Originally it was supposed to be a one-off event. But when the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Thailand opened the garden of her residence to the public for the first time in 2019, the interest was unexpectedly high and a tradition was born. People came to Pod Hradbami Street in Prague 6 to taste Thai specialties prepared by the ambassador’s personal chef, sip Thai Singha beer and listen to Thai music. Or indulge in a traditional massage, buy souvenirs and learn about travelling in Thailand. This year, the event will be held under the auspices of H.E. Phasporn Sangasubana, in cooperation with the Thai Business Centre in Prague and the Prague office of the Tourism Authority of Thailand on Saturday, July 15 from 2pm to 6pm. The programme remains similar to the previous editions: entry is free and the garden of the residence can only be accessed from Milady Horákové Street near the Prašný Most public transport stop. Due to the enormous interest in previous years, the organizers point out that the number of participants is limited and will be held in the spirit of the motto: “First come, first served.” Just visiting the garden of the residence (near which...
The Prague City Technology Company (THMP) has been installing new tram stop shelters throughout Prague over the past few months. Since the project’s commencement in 2021, numerous old tram stop shelters have been replaced. However, some of these newly installed shelters are already being… dismantled. According to THMP, the reason for this is “digitization”. Czech daily iDnes reported that JCDecaux owned the tram stop shelters until mid-2021. Afterward, the city of Prague obtained them, and THMP initiated their modernization in December 2021 by placing the first redesigned tram stop shelter in Velká Ohrada. The shelters’ shape was designed by studio Olgoj Chorchoj. They are made of dark aluminum and feature a screen that displays the stop’s name, current time, and departure information. The primary purpose of these shelters is to standardize the appearance of Prague’s tram stops and provide easier navigation for passengers. The initial design also includes electrical connections for passengers to charge their phones. Additionally, tram stops with high traffic volumes are equipped with digital screens that display additional information, such as potential traffic accidents. Prague paid 834.8 million CZK, including VAT, for the installation of the new tram stop shelters, with dozens already in place. The goal...
In April, the recently deceased writer transferred his personal archive to the Moravian Library Milan Kundera is no longer with us. The globally acclaimed Czech writer, and author of the Unbearable Lightness of Being, passed away on 11 July in Paris at the age of 94. The news was first reported by the Moravian Regional Library of Brno. That institution is also now linked to the great author’s legacy after back in April of this year, he decided to transfer his own personal archive consisting of some 4000 books and 25 boxes of handwritten notes. The donation served as the basis of the creation of the Milan Kundera Library, which is part of the Moravian Library of Brno. And the city was chosen as the host of this important legacy because it was the birthplace of Mr Kundera. Brno’s famous son Milan Kundera was born in the Moravian region’s main city – Brno – in 1929 in the family of a musicologist. graduated from the Grammar School in his hometown, after which he went to study in Prague. He then became famous in the Czech capital as a writer, with his first novel The Joke being made into a movie only two years...
There has been a boom in the number of Czech tourists travelling to Poland for their summer holidays, data from travel agencies and local authorities show. Visitors from the landlocked Czech Republic are in particular heading to the beaches of Poland’s Baltic Sea coast. “For the first time ever, we are seeing that Poland is among the most popular summer destinations,” Ladislav Veselý, director of the Czech booking portal Slevomat, told the Czech edition of Forbes. The magazine has dubbed Poland the “new Croatia”, in reference to another popular holiday destination. Sales of stays in Poland booked through Slevomat have increased by 50% since last year, with destinations along the Baltic coast being the most popular for Czech holidaymakers. “Czechs have discovered the charm of the beaches there, which are sandy, clean and above all not nearly as crowded as elsewhere,” Veselý told Forbes. Many other travel agencies in Czechia have also seen heightened interest in and bookings of Polish vacations, with Forbes reporting that another booking platform, Dovolena.cz, has registered a 158% increase in interest in Polish holidays since January. Travel company Invia, which represents more than 150 Czech and foreign travel agencies, has also reported a doubling of interest in holidays in Poland...
A new center of excellence for generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been inaugurated in Prague at Chodov by IBM Consulting. The center’s primary focus is to assist businesses in enhancing the security and efficiency of their employees’ work with AI. Companies across various sectors, including marketing, human resources, and finance, utilize AI services alongside their IT needs. However, the intention is not to replace human labor with AI. Martin Švík, the CTO of IBM for the Central, Northern, and Eastern Europe region, remarks, “following the initial excitement during the launch of ChatGPT, we are now entering a phase of sobering.” According to Švík, centers specializing in generative AI, which enables the creation of texts, images, and diverse content based on training data, have experienced a swift start. Clients have reported up to a seventy percent increase in work efficiency with the initial implementation of AI models, as stated by Peter Vaculík, the manager of the AI center in Prague. This improvement has been observed across industries, including banking and mobile operators. Additionally, the center places a strong emphasis on data security, considering the valid concerns surrounding AI bias and data protection. Vaculík further explains that deploying enterprise AI on a...
According to a new survey conducted by the Center for Public Opinion Research (CVVM), Czech citizens’ trust in various international organizations has experienced a decline. The poll revealed a drop in confidence in the European Union (EU) from 58% to 46% compared to the previous year, alongside significant decreases in trust for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations (UN), down to 56% and 52% respectively. The survey, carried out by CVVM between late March and late May of this year, highlighted the interconnected nature of trust in these organizations. Individuals who expressed trust in one of these bodies were more likely to trust the other two as well, although the link between trust in the EU and the UN appeared slightly weaker compared to the connection between NATO and the EU. This year’s survey revealed a prevailing sense of distrust in the EU, with half of the respondents expressing negative sentiments towards the organization. Another 4% of participants indicated that they were unsure. Additionally, 36% expressed mistrust in NATO, while 37% lacked trust in the UN. These figures represented an 11-percentage-point decrease from the previous year, which saw 67% of Czechs placing their trust in NATO...
Czech-born writer Milan Kundera, author of the novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being has died, public broadcaster Czech Television reported on Wednesday. He was 94. Kundera won accolades for his style depicting themes and characters that floated between the mundane reality of everyday life and the lofty world of ideas. He was born in the Czech city of Brno but emigrated to France in 1975 after being ostracised for criticising the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia. A novelist, playwright, poet and essayist, he became the most important Czech writer in the second half of the 20th century, reaching out to the whole world. He left Czechoslovakia in 1975. Kundera and his wife had gone to France for what was supposed to be a short stint at a university, and they did not go back. The communist government revoked Kundera’s citizenship in 1979, and since then he has scarcely returned to his homeland, even after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Czechoslovak authorities banned Kundera’s books and revoked his citizenship after the 1979 publishing in France of The Book of Laughter and Forgetting. In that book, Kundera calls then-Czechoslovak President Gustav Husak “the president of forgetting.” He is best known for his novel The Unbearable Lightness of...
All fans of quality music across genres can write down the date of the 7th edition of Metronome Prague in their diaries and buy tickets for it right away. The biggest metropolitan music event of 2024 will take place at the Prague Exhibition Grounds from 20 to 22 June. The festival will be held again for 4 days, the first day will be sold separately, the other three days as a permanent pass – just like this year. The organizers are now putting 1,000 tickets for the summer edition on sale at the best prices. “The first two thousand tickets we offered to visitors of previous years are gone. Now we are putting the third thousand on sale to the public. These tickets are for the best prices, which will be gradually raised up. Preparations for the 2024 edition have been underway for a few months now. We will surprise the audience with further improvements and extensions not only in the musical but also in the non-musical programme under the heading Metronome Fair. We will announce the confirmed names on the programme of the seventh edition by the end of this summer,” says Metronome Prague co- organizer David Gaydečka. Around 31,000 visitors passed through the gates of this year's...
The legendary band Depeche Mode has announced today that they will be extending their Memento Mori Tour into 2024. After successful concerts in stadiums and arenas worldwide this summer and autumn, fans can now look forward to 29 more shows in Europe. The band will come to Prague one more time on 22 and 24 February next year. The Memento Mori Tour has already been described by Rolling Stone magazine as “a breathtaking celebration of life and music,” offering audiences a raw and emotional experience. The new tour dates kick off on 22 January 2024 at London’s O2 Arena and end on 5 April at the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany. During the tour, the band will also play several nights in prestigious venues such as the Mercedes-Benz Arena in Berlin, the Accor Arena in Paris, the WiZink Center in Madrid, the Mediolanum Forum in Milan, and the O2 Arena in Prague. The Memento Mori Tour has already sold over two million tickets and includes a total of 110 concerts. It is shaping up to be one of Depeche Mode’s biggest tours and one of the most successful global tours of 2023. With over 100 million records sold and a...
There will be no shortage of shared scooters in Prague and Brno. In the first half of July, a new Czech company, Antees, will enter Prague and Brno, operating shared electric scooters. A large part of the fleet consists of scooters from BeRider, active in Prague until the end of May. In Prague, the company will start with 100 scooters at first and increase the number to 200 during the summer. In Brno, 100 scooters will start operating by the end of July. “We are deeply convinced that shared mobility makes sense, especially in larger cities. Over the last three years, we have confirmed that there is great demand for our service, so we decided to come up with our own new brand and technologically improved scooters to offer people an even better way of transport than before,” explains Jan Kanta, co-owner of Antees. Antees focuses mainly on B2B, i.e., for example, couriers of delivery companies, but also logistics companies in the last mile delivery area. “We bring these companies a smart solution without having to own a fleet of scooters. We provide them with infrastructure as a service,” says Jakub Kavánek, co-owner of the company. “The name comes from...
The Prague City Council is currently working on developing new regulations for the rental of municipal flats. According to Deputy Mayor for Housing, Alexandra Udženija (ODS), the goal is to improve the assessment of applicants. The draft rules, which have recently been discussed by the council’s housing committee, have faced criticism from the Platform for Social Housing in an open letter. The opposition party, Prague Together (Praha sobě), is also against the proposed regulations. Prague owns approximately 7,000 flats, with an additional 23,000 managed by the city districts, each with their own leasing policies, according to a previous analysis. Udženija mentioned that the rules for the municipal fund have undergone several changes in recent years, and the new regulations aim to bring stability to the process of allocating apartments. The new system is designed to prioritize professionalism in the allocation process, provide long-term benefits for tenants, and ensure transparency in the rules. However, the NGO Platform for Social Housing opposes the new draft rules and has submitted an open letter to the city administration requesting a review. According to the organization, eliminating the scoring system would be a mistake as it ensures objectivity, transparency, and helps prevent corruption in decision-making. The...
If you live in Prague, you may have found yourself stuck in traffic in recent weeks due to a series of ongoing protests campaigning for a 30 km/h speed limit in the city. The protesters say it would have numerous benefits for health, safety, and the environment, but the idea is facing opposition from motorists. The first European city to adopt the City 30 model was Graz, in Austria, which imposed a city-wide speed limit of 30 km/h in 1992. Today, the limit is still enforced on about 80% of the city’s road network. Brussels adopted the City 30 model in 2021. Paris, Grenoble, and Edinburgh also adopted the City 30 model, while other cities are considering the possibility, like Luxembourg and Milan. Despite pressure from climate activists, the Czech capital has no plans to introduce a 30 km/h limit. Districts can limit speeds to 30 km/h on a local level near schools, sports grounds, and other places with higher concentrations of pedestrians, but an across-the-board 30 km/h limit is only under discussion for now. According to a survey carried out for Czech Radio, most Czechs do not want to reduce the speed limit in big cities. Prague Mayor Bohuslav...
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