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 Interior Ministry is having problems finding accommodation for the several hundred Ukrainian Romanies who are seeking refuge in the Czech Republic. The problem is that they often come in groups of up to 30 people who want to stay together in one place and refuse to split up into different localities. Health Minister Vlastimil Válek has indicated that he is prepared to do away with compulsory respirators in hospitals and care homes –the last places where they are still required -at the end of April. Avast has stopped offering its products in Russia and Belarus. It has stopped all its marketing and sales activities in both countries. Avast is a Czech company that develops and provides software for cybersecurity pays an equivalent of CZK 50m per year on value-added tax in Russia. The 8th Open House Prague festival is ready for the annual celebration of Prague’s architecture, this time taking place on May 16–22, 2022. On the weekend of May 21–22, the festival is set to open 101 buildings and spaces...
Romani refugees from Ukraine are encountering more and more frequent problems in the Czech Republic. While the authorities, with the significant aid of nonprofit organizations, have managed to house several hundred Romani Ukrainian refugees, accommodation allegedly does not exist for some of the newer arrivals, and some Romani refugees are running into bias and discrimination. As of mid-April, housing similar to that offered to non-Romani Ukrainian refugees is practically inaccessible to Romani refugees. The authorities are said to be recommending some Romani Ukrainian refugees leave the country altogether. “We wanted to remain here, but they told us they have no housing for us and sent us to Germany,” one Romani woman who fled Russia’s aggression with her husband and five children told news server Romea.cz. “Our child is ill, but nobody would aid us,” she told Romea.cz from inside a train car at the Main Station in Prague. That family is not the only one. There were about 100 Romani Ukrainian refugees at the Main Station on 13 April, mostly children and women for whom it is allegedly almost impossible to find accommodation. Martin Kavka, spokesperson for the firefighting service in Prague, claims that accommodation has been found for 300 Romani...
Czech diplomat Tomáš Hart, who was expelled from Russia this week, was contacted by the Russian secret service with an offer of cooperation, the websites Respekt.cz and Deník N reported, citing the diplomat himself. The Russians also threatened another Czech diplomat in Russia before deporting him. “We know about your family situation,” an FSB agent told a Czech diplomat on the street. Mr. Hart was invited to a meeting in Moscow. According to the Czech Foreign Ministry, it was a clear attempt to recruit co-workers for espionage. On March 30, the Czech Republic decided to expel a diplomat from the Russian Embassy in Prague out of the country, to “lower the Russian intelligence presence in the EU“. According to Deník N, the embassy worker in question was the deputy ambassador Feodosyi Vladyshevsky. Diplomatic relations between the Czech Republic and Russia have been strained for some time. Last spring, the Czech Republic expelled 18 Russian embassy staff following revelations by the intelligence services that GRU agents were behind the 2014 munitions explosions in the Vrbětice munitions depot in the Zlín region, in Moravia. The Czech Republic also became the first country to send tanks to Ukraine, specifically a dozen T-72 tanks...
A festival of Ukrainian gastronomy and culture will take place in Prague on May 5 at Pražská tržnice in Holesovice. Visitors can try borscht, vareniki, dumplings, and other dishes of traditional Ukrainian cuisine. Ukrainian musicians, national ensembles and artists will enrich the cultural program. The festival will run from 16:00 to 21:00 and all the proceeds will go to help Ukraine. The organizers will publish a detailed program on the Facebook page of the event. Ukrainian Ambassador to the Czech Republic Yevhen Perebyinis recently thanked all the Czech people for providing humanitarian assistance to the Ukrainian army. Czechs have donated at least 3.4 billion crowns in aid of Ukraine since the war started. Around a third of the total amount was sent to the Ukrainian Embassy in Prague for the purchase of military equipment for the Ukrainian army and the Home Guard. The Defense Ministry has sent military aid worth nearly 1 billion crowns to Ukraine since the war broke out. “We must do even small things, expressing solidarity with Ukraine. If you are here, then Ukraine is not indifferent to you,” Perebyinis said. Ukrainians are the most numerous foreign national community in the Czech Republic, ahead of Vietnamese, Slovaks...
Easter, the most important of Christian holidays, symbolizes redemption, hope, and the resurrection of Christ. As is true for all big holidays, food is a big part of it. Easter Sunday lunch is the most plentiful meal of the holiday. The amount of prepared food was in the past mainly determined by how much each family could afford, but mostly everyone would eat some type of meat on this day. In addition to the roasted meat, an integral part of the meal is the sweet lamb cake, a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice. The name šmigrustovka comes from the Easter Monday tradition of young lads “whipping” girls with pomlázkas (braided willow switches), or šmigrusts, as they are referred to in Moravia. On this day, boys will spend the morning visiting girls around town to “whip” them, which is supposed to make them healthy for the rest of the year. One ingredient of the šmirgustovka are the eggs that the boys receive from girls they visited. It is certainly a colourful food and can soothe a stomach tired from spending the morning welcoming the spring outdoors. Czech traditions on Sunday and Monday Easter Sunday Easter Sunday (Neděle velikonoční) is a day of preparations for...
These fascinating black and white photos were taken by Greg Wass that show street scenes of Prague in 1990.
A record-breaking suspension bridge will be opened in the northeast of the Czech Republic between the crests of the Kralicky Snezník mountain, offering spectacular views to hikers. According to Czech tourism officials, the Skybridge 721 is now the world’s longest suspension bridge, spanning 721 meters between two mountain ridges. Located near the holiday resort of Dolní Morava and crossing the Mlynicke udolí valley at the height of 95 meters, the bridge’s formal inauguration is planned for May 9 – just in time for the hiking season. According to Czech tourism officials, the bridge was built near the Skywalk, a 55-meter-high viewing platform from where you can slide back down on a slide that runs for about 100 meters. The winter sports and hiking resort of Dolní Morava is located around 200 kilometers east of Prague, close to the Polish border. The breathtaking bridge will open to the public in spring 2022. Until now, the world’s longest suspension bridge for pedestrians has been located near the Portuguese town of Arouca. It measures 516 meters and hangs 176 meters above the ground. Dolní Morava is the most famous mountain resort in the Pardubice region, attracting approximately 750,000 visitors every year. While the...
Sustainability is a topic of great significance for Prague, including the city’s transportation system. If the Czech capital wants to be perceived as a modern destination, it is also necessary to consider the current climate situation, and to prevent, to a maximum possible extent, any influences that negatively affect it before they grow to dangerous proportions. By promoting sustainable mobility, Prague also strives to meet the expectations of those event organizers who prefer destinations that focus on sustainable development, when choosing locations for their events. Prague has been working on a sustainable mobility plan for a long time seeking to mitigate exhaust gases as much as possible by using electric power or by supporting bicycle transport. As a result, the number of Prague cyclists has also increased dramatically since 2019, by about 73%. It was the great leap in the popularity of cycling that led the representatives of the capital city of Prague to decide to expand the network of cycle paths even further. The development of electromobility in the Czech capital is supported as well. A good example is the signed memorandum regarding the cooperation of the City of Prague, Pražská energetika (Prague Energies Company) and ŠKODA AUTO. The main goal of this cooperation is clear: to fill in the white areas on the map of the capital city,...
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 British man whose backpack caught fire at Prague’s Václav Havel Airport on Tuesday, has been found guilty of illegal possession of weapons. A spokesman for the city prosecutor’s office, Aleš Cimbala, said the man had part of a military grenade in his luggage. The Billie Jean King Cup, formerly known as the Fed Cup, will get underway at Prague’s Štvanice on Friday with Czech Markéta Vondroušová playing Harriet Dart in the qualifying tie against Great Britain. Two new dates will be added to the Czech Republic’s list of official “significant days”. May 27th, the day of the assassination of the Nazi governor of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, Day of National Resistance and June 25th, the anniversary of the signing of the protocol on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia in 1991. Presidential elections will be held in the Czech Republic in January 2023 at the latest. According to election modelling by Median agency, former general Petr Pavel has the highest potential of being elected, followed closely by Andrej Babiš. ...
The cost of living crisis is only getting worse in the Czech Republic. Only the Baltics are a little worse off with regards to the rate of inflation. The cost of living crisis in the Czech Republic is rising rapidly with the growth of inflation to almost 13 percent almost certainly not yet over. Due to the recovery from the pandemic and the Russian invasion, most economies are suffering, but Czechia is an exception. Almost nowhere are prices rising as fast as in this country — only the Baltics are a little worse off. There are several reasons for this. “High inflation in the Czech Republic consists of several parts,” Unicredit Bank’s chief economist Pavel Sobíšek explained. “One is the lowest unemployment rate in Europe, combined with wasteful fiscal policies that have pushed inflation up before the pandemic. “The common characteristic of the countries of Eastern Europe is a larger share of energy and food in the market basket compared to wealthier countries, which leads to higher inflation,” he added. According to economist Radim Dohnal from the Capitalinked company, the cause is wage inflation in recent years due to low unemployment and energy prices in recent months, which is related to the low share of renewable energy sources...
In the online survey of the Prague Public Transit Company (DPP), people living in Prague can comment on the future shape of seats and their distribution in metro trains. All passengers who use the Prague metro at least once a week can answer the questions on the DPP website by the end of April. The survey consists of 12 questions. Respondents can give their opinion on the location of single seats in the direction of travel, but also, for example, what type of seats they would prefer on metro trains and how often they use the Prague metro. According to its spokesperson, the results of the DPP survey will be announced at the beginning of May. Seats placed sideways to the direction of travel will now be found in 12 metro trains on lines A and B. Prague and DPP have been testing this location in cars for about a year. “When you take the metro, you see that almost every passenger in this third seat, opposite the two-seater, always sits turned sideways. Only when he’s there with friends will he sit facing the two-seater, but only in exceptional cases,” says Adam Scheinherr, Deputy Mayor of Prague. The seats will turn 90 degrees,...
Maundy Thursday, or Zelený čtvrtek (Green Thursday) as it is known in Czech, is the last Thursday before Easter. Why is it called “Green” in Czech? One explanation is that, in many places before the 13th century, green vestments were used for Mass on that day. Another theory refers to “the Green Ones” — penitents who, after being readmitted to the Church, wore sprigs of green herbs to express their joy. The “grün” in the German name for the day, Gründonnerstag (literally Green Thursday), does not come from the name of the color itself but from a corruption of the old German word “greinen” or “weinen,” meaning “to weep.” Bells Fall Silent Until Saturday On the evening before Easter, all church bells are rung before they fall silent until White Saturday. According to tradition, the bells are said to “fly to Rome.” In their absence, children use rattles and wooden clappers, which are sounded morning, noon, and night in place of bells. In some places, they were even believed to help drive away Judas. Fasting and Green Food Traditions A strict fast was once observed on Green Thursday. Because only one complete meatless meal was allowed — free of any...
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