busking
Busking does not include just music acts, but is any street performance, from music to magic, theatre to dance. Passers-by usually toss a voluntary contribution into their favourite performer’s hat. Even though the artists at the festival do not charge for the public to watch and listen to their performances, they will surely appreciate your support!
Festival venues
5 stages for music acts, 1 stage for theatre and over 40 busker points will be created in Kasarna Karlin, Kampa, Jungmannovo Square, Můstek, Stalin and other locations.
In fact, you can simply walk all the way through Prague from Dejvice to Jungmannovo Square while enjoying free programs and deciding which buskers to support by throwing change into their hats.
Find more information here
Approximately 1,000 Ukrainian refugees are leaving the Czech Republic every day, but still around 300,000 of the original 350,000 asylum seekers to arrive during the conflict in Ukraine remain in the country, according to Interior Minister Vít Rakušan.
Rakušan, who is also the country’s deputy prime minister, also revealed that a similar figure was still arriving in the country on a daily basis, and explained around half of the 50,000 that have departed the Czech Republic actually went home to Ukraine, with others traveling on to other countries, mostly Germany.
The Czech interior minister stated that 80-85 percent of refugees have stayed in Czechia while the numbers of arrivals and exits are balanced. It is, however, hard to ascertain an exact number of people leaving because the Czech Republic does not lie on the external Schengen border.
“If we now have the idea that 75-80 percent of people are in their places, then this is quite telling. We need to know the conditions of those who want to go to school. That is the most important thing,” commented Rakušan on the issue of obtaining more precise data.
“When enrolling in schools, we want to collect additional data, use it to maximize data collection, which will probably be the most decisive moment,” he added.
Rakušan expressed his hope that the European Commission will activate the registration system it promised, and vowed to meet with EU Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
The Czech deputy prime minister also said that the cooperation with Hungary concerning Roma refugees with dual citizenship has improved; about a third of these refugees have proven to be dual citizens of Ukraine and Hungary, and as such, they have no claim to temporary protection.
They are, however, EU citizens — they cannot be deported or otherwise moved, but they have no claim to social benefits either. Rakušan stated that the ministry is trying to inform these people of this fact.
The enduring appeal and attractiveness of the “golden nineties”, which seem to have kept the professional and wider cultural public, movers and shakers, and observers of the art scene interested to this day, is one of the reasons for creating the Heroin Crystal exhibition project.
As both a participant and witness, Olga Malá initiated, therefore, the Heroin Crystal exhibition, which maps the activities of the Prague City Gallery associated with artists of the 1990s generation in the years 1994–2002.
The exhibition is running until August 28th, 2022.
The period the exhibition focuses on is defined at the beginning of 1994, the first year of the Zvon ’94 Biennial of Young Art and at the end by its “institutional conclusion” in 2002, which saw the end of the long-term exhibition of artists of the 1990s generation, Contemporary Collection – Czech Art in the ’90s, that was featured in the basement of the Golden Ring House for four years (1998–2002).
At the same time, it is clear that the label “institutional conclusion” of the period needs to be understood only as a tentative term because the Prague City Gallery’s cooperation with artists of this generation has never been actually interrupted and continues in various forms to this day.
Milena Dopitová’s iconic installation Sixtysomething from 2003 (which will be also exhibited at the Stone Bell House) or the nostalgic exhibition Restaurant Near Hospital (Old Town Hall, 2002) by Michal Pěchouček, an artist whose work seems to be spanning between the 1990s and the next generation of the noughties, can be rather viewed as a symbolic end of the exhibition.
The title of the exhibition Heroin Crystal was inspired by Jiří Černický’s 1999 installation and photograph of the same name, which is characterized by its striking visuality with a disturbing subtext typical of the 1990s in general.
Heroin Crystal is a project that is primarily linked to the GHMP as an institution and does not have the ambition to evaluate the 1990s; it is not a survey that comprehensively examines the events of those years. It is a collective exhibition presenting works that have been exhibited and purchased by the Prague City Gallery continuously from the 1990s to the present.
It presents the works of fifteen artists who were partcipants in exhibitions we prepared in collaboration with Karel Srp between 1994 and 2002.
The Heroin Crystal exhibition, like the memorable first biennial in 1994, is aimed at a wider public, in whose cultural consciousness the work of artists of this generation may not yet be so strongly imprinted.
The exhibition is also associated with a certain educational aspect – there is already a generation of young people who have not yet had the opportunity to see with their own eyes the legendary sci-fi installation by Veronika Bromová On the Edge of the Horizon, as one example, as well as many other key works of the time.
The 15th-century astronomical clock is at the centre of an embarrassing row amid claims that an artist endowed it with likenesses of his friends and acquaintances in an expensive restoration project, possibly as a joke.
The unveiling of the reconstructed Old Town Clock took place in 2018 but it has only now come to light that the copy of Josef Mánes’ calendar, is a far cry from the original.
According to Milan Patka from the Club for Old Prague, some of the figures on the calendar have changed dramatically.
Now the artwork has been engulfed in controversy after a local heritage preservation group alleged that its painter, Stanislav Jirčík, had deviated from the spirit and detail of Mánes’ painting.
Discrepancies that initially passed unnoticed were belatedly brought to light after a member of the Club for Old Prague lodged a complaint with the Czech culture ministry, which has now launched an investigation.
In one depiction, intended to represent Virgo, the original of a girl with red hair and a distinctive ribbon is replaced with a middle-aged, modern-looking woman with grey or highlighted hair and an earring. In another instance, a smiling female Aquarius has been transformed into a man with short hair.
Jiřčík also changes Mánes’ original painting of a predominantly black dog to one with a brown and white coat and raised tail.
A cademic painter and restorer, he was even said to have presented some figures with likenesses of his friends, including Kateřina Tučková, an award-winning Czech novelist.
According to Deník N, which broke the story, the copy of the calendar has been criticized by restorers from the Institute of Art History of the Czech Academy of Sciences and a complaint filed by the Club for Old Prague is now being looked into by the National Heritage Inspectorate of the Ministry of Culture.
The inspectorate has requested documents from Prague City Hall, which owns the astronomical clock, and has refused to comment on the case until it has arrived at some conclusion.
The author of the copy, Stanislav Jirčík, who alone could explain what happened, has so far refused to comment on the case.
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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On a visit to Stockholm on Thursday the Czech foreign minister, Jan Lipavský, said the Czech Republic fully supported Sweden and Finland in their plans to join NATO.
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Joint meetings of the Czech and Polish governments are set to take place in Prague on Friday next week, the Prague government announced. The main items on the agenda will be Russian aggression toward Ukraine, energy security and preparations for the Czech presidency of the European Union in the second half of this year.
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According to Eurostat, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in the European Union was 6.2 percent in April, the same as in March. The Czech Republic continues to have the lowest unemployment rate, although it rose by a tenth of a percentage point to 2.4 percent.
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The German fashion retailer Orsay is leaving the Czech and Slovak markets. Last week, Forbes magazine reported the news, citing anonymous sources familiar with the situation. The company is expected to sell its Czech stores by the end of June and the Slovak ones even a month earlier.
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Bayer Leverkusen signed promising Czech striker Adam Hlozek from Sparta Prague on Thursday to form a potentially exciting partnership with compatriot Patrik Schick. The Bundesliga club said the 19-year-old Hlozek, who was reportedly also a target for Borussia Dortmund, had signed a contract through June 2017.