Category: Prague Expat Life

Coming out of retirement

Me in my cricket gear on the balcony of the Chaplaincy Flat © Sybille Yates

Over a period of thirteen years whilst I was Rector of the Shelswell Group of Parishes in North Oxfordshire, I had a most wonderful time playing cricket for Finmere Cricket Club. The ground was directly opposite where I lived meaning that a straight six often landed in my front garden. My fellow players used to take great delight when they could say that they were ‘bowling from the Rectory end’!

For nearly all my time playing for the club, I was first choice wicketkeeper, a position I enjoyed enormously. However, as a wicketkeeper one is always in the line of fire and taking bangs and bruises from a hard cricket ball were always part and parcel of being behind the stumps. The little finger on my left hand will be crooked for the rest of my life from where I broke it many years ago when I failed to cleanly take a quick ball going down the leg side.

Sybille and I married in 2005. Some of the few photos that exist of our wedding show the two of us leaving the Church under an archway of cricket bats held up by my fellow players. Sybille declared on numerous occasions that she was made a ‘cricket widow’, even before she married me! So when we knew in June 2008 that we would be leaving Finmere and moving to Prague, I promised her that I would retire from playing cricket even though I was aware that there were a number of expat cricket clubs based in the Czech capital.

Therefore, on Saturday 30th August 2008, I played my last game for Finmere CC against Wroxton CC, which was also the last Saturday League fixture of the 2008 season. On the following Saturday 6th September 2008, at the commencement of a Safari Dinner around various club members homes, I was presented with a wonderful framed picture of my head, photoshopped onto the body of an England wicketkeeper, taking the most spectacular diving catch. Around the picture are comments, tributes and best wishes from my fellow players. The picture has pride of place in the entrance hallway of our Chaplaincy Flat here in Prague.

Although we downsized enormously before moving to Prague, I didn’t part with my cricket gear. I brought all my wicket keeping and batting gear with me and the only thing I don’t possess here is a cricket bat as I broke the toe end of my old one at the end of the 2007 season and played with the club bat throughout 2008. Despite promising to retire upon moving to Prague, there was always the thought in the back of my mind that I just might play once again.

In recent weeks an Australian member of my congregation called Richard, along with his Czech/Australian wife Karen, have kindly taken us both along to several expat business events to try and introduce us to more members of the English-speaking expat community here in Prague and thus raise the profile of St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church. And through Richard & Karen’s involvement with CANZA (the Czech Australian New Zealand Association) both Richard and I have been persuaded to start playing cricket again.

Therefore last Saturday 17th April, Richard and I both took part in a pre-season warm-up game between two sides made up of members of the Prague Barbarians Cricket Club, together with a few players drawn from some of the other Prague Cricket Clubs. The game was forty overs per side, just as I was used to playing each Saturday between the beginning of May and the end of August each year in England.

But there, most similarities with playing Saturday League Cricket in England ceased. The Prague Barbarians Cricket Club play at Vypich, a wide open area of parkland in the western suburbs of Prague. All their equipment is kept in a large locked metal container nearby. This includes a plastic mat in two sections which, when nailed down, forms an artificial wicket. There is no white line for the boundary – only a series of white flags. The outfield, particularly after the harsh winter we have experienced, was a rough as any I have ever played on!

John, the captain of our team, won the toss and elected to field first. My offer to keep wicket was duly accepted and so, for the first time in 18 months, I donned my wicket keeping gear and bent down behind the stumps. I was pleased to discover that I hadn’t completely forgotten what to do and most balls that passed the stumps ended up in my gloves or at least, I stopped them. But my thigh muscles soon began to remind me that this was the first time for eighteen months that I had tried to keep wicket. Therefore, when John said that a young Indian member of our team could also keep wicket, we agreed to swap the gloves after twenty overs. Being wise after the event, I’m very glad we did.

Our opponents posted a total of 149 for 7 in their forty overs. In reply, my team early on, scored quick runs but also lost wickets. Then John came in and played a captain’s innings and supported by a Czech member of our team called Rod, brought us to within about twenty runs of victory before both were dismissed in quick succession. Despite our best efforts, we fell nine runs short of victory with Richard and me left as the not out batsmen at the end of our allotted forty overs.

The day was warm and sunny and, despite wearing my cap, I very much caught the sun on my face and hands as can be seen in the photo of me, taken by Sybille on our balcony on Saturday evening, before I treated myself to a long hot soaky bath. On Sunday morning, I woke up stiff and sore and by Sunday afternoon it was far worse. Even today, I still find bending over to pick things up or walking up or down steps, very difficult. Maybe being aged 58 is not the time to resume my cricketing career!

However, even as I was writing this post this evening, I received an email from Jerome, the captain of the Prague Barbarians ‘B’ Cricket Team, asking about my availability for the coming season. Should I really come out of retirement and start playing cricket regularly once again?

Baba and Podbaba

'Residence Podbaba' with the Crown Plaza Hotel © Ricky Yates

The immediate area of Prague in which our home, the Chaplaincy Flat, is situated is known as Podbaba. The terminal station for the Number 8 Tram which we catch to travel into the City Centre to reach St. Clement’s Church, is also called ‘Podbaba’. ‘Pod’ in Czech means ‘under’ and behind our flats complex lies a steep wooded ridge between the Vltava and Šárka valleys which is called ‘Baba’. Hence we live in Podbaba – ‘under Baba’.

We regularly walk up the tarmac pathway through the woods, which leads from our flats complex up onto the Baba ridge. From the ridge, there are some wonderful views which I hope these three accompanying photographs help to illustrate.

In the foreground of the first photograph is our flats complex that the developers like to call ‘Residence Podbaba’. You can follow the link to the English version of the sales website. Our flat was built as part of the first phase of the development and my predecessor as Chaplain, John Philpott and his wife Margaret, moved into it just over four years ago in January 2006. It is located in the building immediately below the orangey-red square patch in the middle of the photograph.

The orangey-red square patch is on a building directly opposite our main balcony and is part of the fourth and final phase of the whole development. This has been under construction for the whole of the nearly 19 months we have lived here. Fortunately, the building work is now almost complete with the laying of paths and landscaping being undertaken in the last few weeks.

The tall building behind the ‘Residence Podbaba’ flats development is a wonderful example of the architectural style usually known as ‘Stalinist Baroque’.  It is based on the design of Moscow University and was originally built during the communist era, as a hotel for visiting senior military personnel from Warsaw Pact countries. These days it functions in a more capitalist manner as the Austrian owned ‘Crowne Plaza Hotel’. However, Sybille always refers to the star on the pinnacle of the tower as the ‘Star of Stalingrad’!

Podbaba Lock with the Hydrological Station and sewage works © Ricky Yates

The end of the Baba ridge directly overlooks the Vltava River which runs through the centre of Prague. As I have written previously, the River Vltava is navigable from where it leaves the Labe/Elbe at Melnik, all the way to Prague and onwards to the Slapy Dam. This picture shows Podbaba Lock with Hydrolologický Ústav (the Hydrological Station) in front of it and Prague’s main sewage works behind. Amazingly, we have never experienced any foul smells despite the sewage works being in such close proximity.

View across Prague from the Baba ridge © Ricky Yates

This next photograph shows the view looking towards the centre of Prague. In the foreground is ‘Residence Podbaba’ with part of the orangey-red patch just visible on the right. In the middle-distance left is the distinctive tower of the Crowne Plaza Hotel. In the far distance on the left is St. Vitus Cathedral which lies within the walls of Prague Castle. On the right in the far distance, is Petrin Hill, with a smaller version of the Eiffel Tower on top.

Not only does the Baba ridge provide wonderful views across Prague, it is also the location of a fascinating model housing exhibition dating from the early 1930s. The construction of the Baba Ideal Housing Estate, as with similar ones in Vienna and Budapest, was inspired by the success of the Weissenhofsiedlung, a housing exhibition that had been mounted by the Deutsche Werkbund (German Work Federation) in Stuttgart in 1927. The Werkbund was a group of enterprising architects and designers founded in Munich in 1907 by Hermann Muthesius. Somewhat similar to the Viennese Wiener Werkstätte and the English Arts and Crafts Movement in their production of quality products, they differed in being unopposed to reaping the financial rewards made possible through industrial mass production.

In September 1932 the Czech Werksbund mounted their own model housing exhibition under the guidance of the Modernist architect and town planner Pavel Janák. They selected the Baba ridge as the location for their exhibition and thirty three houses, by a variety of architects, were erected. Set side-by-side so their qualities could be judged comparatively, they are strung out along the sloping terrain so as to maximise the view from each building. The houses were individually and specifically designed to provide simple, and affordable yet innovative living spaces for ordinary families.

Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates

Meant to be only temporary, the geometric Bauhaus-style houses, which still appear modern today, were ultimately bought up by the Czech avant-garde, having proved too expensive for the original target market. In more recent times, many have been divided into two or three flats.

Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house in need of some renovation © Ricky Yates

Whilst most of these architectural gems are in good order, a small number are in need of rescue and renovation. This one is an example of one that could do with a little bit of tender, loving care.

Vesele Velikonoce – Happy Easter!

Painted eggs hung on ribbons decorate a Czech garden © Ricky Yates

I’ve just re-read the blog post I wrote in April 2009 entitled ‘My first Holy Week & Easter in the Czech Republic’. Inevitably last year was a fairly steep learning curve both in understanding the way Easter is marked by the predominantly secular society here in the Czech Republic as well as finding out how best to celebrate the Christian festival with an English-speaking, predominantly ex-pat congregation. Overall, I think the experience gained and lessons learned from 2009, have helped me through this recent rather busy time from Palm Sunday through to Easter Day.

One of the really attractive Czech traditions at Easter is to use ribbons to tie decorated eggs to trees in gardens or attach them to sticks and place them in window boxes or pots containing spring flowers. I’ve chosen to illustrate this post with some examples photographed in the immediate surroundings of our Chaplaincy flat.

Czech Easter garden gate decoration © Ricky Yates

Many Czechs also attach Easter wreaths to their front doors in a similar manner to the more common practice in the UK and elsewhere, of attaching a wreath of greenery & red berries at Christmas. As you can see, the photograph I’ve included here is of a wreath attached, not to the front door, but to the front garden gate of a house on the Baba estate.

As I mentioned in last year’s blog post, unlike in the UK, Good Friday is not a public holiday in the Czech Republic. Instead, for most people is an ordinary working day. But Easter Monday very definitely is a public holiday. And it results in some interesting contrasts with what happens over the Easter weekend in England.

Since the law regarding Sunday trading in England and Wales was relaxed in 1994, large supermarkets and stores have been able open for up to six hours on any Sunday except Easter Day. However, here in the Czech Republic, both of our local supermarkets, (‘Billa’ and ‘Albert’), were open on Easter Sunday for the same number of hours as on any other Sunday in the year. But today, Easter Monday, both are completely shut as they were on Easter

Czech Easter decoration of a small tree © Ricky Yates

Monday last year. Contrast this with England where on Easter Monday, most large supermarkets will be open at least between 9am and 6pm if not for longer hours.

As a Church, we marked Holy Week and Easter with a similar pattern of services to last year. We held a Maundy Thursday evening Eucharist to commemorate our Lord’s Last Supper. On Good Friday evening, I led a devotional service which included reading the Passion narrative from the Gospel of John with times of silence for reflection and prayer. Whilst both services were appreciated by those who attended them, the overall numbers doing so were relatively small. And yet for me, the joy of Easter Day is always so much more meaningful if I have first sought to enter into and tried to understand the pain of betrayal and suffering that Jesus experienced that first Maundy Thursday and Good Friday.

Our Easter Day Eucharist, though not quite as well attended as last year, still drew a large congregation. Whilst some of our regulars, particularly some who either teach in or have children in one of the International Schools here in Prague, were away in their home countries for the Easter break, we lose far fewer than we do at Christmas or during July and August.

In reverse, some of our regulars have family and friends who come to visit them for Easter. On Palm Sunday, the children of one of our newer worshipping families proudly told me that Grandma was flying in from England to stay with them at Easter. Yesterday morning, I was duly introduced to Grandma who joined the whole family for Easter Day worship.

Probably about half of the congregation were visitors, enjoying a long weekend visit to Prague and pleased to be able to worship in English on Easter Sunday. There were fewer Brits and more Americans than in 2009, together with a couple from Melbourne, Australia and a female lawyer from Canada amongst those who told me about themselves at the door after the service. Most interestingly, there was a Turkish family, the daughter now resident in London and who spoke fluent English, who wanted to experience being part of a Church service on Easter Day.

Czech flowerpot decorated for Easter © Ricky Yates

Afterwards, the young lady told me that her father in particular, had found the experience ‘quite moving’.

As I increasingly like us to do, we sang hymns which were a mixture of traditional and modern. For me, you cannot really have Easter Sunday without singing ‘Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluia’, which we did as our opening hymn. We also sang the traditional hymn ‘The strife is o’er, the battle done’ to the Palestrina tune ‘Victory’. But, as far as I am aware, we also sang for the first time at St. Clements, the Graham Kendrick song ‘Led like a lamb to the slaughter’. I was pleased that there were sufficient members of the congregation who already knew it and, even those who didn’t, soon caught on to the rousing chorus declaring ‘You’re alive, you’re alive, you have risen! Alleluia!

We ended the service with the twentieth century hymn, ‘Thine be the glory’, to the tune ‘Maccabaeus’ by Handel. The English words of the hymn are a translation from the French by Richard Hoyle. The original is ’À toi la glorie’, written by the French-speaking Swiss, Edmond Budry. But as I told the congregation before we sang it, it was not the first time that Easter Day that the Church walls had re-echoed to the hymn. For whilst standing outside the Church in advance of our service, waiting for our host congregation, the Evangelical Church of  Czech Brethren to finish theirs, what did I hear but the joyful singing of the self-same hymn – in Czech!

Alleluia. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

A ferry across the Vltava

Ferry boat moored at the ferry terminal at Podbaba © Ricky Yates

I’ve written previously about the wonderful integrated public transport system here in Prague. It consists of buses, trams and the metro. They do all interconnect and allow access to every part of the city. Not only are services frequent and reliable, unlike in the UK, they don’t stop functioning as soon as it snows!

And travel on the whole system is so remarkably cheap. Sybille and I both buy an annual season ticket. The Chaplaincy kindly pay for mine. Each annual season ticket costs 4750 Kc which at current exchange rates is about £168.00. A combination of this great value, together with the extreme winter weather which has only recently finally relented, may explain why I haven’t put petrol in my car since December 2009!

Ferry crossing the Vltava © Ricky Yates

However, not only does the integrated public transport system include buses, trams and the metro, it also includes three little passenger ferries across the River Vltava. Two of these lie relatively close to where we live and help overcome the fact that there is no road bridge across the river after Most Baríkádníku just north of the city centre at Holešovice, until the town of Kralupy, many kilometres further north of Prague.

One ferry terminus on our side of the River Vltava, is just a short walk or two stops on the bus from the Chaplaincy flat. It goes across to Podhori on the other side from where it is only a further short walk to one of Sybille’s favourite places to visit – Prague Zoo. Last month, I crossed to river on the ferry and caught the connecting bus on the other side, in order to travel on to the hospital in Bohnice to make a pastoral visit to one of the congregation. The journey took no more than twenty minutes. Not using the ferry, it would have taken nearly an hour.

Despite being rather small, not only are foot passenger transported across the river by ferry, but also bicycles and children in pushchairs and buggies.

Ferry crosing the Vltava, seen from the Baba ridge with the paneláks of Bohnice on the opposite hillside © Ricky Yates

The Royal Visit – as it happened – part two

The Order of Service for Passion Sunday

When the ‘Official group from the UK’ visited St. Clement’s Church on Saturday 16th January 2010 in order to begin planning the details of this Royal Visit, I was asked  what form our normal 11am Sunday service took. I replied that, as it was the only service we had on a Sunday, it was a service of Holy Communion or ‘Sung Eucharist’ as we normally call it. I was then asked how long the service lasted and I replied that it was normally around an hour and a quarter.

The emphasis of all our discussions was the desire that the Royal Couple should be able to join with the regular congregation for their normal Sunday service. However, I was asked whether, because of certain timetabling constraints, I could keep the service to about an hour and I gave the assurance that, with a little bit of judicious trimming it would be perfectly possible. It was on this basis that I planned the liturgy for the day together with an appropriate emphasis on it being Passion Sunday.

Therefore, it came as a considerable disappointment when in the late afternoon of Thursday 11th March, I received a phone call asking that, because of time constraints, the Church service should be non-eucharistic. It was further suggested that in order for me to fulfil the requirements of Canon Law, the ‘Ministry of the Sacrament’ could then follow shortly afterwards as a separate service for all who wanted to stay on and receive Communion.

Therefore the service attended by our Royal Visitors was a Service of the Word but it included all the elements that would have been in our normal Sung Eucharist from the beginning of the service stopping short of the Peace. We had the set Bible Readings, four hymns, Gerry led our Intercessions and I preached. And as it was,  we completed all of this in just over forty-five minutes,

In the end, everybody seemed to enjoy both services. Prince Charles in particular obviously enjoyed the hymns. And the vast majority of people stayed after the Royal Party departed, for the celebration of the Eucharist. Many of them also came on to Coffee Hour in Klimentská 18 including all of the Dutch young people.

I complained in a previous post about the lack of coverage of the Royal Visit to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic by the BBC in particular, as well as by much of the British media. However, with great delight Gerry Turner phoned me this morning alert me to this article and photograph that has appeared in this morning’s ‘Daily Telegraph’. I have to say that it is a ‘first’ for me to have my photo appear in a British national newspaper.

As always, one can pick holes in what the journalist has reported. To say in the sub-title, that we were joined by two ‘unexpected worshippers’, is somewhat exaggerated. I’ve known for two months and the whole congregation has known for over two weeks that our Royal Visitors were coming. The congregation is far from being just ‘British and American ex-pats’. Each Sunday, the number of nationalities in the congregation always runs into double figures. The Czech Republic always likes to be described as being part of ‘Central Europe’ rather than ‘Eastern Europe’. And our Sunday School is for children who are 4+ and upwards in age not ‘three and four-year-olds’.

As for the closing quote, Gerry agrees he used the word ‘chuffed’ though not exactly in the manner that it is reported. However, it certainly true, that the Americans who rebelled against and kicked out Prince Charles’ forbears, were some of people most thrilled by the presence of our Royal Visitors at St. Clements last Sunday!