A Czech Christmas ornament maker has added tiny masks to the country’s traditional golden pigs, which are said to arrive in the homes of good children who fast before Christmas Eve’s family feast. The glass ornaments which can be hung from a Christmas tree have proved incredibly popular. OZDOBAcz company owner Romana Juklova said they decided to mask the pigs in September to reflect how Czechs are adapting for Christmas this year. “We used to add bows and flowers to them and this year, we added a face mask… We hope that next year we can decorate them a bit more cheerfully.” According to custom, the pigs bring good luck and happiness. The masked pig ornaments have proved so popular, Juklova said, that they are making little else. “They have become a massive hit,” she said. “Now we are not doing anything else apart from making the piglets in face masks.”
Police released online maps of crime in the Czech Republic in which people can see the numbers of various types of crimes and offenses in individual municipalities and their parts. The map is available at this link. The map also says when a crime was reported and whether the perpetrator was found or not. The exact locations in which the crimes were committed cannot be seen on the map in order to protect the victims and their personal data. A part of the maps will not be accessible to everybody but only to the municipal authorities and the police, for example for planning the activities of police patrol and for taking preventive measures. To get information on each district, you need first to click on the indicator above the city and then click the “Show details”. The crime rate in the Czech Republic increased by 3.5 percent to 199,221 cases in 2019 after a steady decline in the five preceding years, according to the annual police statistics. In 2019, police authorities registered an increase in the number of homicides, attempted murders, and cybercrime. The crime rate increased in all regions, except the Liberec region in the northwest and Zlín region...
In the first six months of 2020, 27% of patients who were included in Covid death statistics died exclusively from the virus. The Czech Ministry of Health added that based on current evidence, statisticians assume this figure will have grown to 40 percent in the second half of the year. In many countries around the world – including the Czech Republic, the published statistics of COVID-19-related deaths include people whose deaths had other causes, such as cancer. This happens because, at the time of death, they were also infected with coronavirus. According to the Health Ministry, the total number of patients who have been killed by coronavirus may reach 9 to 10 thousand by the end of the year. On average, patients who died with coronavirus on their certificate in the first half of the year were aged between 79 and 80 years old. Most of them (64%) suffered from serious chronic disease. Following this, the patients suffered from coronary heart disease (39%), diabetes (26%), cardiovascular disease (20%), and cancer (18%). In all of these cases, it is extremely difficult to determine the exact cause of death. About 10% of patients who were included in the statistics of coronavirus deaths...
Do you find putting up Christmas decorations a bit of a chore? If so, spare a thought for Czech Vaclav Trunec, who’s wrapped his house and garden in 27km of festive lights. Trunec first decorated his property 19 years ago with 200 bulbs. He’s steadily expanded the annual display, which now draws thousands to the eastern village of Chotovice (near Litomyšl) every winter. “Why I did start with this? I was inspired by the American films, but I didn’t take their decoration but stayed faithful to the (traditions of) the Czech Republic,” said Trunec. “That’s why you will not find any Santa, reindeer, or flashing stars here.” This year’s display features a nativity scene, animals, carriages, stars and snowmen, and also uses a record 65,000 bulbs and LED diodes and 304 transformers. Its 330 sections are controlled from a single computer. Although some might think he took it too far, his decorations had been entered in the Czech Book of Records, and in 2009 and 2010, he won the competition for the most beautiful Christmas decoration in the Czech Republic. The power consumption of Christmas lights is comparable to the energy of almost 50 switched on TVs or 10 washing...
František Kupka’s painting Divertimento II was sold for 90.24 million crowns including an auction surcharge at today’s auction in Prague, which is a new Czech auction record. Until now, the record price paid at the domestic art auction was 78.65 million crowns for the painting Queen of Spades by the painter Toyen, which was sold in October this year. Divertimento II is one of the most important works of his abstract period of the 1930s. The name Divertimento is associated with Italian musical terminology and refers to a light-hearted or entertaining instrumental composition. Music, of which Kupka was a great admirer, was incorporated into the painter’s early works and was later repeatedly transformed by him into a play of lines and shapes, into mechanisms whose emotional effects create a deeply sensory experience, reflected in the very name of the works. The painting brings ingenious intersections of circular surfaces and their various overlapping sections, through which especially a distinctive black curve penetrates, which acquires circular shapes in its bends. Kupka thus excluded any orthogonal relationships from the painting, settling for rounded sections, each of which he gave one angled, monochrome colour. The painting is firmly connected with Divertimento I, which is...
From Thursday, December 3, all shops, restaurants, and services will reopen, the minister of health, Jan Blatný, said on Sunday morning.
By the end of the year, Vaclav Havel Prague Airport will lay off a fifth of its employees. In spring, 450 jobs have already been cut, another 150 people will be laid off by 2020. “Despite all efforts, Prague Airport is unfortunately forced to eliminate some jobs. By the end of 2020, about 150 positions will be cut, mainly operational and administrative positions,” said Prague Airport spokeswoman Kateřina Pavlíková. The airport employs around 2,900 people. Last year, the airport handled a record 17.8 million passengers. However, due to the pandemic, the airport will not come close to that this year. The airport forecasts it will handle ten million passengers next year, and passenger volumes should return to normal levels within three years. Despite the current situation, the airport has not canceled its expansion plans, which include adding on to the second terminal and the construction of a new parallel runway. The crisis had the greatest impact in April when the airport handled only 5,031 people, 99.6% less compared to 2019. The largest number of passengers used regular direct service to the United Kingdom, Italy, Russia and Spain, and based on the operating results, fifth place was taken over by France. London confirmed its...
Uber has decided to support the activities of social services during the coronavirus crisis and dedicates free rides to workers of the Czech Red Cross. Uber thus builds on its activities during the spring wave of the pandemic, when it provided a thousand free rides to medical staff in the Czech Republic. Employees and volunteers working under the Czech Red Cross will now be able to get Uber rides free of charge when they move around the city to their clients. Uber dedicates a total of 350 rides to the Red Cross in the Czech Republic, and each employee will be able to take advantage of a fare discount of up to CZK 125 per ride, which is a discount that will fully cover most rides around Prague. „The work of social services is now even more important than ever. Therefore, we want to make it easier for volunteers and employees of Czech Red Cross to safely and quickly move around the city, by providing them with free trips on the Uber app,“ describes Stepan Sindelar, Uber’s Country manager for the Czech Republic. During the crisis, the Czech Red Cross helps, among other things, train volunteer medical staff who help to...
About 200,000 workers in the Czech Republic can lose their jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic, the director of CzechTourism, Jan Herget has warned. According to Herget, the crisis in tourism has affected practically everyone. “Revenues this year will drop by 53 percent to 139 billion CZK, putting 200,000 jobs at risk, not just in the tourist industry itself, but in related professions such as bakeries or cleaners.” “Last year, tourism revenues amounted to 300 billion CZK, almost 3 percent of the GDP. This year, we estimate that our revenues will drop to 139 billion CZK,” Herget added. According to the head of CzechTourism, the declines in income from foreign tourists can not be compensated by domestic tourists. “The effects are very different. Jeseníky Mountains and the Vysočina region have record numbers, thanks to domestic tourists. And then there are those regions that are dependent on foreign tourists. Prague revenues are down by 80 percent. Foreign visitors from Russia, America, China spend many times more than Czech visitors,” Herget explained. CzechTourism is ready to launch a campaign in support of the Czech Republic as soon as the situation eases. In the first phase will target tourists within driving distance (Germany,...
Lawmakers in Scotland have decided women in need should no longer have to pay for period products. Tuesday, lawmakers passed a bill that makes the nation the first in the world to do so. “Scotland will not be the last country to consign period poverty to history, but we have the chance to be the first,” lawmaker Monica Lennon said on Tuesday. Lennon had introduced the bill, which passed 121-0. Period poverty is when those on low incomes can’t afford, or access, suitable period products. “Periods don’t stop for pandemics and the work to improve access to essential tampons, pads and reusables has never been more important,” she added. PM Andrej Babiš wants the Czech Republic to follow this lead. “Scotland will be the first country in the world to allow free and universal access to menstrual products, including tampons and pads. They want to break down this stigma and fight poverty. Journalists ask me if such a thing would be possible in our country as well. I asked the Minister of Finance Alena Schillerová to find a solution,” Babiš wrote on Twitter on Wednesday. The bill also makes it law that schools, colleges, and universities in Scotland are required to provide...
The Czech Republic should begin offering free antigen tests for COVID-19 for all who want them from December 18.
The measures against COVID-19 have heavily affected restaurants. Their biggest help is the in-person collection. Milan Borovič opened his restaurant Jezerka in Nusle three years ago and his business was running smoothly. However, due to this year’s precautionary measures made by the government, he has had to close down and his only means of sales is a walk-up window. Lunchtime periods are starting, yet there aren’t many customers. “We sell on average 25 meals a day,” he says. The state’s contribution helped him with paying his rent amidst these difficult times. According to Václav Stárek, the president of the Czech Hotels and Restaurants Association, the majority of gastronomes find the current aid intensity insufficient. We’ll make do until the end of the year. Hard to say what’s to come after, we’ll definitely do our best,” Borovič says. “I hope that my personnel will wait out the wintertime and plans on opening the garden and grill in March and get people back to the restaurant.” They don’t know if they will survive winter The owner of the Le Camille bistro in Anděl, Kamil Grůževský, suffered the same fate. He had to let go of a fraction of his employees, his...
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