Receipt for the renewal for one month of my Prague public transport Open Card.
In 2012, Queen Elizabeth II celebrates her Diamond Jubilee – it is sixty years since she ascended to the throne of the United Kingdom. Whilst the major celebratory events to mark Her Majesty’s Diamond Jubilee are planned to take place on the first weekend of June 2012, in hope they will benefit from warm, sunny British summer weather 🙂 , she actually ascended to the throne on 6th February 1952 following the death of her father, King George VI.
Twenty days later, in the upstairs bedroom of a suburban semi-detached house on the outskirts of the city of Coventry, another significant event took place – I was born. Therefore, just like Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, in 2012 I too, celebrate my Diamond Jubilee!
I often wonder whether the day of my arrival in this world was indicative of my future character. I was born on a Tuesday which was the local district midwife’s day-off! Was I being difficult or awkward, right from the beginning? I’ll leave others to judge on that one. At least I did avoid being born three days later. If I had arrived then, I would only be celebrating my fifteenth birthday this year!
My sixtieth birthday is the first of three landmark family events this coming year. At the end of March, my eldest sister June and my brother-in-law Garry, celebrate their Golden Wedding Anniversary. Then on the last Saturday of July, my son Phillip will marry my future daughter-in-law Charlotte, a ceremony that they have asked me to conduct. I promise that both of these events will feature on this blog in due course.
However, being aware that once my ‘Diamond Jubilee’ had taken place, I would be entitled to cheaper travel on Prague public transport, yesterday I renewed my ‘Open Card’ for just one month rather than for a whole year. But the system was already aware of this forthcoming significant event – the last four days have been given to me at considerably reduced rates. Why? Because I have been categorised as ‘Senior’! Whilst I will continue to complain about Czech bureaucracy, at least it has recognised my Diamond Jubilee.
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?????
I am pleased to announce that, much to Sybille’s great pleasure, on Wednesday 20th April 2011 we became the proud owners of a dog. Strictly speaking, until a date in early October 2011, we are only the surrogate foster parents of a dog. I’ll explain that situation in greater detail in a moment. But first of all, let me introduce the dog.
Our dog, pictured here on the left, was found by the police in early April, wandering around a Prague suburb. He did not have either an ID microchip or a tattoo to identify him. But he did have a collar with a metal tag attached, which gave his date of birth & said that his name was ‘Sam’. However, rather oddly, the tag had no address or phone number.
Officially, Sam is deemed to be a Labrador mix. However, other than a few spots on his ears, there is nothing to distinguish him from a pure bred Labrador. As I have very little knowledge of dog breeds, I shall leave any detailed discussion of exactly what his breeding is, to those are more knowledgeable in these matters than I am.
We obtained Sam from the stray dog and re-homing centre, run by the police and located just across the Vltava River from where we live. We did so, by finally finding a way to circumvent the absurdities of Czech bureaucracy that I described in my earlier post in February this year entitled ‘Czech bureaucracy again’.
After our experience described in that post, we had various ideas as to how we might challenge our being treated as second-class citizens simply because we were deemed only to have ‘Temporary Residence’ in the Czech Republic. These ranged from getting the British Ambassador involved or taking our friend, an English-speaking Czech lawyer, along with us. Eventually, we decided to try the slightly less heavy-handed approach of asking a Czech-speaking member of the St. Clement’s congregation to telephone the stray dog and re-homing centre, to see if the impasse could be explained & overcome.
The person we got to help us was Karen, one of numerous ladies of that name either in my congregation or commenting on this blog! This Karen has both Czech and Australian nationality and speaks several languages fluently, including Czech and English. Having managed to speak on the phone to the man in charge of the dog centre, Karen was assured that, if she came in person with us to the centre and explained the situation, we would be allowed to adopt a dog. So on the morning of Wednesday 20th April, we met Karen outside the dog centre to see if the promise made on the phone would be fulfilled.
Unfortunately, the same very difficult and officious lady that we had met on our previous visit, was on the front desk. She gave Karen exactly the same story as we got the first time we were there – we were foreigners with ‘Temporary Residence’ and therefore not eligible to adopt a dog. Karen demanded to speak to the man in charge of centre saying that he had assured her that we could adopt. The gentleman duly came and a long discussion in Czech ensued. Eventually, a solution was arrived at which is once more best described as Kafka-esque.
Officially, Karen has adopted the dog because she is a Czech citizen and therefore has ‘Permanent Residency’ here. However, the authorities have noted on their records that the dog will actually be living with us and not with Karen! Hence my description earlier of us being only ‘surrogate parents’ to Sam. This is all because they think that we, as foreigners, will run away out of the country with the dog. The reality is that Karen, together with her Australian husband and family, are planning to return to live in Australia in two to three years time, whereas we hope to be living here for at least the next six years.
The reason that we, together with Karen, are only ‘foster parents’ until early October is much more straightforward and something we were fully aware of before embarking on this exercise. If a stray dog is found by the police, wandering in the streets anywhere in the Czech Republic, the original owner has six months in which to reclaim his or her dog, measured from the date the dog was found. After the expiration of that period of time, the foster parents can register the dog as their own.
Therefore, in early October, providing the original owner doesn’t come forward, we can return with Karen to the dog centre and transfer Sam’s registration into our names. Apparently at that point, the fact that we are foreigners with ‘Temporary Residence’ doesn’t matter!
You may be wondering how Sam the dog is getting on with the existing third member of our family – Oscar the cat. As most people know, cats consider themselves to be superior to humans and certainly far superior to dogs. I believe the picture on the left illustrates this reality very clearly!
Holy Week 2011 proved to be very eventful and, to be chronologically correct, I really should have written and posted this article before writing and posting about the Royal Wedding. Therefore, before we get too much further into the fifty days of the Easter season, here is a short illustrated résumé.
On Monday 18th April, Sybille & I attended an evening concert given by the ecumenical choir Naši pevci who were the choir that participated in our service entitled ‘On the Feast of Stephen’, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday 26th December 2010. The concert took place in Kostel Salvátor, which like the Church building in which the St. Clement’s Anglican congregation worship, also belongs to the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren.
The concert celebrated the life and work of Dr. Albert Schweitzer and therefore featured works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Felix Mendelssohn. But to celebrate that part of his life spent as a medical missionary in Gabon, there was also African singing and dancing, performed by Nsango Malamu. In between each item, the life story of Dr. Schweitzer was narrated, unfortunately only in Czech. The photograph shows both Naši pevci and Nsango Malamu receiving the applause of a packed Church at the end of the concert.
On Tuesday 19th April, I attended the annual Chrism Eucharist which took place in the Old Catholic Cathedral on Petrin Hill, overlooking the centre of Prague. At this service, the oils used to anoint candidates for baptism, confirmation and for anointing the sick, are blessed. The service was presided over by my Czech boss, Bishop Dušan Hejbal. After the service, as well as being served some very enjoyable refreshments, I finally managed to get a good photo of the two of us together.
Wednesday 20th April is probably best described as ‘media day’. As Karen, one of my most faithful commenters, has already pointed out in a previous comment, ‘The Prague Post’ that day published a feature article about me. This was the outcome of an interview I had given to their reporter Lisette Allen, a few weeks earlier. The original printed version contained two factual mistakes, together with a typo. I’m pleased to say that all three have now been corrected in the online version which you can access here.
Then in the afternoon came the phone call that I’ve already described in my previous post, inviting me to appear on Czech TV as part of their coverage of the Royal Wedding. And the Wednesday of Holy Week was also the day that we finally managed to bypass Czech bureaucracy and, much to Sybille’s pleasure, were allowed to adopt a dog! But that story requires another post!
This week, my blog is two years old. But having written two posts last month, about all the reasons why I like living here in Prague, balanced by one dealing with my small number of dislikes, my experience earlier this week has forced me to return to a subject that I thought I had overcome and dealt with.
Back in March 2009, I wrote a post entitled ‘Dealing with Czech bureaucracy’. In it, I described our battle to obtain residency permits from the Czech Foreign Police to prove where we live, together with what I referred to as a social security number – rodné císlo – family number, both of which are essential if you want to do anything more than eat and sleep in the Czech Republic.
In May 2009, I wrote about how we had finally managed to achieve this goal even though threatened with ‘A 21st Century defenestration of Prague’! In this second post, I did point out the absurdity of the wording on the stamp put into both our passports. We have been granted Povolení k prechodnému pobytu v CR – Temporary residence in the Czech Republic. But it is neomezený – unlimited or forever. Of course it has to be unlimited because we are both EU citizens and can stay here until we die, should we choose to do so.
As I wrote then, I took this granting of ‘unlimited temporary residence’ as being part of the ongoing Czech mentality that believes that no one would ever want to actually live here permanently. Earlier this week when eating in U Topolu, we shared a table with a young Czech couple because there was no where else where we could sit. Latterly, the young lady spoke and asked where we were from. I did the usual explanation saying that I’m English, my wife is German but that we live and work here in Prague. In return, I received an expression of shock and amazement as to why on earth we should ever want to do so!
Armed with this stamp in my passport, together with my little green folded paper Potvrzení o prechodném pobytu na území – Proof of temporary residence, inside of which is my full name, date and place of birth and, most importantly, my registered address, I have been able to register my car. Also, aided by Bishop Dušan of the Old Catholic Church in the Czech Republic, a notarized copy of these documents has enabled me to be registered with the Ministry of Culture, as the person who can officially sign on behalf of my congregation. Whenever there has been a request for ID, just producing my passport and residency permit has satisfied the enquirer. That was until Monday this week.
Sybille has been on for quite some time that she would like to once more have a dog. She grew up with dogs and always had her own until her last one died, just before she went to live in Spain in 1999. Over the past two years, we have regularly walked past the stray dog and re-homing centre run by the city police, located on the other side of the Vltava River from where we live.
Recently, Sybille has been researching the website of the re-homing centre, aided by Google translate, to discover what is involved in adopting an unclaimed stray dog and giving it a new home. One thing was quite clear; you must produce ID to prove who you are and where you live. So last Monday on my day off, armed with Sybille’s German passport and Czech Residency document, we went off to the shelter for an exploratory visit.
Upon arrival, we did are usual explanation of having very little Czech but of being able to speak English, German, Spanish or French. We managed to communicate what we wanted and, upon being asked for ID, produced Sybille’s passport and residency document. The reaction was immediate. No – you can’t adopt a dog from the shelter – you only have temporary residence. Despite pointing out that it was unlimited and that we were EU citizens, the lady and her colleagues remained totally adamant. We had to have permanent, not temporary residence.
Despite being illegal under European law, the whole situation is also utterly absurd. I know of several non-EU citizens in my congregation who have been granted ‘Permanent residency,’ but for a set number of years, which is also a contradiction in terms! And the Foreign Police are not even consistent in their dealing with EU citizens. A fellow British blogger and her husband, who have recently moved to Prague and work together for the same firm, have also been to the Foreign Police to register. The husband was granted ‘Permanent residence’ – the blogging wife has been granted like us, ‘Temporary unlimited residence’.
I and several others have described this whole situation as Kafka-esque. I’ve recently bought myself a copy of ‘The Trial’ by Franz Kafka, to read and see if I can get my head around this utterly absurd mentality that I am experiencing. And rest assured, I am not going to stop until I have asserted my rights to be treated in exactly the same way as a Czech citizen, even if I leave a few strangled Czech bureaucrats along the way. Watch this space!
