By Ricky, on December 27th, 2010
Street stall selling Christmas carp © Ricky Yates
This post should have two sub-titles. One is the well known English saying that ‘Truth is stranger than fiction’. The second is ‘It could only happen in the Czech Republic’.
The traditional Czech Christmas delicacy is carp. They are raised in fish ponds, particularly around the town of Trebon in southern Bohemia. Then in the week before Christmas, carp sellers set up stalls in the streets of Prague where you can choose and purchase your carp as they swim around in large tubs of water. The picture above is of one such stall and you can see from the picture on the left that the price this year was 79 Kc per kilo.
Display board showing the price per kilo of Christmas carp © Ricky Yates
You can have your chosen carp killed and gutted on the . . . → Read More: Christmas Carp induced flooding
By Ricky, on December 17th, 2010
Riverside Primary School in the snow © Ricky Yates
This winter will be the third one we have spent in Prague. In both 2008 and 2009, we had a dusting of snow before Christmas which soon rapidly melted. In both years, the really serious snow which settled and remained unmelted on the ground, didn’t arrive until January. However, this year, the snow has come early and hasn’t gone away since!
This winter, the first snow started falling during the night Sunday 28th – Monday 29th November. On the morning of Monday 29th November, I was booked to conduct assembly for Riverside Primary School which fortunately is located not far from the Chaplaincy flat. Normally, I hop in the car and drive there. Seeing the snow, I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and took the bus instead. Unlike in Britain, public transport . . . → Read More: Winter comes early to Prague
By Ricky, on December 8th, 2010
The Czech Radio recording truck outside St. Clement's Church © Ricky Yates
‘Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen’. So goes the opening lines of the well-known Christmas carol, the words being the work of the nineteenth century hymnwriter John Mason Neale. The carol is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslas, Duke of Bohemia (907-935), who is known in Czech as Svatý Václav, the patron saint of the Czech Republic.
Out of the blue, on Thursday 4th November, I got a phone call from Canon Stephen Shipley, Senior Producer for BBC Radio Religion & Ethics, saying he wanted to record a service, to be broadcast by BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 26th December 2010 – the Feast of Stephen. His idea was that the service should focus on the twin themes of St. Stephen and St Wenceslas. And because there is . . . → Read More: ‘On the Feast of Stephen’
By Ricky, on November 27th, 2010
St. Clement’s Church, Prague, where the English-speaking Anglican congregation worship, does not belong to us – it belongs to the Ceskobratrské Cíckve Evangelické / the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren. They are a joint Lutheran/Reformed Church and by far the largest protestant grouping in the Czech Republic. The CCE have their service at 09.30 each Sunday – we therefore have ours at 11.00. We pay them a very modest rent for the use of their Church building.
Over the past few weeks, the CCE have arranged for the various exterior doors of the Church building to be taken down, one pair at a time, so that they can be taken away and renovated. Initially it was the west doors, ones which we rarely use. Then it was the south doors, the entrance our congregation normally do use. Now the south doors are back, the . . . → Read More: Yet more Czenglish!
By Ricky, on November 19th, 2010
St. Petersburg in Jugoslávských partyzánu, Prague 6 © Ricky Yates
Contrary to what this photograph might seem to indicate, we haven’t been on our travels again. We’ve been safely back in Prague for over five weeks since our journey around the Czech Republic in the first two weeks of October.
Believe it or not, I took this photograph about three weeks ago, one kilometre from where we live in the north-western suburbs of Prague. The reason the sign claims that the building is in St. Petersburg, with Cyrillic writing just to make it more convincing, is very simple. For one afternoon and evening, part of the Technical University on Jugoslávských partyzánu, the street that leads from Podbaba where we live, to our nearest Metro station at Dejvická, was turned into a film set!
We didn’t see the filming as setting up was only just beginning to take . . . → Read More: Prague becomes St. Petersburg – just for a few hours!
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