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...
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...
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. 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. 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 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. 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. Czechia will change its quotas for employing non-EU foreigners as of November, making...
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...
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...
After 25 years, the prestigious Strings of Autumn Festival in Prague has renamed itself to Prague Sounds, yet in its newest form, it is still a festival without limits to genre. Only from now, it won’t be limited to only one season of the year. Prague Sounds The Festival in 2022 kicks off on October 23 with Snarky Puppy, a jubilant jazz-fusion big-band originally from Denton, Texas. They are a multicultural phenomenon also influenced by gospel and rhythm & blues; they’ve just won a Grammy (2021) for “Live at Royal Albert Hall” for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. On Sunday the 23rd, they’ll be at Lucerna Grand Ballroom. Other outstanding artist-musicians invited to Prague Sounds which runs till November 24th include Chris Thile, the Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble, the all-star Redman/Mehldau/McBride/Blade jazz quartet, Makaya McCraven, Laura Mvula, and Nils Frahm. Chris Thile is an American mandolin virtuoso from The Punch Brothers. He will be performing a solo recital of acoustic music from Bach to bluegrass and the blues at La Fabrika on Monday, Oct. 24th. The Brandt Brauer Frick Ensemble from Berlin are an acoustic-classical trio or troupe of musicians recreating without electronics the deep house and minimalist techno music they...
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. Households account for about 30 per cent of total energy consumption in Czechia, with two thirds of their consumption used for heating, according to the results of a survey by the Czech Statistics Office presented on Thursday. After several years of reconstruction, the Army Museum at the Military History Institute in Prague will be officially opened on Thursday. The renovation of the building, which is located at the foot of the city’s Vítkov hill in the Žižkov district, amounted to over CZK 900 million. The police have proposed charging former TOP 09 MP Dominik Feri with three counts of rape, according to a statement posted on Twitter on Thursday. Mr. Feri, who is 25, faces up to 10 years in prison because prosecutors are also pursuing him for the crime of rape committed against a 17-year-old girl. The Czech Defense Ministry can provide care for up to 35 wounded Ukrainian soldiers in its hospitals, and these military hospitals have treated nine such soldiers so far, the ministry said on its website. Ukraine...
The history of Czechoslovak LSD is one of the greatest phenomena of the second half of the 20th century. How come for almost a quarter of a century, in a communist state, thousands of people, including many popular artists such as Karel Gott, were able to use psychedelic drugs entirely legally? In the autumn of 1952 several young psychiatrists in Prague ingested for the first time a mysterious substance that had been sent from a laboratory in Basel. This is how the Czechoslovak adventure with LSD began. The substance arrived in Prague in an entirely legal way. A standard shipment from the pharmaceutical company Sandoz was sent to Dr Jiří Roubíček, an associate professor at the Faculty of Psychiatry at the Medical University of Prague. It contained ampoules with an oily, transparent substance described as ‘lysergic acid diethylamide’, a substance first synthesized in 1938 by the Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann. Initially considered useless, LSD attracted the attention of the company owners after Hoffman accidentally tested its effects on himself on 19th April 1943. Four years later, the first study summarizing the results of LSD tests involving healthy volunteers and patients in psychiatric hospitals was released. The article was attached to the parcel...
Prague City Gallery on October 12 started the European premiere of the Taylor Camp collection of photographs at the Stone Bell House on Old Town Square. Visitors have the opportunity to see the life in a Hawaiian community that had no laws or rules, yet was united by a desire for freedom. John Wehrheim has won two Emmy Awards for his collection of photographs and documentary film on Bhutan. “Diverse subcultures are an essential part of any democratic society. This important American photographer will be presented in the Czech Republic for the first time. Through its focus on the hippie movement, the exhibition also aims at raising awareness of the need to strengthen civil society,” says Martin Řezníček, one of the three exhibition curators. “The life for people at Taylor Camp represented going beyond utopia – living in harmony with nature with a sense of freedom, tolerance and sustainability, which are themes that are gaining in importance and relevance today,” adds the exhibition curator Adam Ligas. Since its destruction by government officials in 1977, the Taylor Camp settlement on the Hawaiian island of Kauai has become a social phenomenon and, like the famous Woodstock festival, a memento of its time...
The first shipment of trams to Kharkiv in the northeast of Ukraine is due to leave Prague on Thursday afternoon to help the city renew transport following the Russian onslaught. The trams will arrive in Ukraine in two days. In total, DPP will donate twenty trams and two buses to Ukraine, specifically to the city of Khmelnytskyy. “We were approached by several Ukrainian cities and we were able to meet the city representatives of Kharkiv, where similar types of trams are actually used and they know how to repair and modify them,” said Mayor Zdeněk Hřib (Piráti). The convoy of trucks with trams will set off from Prague via Ostrava and Poland to Kharkiv. “The entire journey, including mandatory breaks for drivers, will take about two days. All four trucks will travel at the same time,” said DPP general director Petr Witowski. DPP is donating 5 T3SUCS trams, 15 T6A5 trams, which ceased operation in June last year, one Karosa B951 bus, and one Irisbus Citelis 18M articulated bus to Kharkiv City Transport Company. The trams will have to be modified. The wheel gauge needs to be changed because in Ukraine it is wider than in Prague. The donation of...
The police have proposed charging former TOP 09 MP Dominik Feri with three counts of rape, according to a statement posted on Twitter on Thursday. He can face up to 10 years in prison because prosecutors are also pursuing him for the crime of rape committed against a 17-year-old girl. “Criminal investigators have completed their investigation into the case and have sent a proposal to the District State Prosecutor’s Office for Prague 3 to file charges for three cases of rape,” police said on Twitter. “The Criminal Code speaks of a minor as a person under the age of 18, in this case, a 17-year-old girl,” said Prague police spokesman Jan Daněk adding that “the maximum possible sentence of 10 years in prison”. Police became interested in the now 26-year-old Feri last year after the Deník N and A2larm servers reported the testimony of several young women on whom the now former MP was alleged to have committed sexual violence. Prague police have launched an investigation into the allegations, which date back to 2015 when he was a student at the Faculty of Law at Charles University, and continue up to 2020. Mr. Feri resigned from his seat in the...
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. Up to a fifth of Czech companies are considering laying off staff to make up for rising energy costs. The rise in energy prices has affected enterprises with a high consumption, such as glass making companies, ceramics manufacturers, steel producers and food producers particularly badly. ‘Il Boemo’, a film about the life of Czech composer Josef Mysliveček, will be released in cinemas tomorrow. The film was shot in the Czech Republic and Italy in a Czech-Italian-Slovak co-production. The lower house of Czech parliament yesterday approved an increase in the 2022 state budget deficit to CZK 375 billion, which is CZK 45 billion more than the increase proposed by the government and CZK 95 billion more than the deficit of the original budget passed in February. Prominent Russian historian Andrey Zubov, forced out of the country in late September, has come to Brno where he will give lectures at Masaryk University. Zubov is one of the Russian intellectuals who are opposed to the ruling regime there. He will give classes on Russian history...
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