Post-punk, hyperpop, rap, R&B, and a fusion of electronic music and jazz – all ofthat will be a part of this year’s United Islands of Europe which will showcase new faces of the music scene from the Czech Republic, its neighbours, but also from Eastern Europe and overseas, right in Prague. The festival is free of charge and will feature the Lithuanian project Akli, Romanian composer A-C Leonte, and the groundbreaking German performer Zouj. “The weekend of June 10–11 will enliven the islands of Prague with a multitude of genres and innovative tones,” says the festival manager Kamila Buráňová. The special edition of the United Islands of Europe festival called the Freedom Edition will offer seven stages in total and fifty artists of various genres from all over Europe. The main attraction of this edition is the Eastern Europe scene, which will be represented by the already announced Dlina Volny, but among others also the Romanian muse A-C Leonte, who underscores her clear vocals by interweaving jazz and electronic music. Lithuania will make its appearance in the Czech metropolis in the form of the young post-punk project Akli. Prague will also be graced by a visit of two figures of...
The Czech Republic should spend 2 percent of its GDP on defense in 2024, which demonstrates Czech meeting its 2-pecent spending goal a full year before it originally planned, Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala stated after Saturday’s meeting with an expert team that included President Miloš Zeman. “The expert team of the president of the republic, with the participation of the prime minister, discussed economic issues and foreign policy with an overlap with the energy and food crisis,” said Jiří Ovčáček, the presidential spokesman. Fiala reiterated that he would represent Zeman at the June NATO summit in Madrid. The participants also talked about the issues of the upcoming Czech presidency of the Council of the EU, the Russian aggression in Ukraine, and energy security. “We would like one of the topics to be Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, which of course presupposes a peaceful situation in Ukraine,” the prime minister noted. He also identified energy security and the energy policy of the entire Czech Republic as crucial issues. According to Fiala, even those European countries that did not initially subscribe to their alliance commitment of 2 percent of GDP have recently been discussing increasing defense spending. According to him, neutral Austria also plans...
Czech officials have confirmed the country’s first case of monkeypox, a rare but potentially serious illness causing flu-like symptoms and rashes that lead to painful pustules on the body. The chairman of the infectious medicine group at the JE Purkyně Czech Medical Society, Pavel Dlouhý, said that the patient in question was being treated at Prague’s Central Military Hospital. More than 100 cases of monkeypox have been confirmed in 17 countries, 11 of them in EU member states, including Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and Germany. No associated deaths have been reported to date. Doctors in the Czech Republic have been warned to be on alert for the symptoms and have received instructions on how to proceed in the event of a suspect case. What is monkeypox and what are its symptoms? Monkeypox is a usually mild virus that causes fever as well as a bumpy rash. It is mostly transmitted to people from wild animals but human transmission is also possible. Human monkeypox was first identified in humans in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is called monkeypox because it was first identified in colonies of monkeys that were kept for research in 1958. The virus is most common...
It is renewing and introducing direct flight connections to attract visitors from the US, Middle East, and Europe Prague Airport, Prague City Tourism and CzechTourism have joined forces to launch an international marketing campaign to accelerate the return of tourists and develop fight connections with the capital city. According to data from the Czech Statistical Office, tourists are indeed returning as 2.8 million guests stayed in Czech hotels in the first quarter of 2022. This number is impressive when compared to last year’s 280,000. However, despite this increase, CzechTourism reports that the majority of the 2.8 million guests were people from neighbouring European countries. In other words, the alleviation of COVID rules and restrictions has not yet attracted tourists from further abroad. With the new campaign, the three bodies now seek to focus on attracting tourists from distinct regions. More specifically, Prague Airport will target visitors from the US, CzechTourism will focus on the Middle East, and Prague City Tourism will work on attracting tourists from selected European markets and Israel. Chairman of Prague City Tourism, František Cipro, explained how the capital seeks to attract tourists, disclosing that it will launch the Stay in Prague digital campaign in June and use Mastercard’s behavioural data to target...
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 Czech Republic has to date provided special visas to 350,795 refugees from Russia’s war on Ukraine, according to data from the Ministry of the Interior on Sunday. . The Czech Republic is aiming to spend two per cent of GDP on defence as early as 2024, a year earlier than the government committed to in its programme statement, said PM Petr Fiala. In the last three months, firms, foundations, and nearly half a million people sent more than 1.85 billion crowns to the People in Need humanitarian organisation in aid of Ukrainian refugees and the victims of the war. No advertisement to promote the Czech EU presidency in the second half of this year will appear in online and printed media, as the government has scrapped the respective contract for media space purchase to save money, said Minister for EU Affairs Mikulas Bek. The Czech government has approved a request to extend by 30 days a state of emergency imposed to help deal with a wave of Ukrainian refugees, Prime Minister...
Prague Public Transit Company (DPP) is looking for a new voice that will announce the stops on city buses, trams and other information for passengers. DPP has launched an audio poll on their website, where citizens can choose between four different voices until June 19. The winner will take over the baton after Dagmar Hazdrová, who has been recording traffic announcements and the names of Prague public transport stops since 1996. The survey is run in cooperation with the City of Prague, Ropid and IDSK. The new voice will be heard also on suburban lines to the Central Bohemian Region. Citizens can only vote once for one of the four voices selected by the expert committee. The poll will run for a month. Votes are anonymous, marked only by a number. i.e. Voice 1, Voice 2, etc. Each metro line in Prague has its own voice. On line A it is Světlana Lavičková, on line B Eva Jurinová, on line C Tomáš Černý, on buses and trams Dagmar Hazdrová. “They are trained, professional voices, with excellent pronunciation, pleasant on the one hand, strong enough on the other, with the necessary dynamics and diction. The most important factor is that in...
If you’ve been hearing the word Metaverse everywhere, but you still aren’t quite sure what it implies, take a look at Metaverse Festival happening on Thursday, June 2nd, and Friday, June 3rd, at VR PLAY PARK, Prague’s Virtual Reality theme park. The purpose of The Metaverse Festival is to inspire and teach us about the new virtual space and our possibilities in it. This will be an exciting educational event that will combine everything from live entertainment to keynote talks, panel discussions, exciting workshops, immersive experiences, 3D artist’s exhibitions, and much more. It’s an excellent opportunity for individuals and businesses to learn how Metaverse can change their practices. The event will welcome speakers from companies specialising in bringing virtual and augmented reality one step closer to us. Projections claim the investments of tech giants such as Facebook (now Meta), Microsoft, Apple, and Google will push this market to a whopping $800 billion by 2024. Those big companies are betting heavily on the Metaverse’s future, making it straightforward that something big is coming up for the rest of us. Smaller companies and brands are also well aware of this, so they have to uncover a way to convert their business into...
Automobiles are one of the Czech Republic’s most famous exports. Many iconic car brands hail from this small European country, including Skoda, Tatra, and Škoda Auto (formerly known as Laurin & Klement). Although you may be familiar with these cars and car manufacturers, did you know that there are dozens of other automobile companies in the Czech Republic? Check out this list of 10 Czech car brands you probably never knew were from the Czech Republic. Czech Car Brands 1) Škoda Auto Škoda Auto, a part of Czech car brands and currently part of Volkswagen Group, is one of the leading automotive groups in Europe, and it is also the fourth-largest in terms of worldwide sales. Although based in Volkswagen’s historic hometown of Wolfsburg, Škoda Auto is a standalone company with its stock listed on various stock exchanges. These exchanges include Warsaw Stock Exchange (BSE) and the Prague Stock Exchange (PSE). Since 1925, when Laurin & Klement began producing cars in a rented railway wagon factory in Mladá Boleslav, Škoda has been building vehicles under its name. It remains one of Central Europe’s biggest sellers, with approximately 350 thousand sold since 2000. 2) Tatra Tatra is one of, if not...
Of the 9,582 companies in the Czech Republic with Russian ownership, dozens have changed their citizenship since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine to avoid sanctions or outflow of clients. As news site Seznam Zprávy reported, 154 owners of Russian companies changed their citizenship since the outbreak of the conflict. Most of them, 63%, decided to get Czech citizenship. The rest took British, Cyprus, Azerbaijan and Romanian citizenships. Disagreement with the Russian regime led by Russian President Vladimir Putin is among the reasons for change. The Czech government wanting to prevent Russian business people from accessing financing from Czech banks and public budgets is another. “It (the change of citizenship) may be an attempt by company owners to circumvent sanctions,” said Petra Štěpánová, an expert from Dun & Bradstreet corporation that analysed the companies with Russian owners. According to Czech Finance Minister Zbynek Stanjura, the Czech Republic has frozen almost €41 million worth of Russian assets in the country. If these properties are identified as possible support for Russia’s war crimes, confiscation of these assets is planned in the future. However, Czechia does not have effective regulation in force, and it is difficult for local authorities to freeze and...
Prices in restaurants are continuously rising. Due to more expensive operations, many restaurants have risen in price by ten to twenty percent in recent months and are preparing to increase further. According to the data available at Aktuálně.cz, before the coronavirus pandemic, the average spend on a restaurant receipt was 50 crowns lower than it is now. Rising prices are also reflected in restaurant attendance. “Practically every week, we receive information from suppliers about rising raw material prices by e-mail,” describes Filip Hausknecht from the Bistro Strecha, which employs homeless people or people after serving a sentence. “Our restaurant has set very low prices from the beginning, and especially margins because one of our goals was to offer plant food at affordable prices. In today’s situation, however, this is unsustainable and we, therefore, plan to raise prices by about eight to ten percent in the coming weeks,” he continues. Roman Meixner, manager of the Prague restaurant Pivo Karlín, speaks similarly. “Since the beginning of the year, due to various factors, it had to increase by about ten percent. We will probably only feel the outflow of customers caused by inflation and the consequent rise in prices,” he notes. The average...
This year´s Prague Half Marathon and Marathon have their winners, but runners can already start getting ready for next year. RunCzech is opening registrations for the two most prestigious Czech races of the 2023 season – the Half Marathon will take place on April 1st, and the Marathon on May 7th. “It was very important that the Prague races came back after the break caused by Covid-19. The response to them was very positive. We sensed a huge interest and demand for next year. That’s why we decided to open the registration already now. I hope that marathon tourists from abroad will return in larger numbers,” said Carlo Capalbo, president of the RunCzech organizing committee, whose races boast the World Athletics Elite Label Race. After a two-year interruption caused by COVID-19 restrictions, the half marathon and marathon were of interest, especially to domestic runners. “Nevertheless, we managed to organize two great events. The atmosphere around the course was incredible at both races. The feedback from the pro-athletes, enthusiasts, and fans shows us that they missed our races and look forward to the next ones,” Capalbo outlined. Several new features await those interested in the Prague races in 2023. During the registration...
The Prague Congress Center (Kongresové centrum Praha) will host the charity beer festival Drink for Ukraine on June 4. The festival will be attended by more than 40 breweries from different parts of the Czech Republic. The funds will also be used for humanitarian aid for people affected by the Russian army invasion. “We, Czech brewers, want to do our best to alleviate the suffering of Ukrainian children and mothers. Come to the Congress Center on June 4 and try beer from more than 40 breweries. Every crown will be transferred to the account of the charitable organization Člověk v tísni, which sends humanitarian convoys not only to the border but also to the inner regions of Ukraine. Come drink for Ukraine, drink for life. Literally”, wrote the organizers. Useful info: Time: from 11:00 to 23:00. Address: Kongresové centrum Praha (5. května 1640/65, Nusle). Admission is free. The festival was originally scheduled for March 5 but did not occur because the refugee registration point was located in the Congress Center. Among the participants are both large producers and mini-breweries: Pivovar Raven, Akciový pivovar Libertas, Břevnovský klášterní pivovar sv. Vojtěcha, Pivovar Záhora, Pilsner Urquell, Sibeeria Brewery, Pivovar Chroust, Černý potoka, Pivo...
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