Visitors to the Chaplaincy Flat, when they look out from our main balcony, often ask exactly what is this industrial building, with its very tall chimney? The answer is that it’s a plant that produces hot water and heating for a large number of buildings in the immediate vicinity.
Judging by the utilitarian nature of it’s architecture, the plant clearly dates from the communist era. But it was obviously built with a far greater capacity than was necessary when first constructed. For now, the whole of ‘Rezidence Pobada’ is also supplied with heating and hot water from it. ‘Rezidence Pobada’, where the Chaplaincy Flat is situated, has been developed over the last ten years on the site of a former brewery.
Being supplied by this plant with heating in winter and hot water all year-round, means that we do not have a separate central heating boiler. Hot water is metered as it enters the plumbing system of the flat and the amount of energy we use for heating is likewise taken into account as part of the monthly service charge that the Church kindly pays on our behalf. An adjustment is made annually, dependent on meter readings.
All of this works extremely well, except for one week each year. During July every year, the plant is completely closed down for annual maintenance. Below is the notice telling us of the closure this year, which started yesterday and continues until next Monday.
Because this happens in July each year, the lack of heating is irrelevant. But what it does mean is a week of no hot water. Yesterday morning, despite the plant having already been closed down for a few hours, there was neither a problem with having a shave or shower, as the water in the system was still perfectly warm. But, this morning, it was a different story.
Boiling water in the hot water jug in the kitchen, then taking it into the bathroom & pouring it it washbasin so I can shave, is an irritation and a little time-consuming, but something I can live with. But having a cold shower, even when the ambient temperature is quite pleasantly warm, is not my favourite way to begin the day Brrrrrrrrrrrr! It is like an act of penitence and it isn’t even Lent!
However, it is a reminder that having ready access to hot water, whenever I want it, is yet another example of taking something completely for granted – until it suddenly isn’t available. Of course many people in this world have no ready access to hot water, all year long.
So it is cold showers in the morning for at least the next four days. Hopefully, as in one or two previous years, the maintenance crew will complete all their work in six days rather than seven. Rather like those waiting for white smoke to appear from the Vatican chimney, on Sunday evening, I too shall be looking for a similar sign coming from this slightly less significant chimney, indicating that my penance of nearly a week of cold showers, is finally over.
PS I haven’t forgotten that I still have the other six questions about my Liebster Bloggers Award to answer.
A month ago yesterday, this blog was nominated for another award – A Liebster Blogger Award. This is an award given by fellow bloggers, to show appreciation for other blogs that they enjoy reading and think deserve to be highlighted and receive some praise.
My blog was nominated by Emily aka Writergem, whose own blog Czechesotans, is also about living as an expat in Prague; in her case, from the viewpoint of being an American teaching in an international school here for the past year. In her nomination of my blog she says, ‘Consider yourself educated after reading this one’. I did say in reply that I clearly needed fresh polish for my halo after receiving such praise 🙂
As part of the nomination process, the nominator sets a series of questions that each nominee has to answer in a subsequent post. Emily has set me eleven questions and this post is my attempt to answer the first five of them.
1. If your blog was a song, what would it be and why?
I must admit that I had to think hard and long about this one. Then I suddenly had a flash of inspiration. Why not a hymn? So my answer is, ‘Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of creation’.
My blog is predominantly about my experience of living and working in Prague and the wider Czech Republic. For the most part, I very much enjoy my life here and I’m very thankful for the opportunity of spending the last eight and a half years of my full-time public ministry as the Anglican Chaplain.
The words of the third verse of the hymn are particularly appropriate:
Praise to the Lord, who doth prosper thy work and defend thee,
surely his goodness and mercy shall daily attend thee:
ponder anew
what the Almighty can do,
if to the end he befriend thee.
There are two other associated reasons for choosing this hymn. It was originally written in German – Lobe den Herren – and my wife Sybille is German. And when Sybille and I got married nearly nine years ago, we walked into Church to the congregation singing this hymn, and we made them sing two verses auf Deutsch!
2. What is one thing you reeeeally like about the town where you live?
There are so many things that I like about living in Prague and have previously written all about them on this blog. But if I am only allowed to choose one, then it would have to be public transport. It is efficient, frequent, integrated and incredibly cheap, even more so now I’m deemed to be ‘Senior’ because I’m over sixty 🙂
PS – for the benefit of David Hughes and other commenters who spot my very occasional spelling mistakes, the spelling of ‘reeeeally’ in the question above is exactly as Emily posted it on her blog – and she teaches English 😀
3. What are you doing this summer?
I could start this answer by pointing out to my nominator that, unlike teachers in international schools, I don’t get a two month holiday/vacation during July and August 😉 However, it is true that Church life is usually much quieter during these months, especially as this year I do not currently have any weddings to conduct.
The other big difference this summer is, as most followers of my blog already know, since 9th June, Sybille has been on pilgrimage, seeking to walk from Prague to Santiago de Compostela. To her great credit, before setting out, she did what she has been promising to do and completely sorted out all of her papers that were scattered across her desk and in collapsing boxes under her desk. In the week before her departure, my paper shredder worked overtime and I paid several visits to the paper recycling bin 🙂
Sybille’s desk is in one corner of our sitting room and with it and the area beneath it being completely clear, it has given me the incentive to try and ‘Summer clean’ the whole flat. The sitting room is already complete, including taking down the curtains, washing, drying and ironing them, before rehanging them once more. Whilst they were down, I cleaned all the windows, inside and out. The increased light and the improved view are most noticeable 🙂
I’ve also washed, dried, ironed and then refitted the covers on both settees; taken down every picture, polishing the glass at the front and removing the cobwebs from the back: taken all the books off three different bookcases, dusted both books and shelves before replacing the books. I then moved every item of furniture to enable me to first vacuum and then wash the wood-laminate floor, section by section. The collection of cobwebs and dead insects under one of the bookcases was a sight to behold! What am I doing this summer? Giving every other room in the Chaplaincy Flat a similar treatment. My office should be very interesting 🙂
However in August, I do have two weeks of annual leave and I shall spend them walking with Sybille. The exact logistics of how this will happen has been the subject of discussion between the two of us during the past few days. Sybille is deliberately not walking to a set timetable and cannot promise to be at a particular location in just under four weeks time. So I’ve got to decide very soon, where might be the most suitable place to fly to. Currently, this looks like being Geneva. Then a day or two before I set out, we will have to agree exactly where we are going to meet up and I will then plan to make my way from my arrival airport, by public transport, to that agreed location.
There is then also the issue as to where we will stay overnight whilst we are walking together. Sybille has already rightly pointed out that we won’t both fit in her one woman tent 🙂 Hopefully we will be walking together in France where there is often good provision of Gîtes d’Etape accommodation for walkers. I’m sure we will work something out and you can be sure that there will be a blog post about it!
4. Name a place you’ve travelled that you’d recommend to others and why.
One of the great joys of living at the heart of Central Europe, has been the opportunity it has given us to explore a whole variety of fascinating, new (to both of us) places, many of which I’ve written about here on this blog. As I am only allowed to choose one, then it has to be the Croatian island of Dugi otok, where we spent a delightful ten days in July 2009.
The name ‘Dugi otok’ means ‘Long Island’, highly appropriate as it is forty-five kilometres long but never more than four kilometres wide. It lies a one-and-a-half hour ferry journey from the port city of Zadar and has a resident population of no more than 1,800. You can read more about our time there in this post and the four that follow it.
Why do I recommend Dugi otok? It has all the facilities for a relaxing summer holiday, but is sufficiently off-the-beaten-track, not to be overrun with visiting tourists. Sitting at an outdoor restaurant table, alongside the harbour in the port of Sali, enjoying a meal, accompanied by a cool glass of something, whilst watching the sun slowly setting, was an experience we enjoyed on many evenings and of which I still have vivid memories. The remote beach at Mala voda on the uninhabited west coast of the island – very difficult to find a more pleasant spot for sunbathing and enjoying a swim in the warm Adriatic Sea.
Ever since our 2009 visit, we’ve spoken many times about going back to Dugi otok. I suspect we just might in 2015.
5. Who is someone you look up to?
John the Baptist. He lived a simple lifestyle with a rather interesting diet and fashion sense. He wasn’t afraid to be outspoken and challenge hypocrisy, including calling some Jewish religious leaders, ‘a bunch of poisonous snakes’! Showed great humility as he spoke about Jesus and, once Jesus began his public ministry, stepped out of the limelight. Openly criticising the immorality of Herod Antipas cost him his life. What not to admire?
Watch for my next post when I’ll try and answer the other six questions.
This morning, my wife Sybille set out from the front door of the Chaplaincy Flat, to begin her long distance pilgrimage, walking from Prague to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. I took this photograph just before giving her a long kiss and hug, as if all goes to plan, I will not see her again for about two months.
Sybille started out this morning at 05.30, wanting to take full advantage of the cooler hours of the day whilst we are experiencing a Central European heatwave with temperatures rising to well over 30 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. Her main aim today is to successfully walk out of Prague, hoping to reach a campsite between Zbraslav and Radotin, adjacent a short part of the route that we walked together last November.
If you want to know more about Sybille’s pilgrimage, her motivation, proposed route and much more, then do visit her Prague-Santiago website. There is also a link in the right-hand side bar of this blog. She is hoping to post an update roughly once a week, dependent on time and wifi access. There is provision on her website for you to sign up to receive an email each time she does post an update.
I’ve been promised a text message update each day, whilst Sybille is walking within the Czech Republic as the cost of a text between two Czech mobiles is minimal. Once she reaches Germany, more specifically Freistaat Bayern, then I’m informed that contact will be less frequent 🙁
In early August, I will be taking some of my annual leave and the plan is for me to walk with Sybille for a couple of weeks, provided I can get Šárek cared for and find a willing plant ‘waterer’. Where that will be we don’t yet know. It will depend on Sybille’s walking speed which will only become clearer once she has been on pilgrimage for some weeks. However, we think it will be somewhere in France. Readers can be sure of a blogpost about it here in due course.
Last Wednesday 25th May 2011, Sybille & I changed our address. No – we haven’t moved out of the Chaplaincy flat. Instead, solely due to the intricacies of Czech bureaucracy, the building in which the Chaplaincy Flat is located, has been re-numbered.
All buildings in Prague have two numbers. One number, on a red plate with white lettering, is the registration of that building with the local authority – in our case, with Praha 6. Prague, like Paris, is divided into numbered districts, each of which has its own mayor and council. The registration number of our building – 2614, is unchanged. The other number, on a dark blue plate with white lettering, is the number of the building in that particular street. Our building was and still is, Pat’anka 11. But because there are two separate doors & staircases to the two halves of the building, one was labelled 11A and the other, (our entrance door & staircase) was labelled 11B.
However, for reasons that are explained in Czech in this document, last Wednesday, what was previously Pat’anka 2614/11A changed to being just Pat’anka 2614/11. And what was previously Pat’anka 2614/11B changed to being Pat’anka 2614/11A.
As can be seen in this photograph, we now have two brand new shiny signs on the outside wall adjacent to the entrance door & staircase that leads to our flat, just to ensure that nobody is confused. But, in the meantime, I have the wonderful task of informing a whole variety of businesses, organisations and individuals, that I no longer live at 11B but at 11A. What did I say previously about Czech bureaucracy?????
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’!
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.
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.
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.
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.
