By Ricky, on May 23rd, 2010
Statue of Marshall Konev in Námestí Interbrigády, Prague 6 © Ricky Yates
The statue pictured on the left here, is an extremely rare sight in the present-day Czech Republic. It stands in Námestí Interbrigády, a large square on one side of Jugoslávských partyzánu, the main thoroughfare leading from our nearest Metro station at Dejvická to Podbaba where we live. The reason that it is such a rare sight is because it portrays a Marshall of the Soviet Red Army, Ivan Stepanovich Konev.
As you can probably imagine, following the Velvet Revolution at the end of 1989, steps were rapidly taken to rid Czechoslovakia, (since 1st January 1993, the Czech Republic and Slovakia), of anything that celebrated the preceding nearly 42 years of Soviet imposed communist rule. Anything that was part of the so called ‘normalisation’ that followed the crushing of the Prague Spring of 1968 by the . . . → Read More: A rare sight in Prague
By Ricky, on November 18th, 2009 Charcoal roasted ham being cooked on Old Town Square © Ricky Yates
Yesterday, Tuesday 17th November 2009, marked the twentieth anniversary of the start of the events that led to the ‘Sametová Revoluce’, the Velvet Revolution, which saw the demise of the Communist government that had ruled Czechoslovakia for previous forty one years. As I mentioned in my recent blog post about Holidays and Celebrations in the Czech Republic, 17th November is now kept as a public holiday entitled ‘Struggle for Freedom and Democracy Day’.
Although not a Czech and having only lived here for 14 months, I was still interested to see how the momentous events of twenty years ago would be celebrated. So early yesterday afternoon, Sybille and I set out from our flat and travelled by bus and Metro to the centre of Prague, in order to soak up the atmosphere.
One thing . . . → Read More: The Velvet Revolution – 20 years on
By Ricky, on October 31st, 2009 Knowing the dates of public holidays when you move to or visit a country of which you are not a native, is quite important as my wife and I found out only on Monday of this past week. We were returning from our trip to Turkey about which I’ve just started blogging, when we drove from Italy into Austria on the penultimate leg of our journey home to Prague. We were driving along the Austrian autobahn when my wife said, “Rather than stop at a service station for lunch, why don’t we drive into a nearby town and find a nice restaurant instead?”
So it was that we drove into Spittal an der Drau and parked in the centre of the town. It was only when the parking ticket machine refused to accept my euro coins I tried to feed it, did it begin to dawn on me that the . . . → Read More: Holidays and Celebrations in the Czech Republic – My contribution to Expat’s World Blog Surf Day
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