Czech language

I have been granted permanent residency in the Czech Republic

Certificate of Permanent Residence © Ricky Yates

As I wrote in my earlier blog post entitled, ‘Czech bureaucracy – yet again‘, on Monday 30^th October 2017, I submitted my application for permanent residency in the Czech Republic at the offices of the Czech Ministry of the Interior (MOI) in Ústí nad Labem. I was informed then, that the authorities now had up to sixty days to consider my application before coming to a decision. Once a decision was made, I would receive a phone call, summoning me back to the MOI office.

Last Friday morning, exactly forty days after submitting my application, my phone rang. It was from a number unknown to my phone and the caller spoke in Czech. Fortunately, the one word I did understand in the caller’s first sentence was, ‘Ústí’. ‘Ministry of the Interior’ I said in English, and received a clear ‘Ano‘ in reply. The caller’s next sentence included ‘Pondelí nebo úterý‘ which I understood correctly as telling me to come to the MOI office once more on Monday or Tuesday of the following week.

Therefore on Monday 11^th December, I drove to Ústí nad Labem, arriving at the MOI offices just before 10.00, following a struggle to find a legal place to park. After receiving the phone call on the previous Friday, I had promptly phoned Barbora from the voluntary ‘Centre for Integration‘ and she had assured me that on Monday morning, she would be at the same desk where I had first met her, and would be happy to help me once again. Her smiling face greeted me, as soon as I put my head around the door!

Barbora donned her coat, and we headed out the door and around the corner, back into the same building, to reach the section that deals with EU nationals. We pressed the button for a numbered ticket which was 516. As the electronic display board showed 505 as the most recent number to be called, together with the number of people in the waiting room, I knew I was going to be waiting for some time. So Barbora headed back to her normal station, telling me to call her on her mobile once it became closer to the time when I would be summoned.

Fortunately, I had come prepared for a long wait. Having received my new ‘Church Book & Desk Diary’ for 2018, the previous evening – thank you Paul Shorten 🙂 , I spent the first hour of my waiting time, transferring into it, all those things in the forward planner of the 2017 edition. It certainly occupied the time!

When 515 was called, I rang Barbora and, within a few minutes of her arrival, 516 appeared on the electronic display board, summoning us to counter 11. My heart sank when I saw that we had to deal with the same very officious lady I’d had on my first visit on 23^rd October. But this time she was far more amenable, probably helped by it being Monday morning rather than late Monday afternoon 😉

After Barbora had explained in Czech, that I was responding to a phone call the previous Friday, telling me to return to the MOI office, the lady found me on her computer system and then got my file out of the cupboard. I was presented with an A4 sheet, duly signed and stamped, declaring that I have been granted, ‘Permanent Residency’. I was then required to surrender my forty day old certificate of ‘Temporary Residence’ for which I received an official receipt.

Having confirmed, amongst much laughter, that the address of my home is Stará Oleška 44 – the laughter being because ‘forty-four’ is so difficult to pronounce in Czech – I end up nearly spitting my teeth out when trying to say it; the lady then proceeded to produce my ‘Permanent residence card for a European Union citizen’ that you see in the photographs at the head of this post.

It is a passport style document which includes one of the photographs I submitted with my application. It has both my British passport number and my Czech Rodné císlo, and declares my registered address as being Stará Oleška 44. Most importantly, it declares that I have Trivalý pobyt – Permanent residence. Interestingly, I have Trivalý pobyt – Ostatní – Permanent residence – Other 🙂 I presume this is because I am retired.

This document is now valid for the next ten years. However, I was firmly told that I must inform the MOI if, in the future, I change my address or obtain a new passport. Echoes of my previous misdemeanour 😉

As well as securing my status, having this document will be a great asset in my future dealings with Czech officialdom. Changing the registered address of the ‘Carly’ and then renewing my driving licence in February 2018, are two tasks that lie ahead. But I did enjoy producing it as my ID for the first time today, when recovering a letter from the Post Office in Markvartice that I needed to sign for.

Finally, whilst I do have issues with Czech bureaucracy, there is one very positive comment with which I want to finish this post. For the issue of my ‘Permanent residence card for a European Union citizen’, I was charged absolutely nothing. It stands in stark contrast to the £128.00 I had to pay to obtain my new British passport eighteen months ago.

Czech bureaucracy – yet again!

A few months after arriving in the Czech Republic, Sybille and I, aided by an agency, successfully registered with the Czech Foreign Police. Our respective passports were stamped granting us ‘Temporary residence’ that was ‘neomezený‘ – ‘unlimited’ or ‘forever’. As I have pointed out many times since, temporary residence that is unlimited, is a contradiction in terms!

We were also issued with flimsy paper certificates of temporary residence, which most importantly, also showed our official registered address as being the Chaplaincy Flat in Prague 6. Shortly afterwards, we were also each issued with a ‘Rodné císlo‘, social security number. You can read about how we managed to achieve this in two early posts on this blog, here and here.

Fast forward to 2017 and my current British passport, together with that flimsy paper certificate of temporary residence, have been accepted as proof of my ID and Czech residency, during the whole process of purchasing my new home in Stará Oleška. The house is now registered in my name with the Katastrální úrad pro Ústecký kraj and I’ve paid CZK 40,000 in property transfer tax to the Czech state 🙁

I was waiting until I received my property registration document from the Katastrál, before seeking to change my registered address and apply for ‘permanent residence’, (I’m entitled to apply now I’ve lived in the Czech Republic for more than five years), because I knew I would need it to prove I have the right to live at Stará Oleška 44. But where did the Katastrál send it? Not to Stará Oleška 44 but to the Chaplaincy Flat in Prague, because that is my registered address with the Czech state! They also sent it by registered mail to be signed for, meaning I needed a combination of a long arm and long pen to do so 🙁

I had been given to understand by those who have had more recent dealings with the Czech Foreign Police, that they had become a little more user friendly than they were back in early 2009. Now more prosaically entitled ‘Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic’ (MOI), they even have a website in English! And the six page application form is in Czech and English though they do say, not unreasonably, that it must be completed in Czech. I have therefore learned a few new Czech words such as ‘duchodce‘, which is what I now am, a ‘retired person’ or ‘pensioner’ 🙂

Therefore on Monday 23rd October, armed with a carefully completed application form, two passport sized photographs, a notarised copy of the property registration document from the Katastrál, my certificate of temporary residence and my current passport, I set off for my nearest MOI Office, located in Ústí nad Labem. Realising that the stamp granting me ‘Temporary residence’ that is ‘neomezený‘, was in my previous, now expired passport, I dug it out of one of the yet to be unpacked boxes upstairs, and took that along with me too.

When I arrived at the MOI office, immediately inside the door was a young lady, (who I now know as Barbora), sitting at a desk with a laptop computer in front of her. I explained in Czech, that I was British and spoke limited Czech. She responded that it wasn’t a problem as she spoke English. I explained that I had come to apply for permanent residence in my newly purchased home and she offered to go through my application form, to see if I had completed it correctly.

As Barbora went through my form, she noted that my first Christian name was ‘Warwick’ – (for those who don’t know, ‘Ricky’ is my diminutive). ‘Was this the same as Warwick Castle’, she asked, as she had been an Erasmus student for a year at nearby Coventry University. I replied that it was the same and that she should note my place of birth – Coventry – slightly further down the form. Call it a ‘coincidence’ or a ‘God-incidence’ but it was quite remarkable.

Other than a couple of little additions, Barbora assured me I’d completed the form correctly and had brought all the necessary additional documentation that I needed. As I am an EU citizen, I was to go out the door, around the corner and into the same building through a different doorway, take a numbered ticket, and wait there until my number was called.

Barbora also gave me her business card to which she added her mobile phone number. If I had any problems, especially with language, I could call on that number. It was only when looking at the business card that I realised she is from a voluntary organisation, seeking to help foreigners integrate in the Czech Republic. No – the Czech Ministry of the Interior have still not become that user-friendly, as I was about to discover.

After an hour-long wait, and being the last person sitting in the waiting room, my number was finally called. Unfortunately, the lady at desk 12, was rather officious right from the beginning. I was her last customer for the day and I think she was very keen to get home. I presented my completed application form, pointing to the box indicating that I was applying for permanent residency. When I eventually twigged that she first wanted to see my ID, I presented my current passport, my certificate of temporary residence and my previous expired passport, in order to show continuity.

This is when the fun started 🙁 There were two problems with my application which therefore made it impossible for it to be dealt with that afternoon. Firstly, the passport number on my certificate of temporary residence did not agree with that of my current British passport. I had committed the serious offence of failing to tell the MOI in July 2016, that I now had a new passport, an offence for which I could be fined!

Secondly, I was applying to do two separate things. I was applying for permanent residency, but I was also applying to change my registered address. The application form for permanent residency was fine. However, I also needed to fill out a second identical form with exactly the same information, in order to apply to change my registered address.

All this was confirmed to me after I got Barbora to speak to the officious lady at desk 12, on my mobile phone. I was also given a slip of paper with a fixed appointment to return on Monday 30^th October at 13.30, armed with my identically completed second application form, to resume battle with the Czech MOI. Barbora also confirmed that she was available that day and kindly agreed to accompany me.

My appointment(s) for Monday 30th October 2017

On Monday 30^th October, I met with Barbora and together we went to the EU citizens section of the MOI offices, waiting for appointment 209 to appear on the display screen in the waiting room. Promptly at 13.30 it did so, calling us desk 11. I was very pleased that we had a different lady to deal with, rather than the very officious one of the previous Monday. This one later even complimented me on how well I had filled out my application forms 🙂

Firstly, I had to present my current British passport so that its number could be recorded. For my serious sin of omission, that of failing to previously report my obtaining a new passport, I was fined CZK 200 which I paid in cash on the spot. Bearing in mind that two other expat friends had previously told me they had also made the same mistake and had each been fined CZK 500, I felt I got off quite lightly. Maybe it was because I am now a duchodce 😉

After that transaction was completed, and a receipt issued for my CZK 200 fine, I then had to present my completed application form to change my registered address. I was surprised that I wasn’t required to handover the notarised copy of the property registration document I’d brought with me. Instead, the lady accessed the computer of the Katastrál office which confirmed my ownership of Stará Oleška 44 and therefore my right to live there.

I was then required to formerly surrender my nearly nine year old flimsy paper certificate of temporary residence for which I received a formal printed receipt. In its place, I was presented with a new flimsy paper certificate of temporary residence showing my new registered address as Stará Oleška 44. But irony of ironies, it doesn’t show my current British passport number – that section has been left blank! I can only presume that it is because my new certificate does have my Rodné císlo recorded, by which the Czech state can identify me. It hadn’t been allocated when the previous certificate was issued.

Finally, I then was able to present my second identically completed application form, along with my two passport size photographs, to apply to be granted permanent residence in the Czech Republic. I was formerly told that the MOI now had up to sixty days to consider my application and decide whether or not to grant me permanent residence. Once a decision has been made, I will be summoned back to the MOI office in Ústí nad Labem.

If granted, I will then have to surrender my brand new certificate of temporary residence. In its place will be given a photo ID card showing me to be a permanent resident of the Czech Republic. Watch this space!

As we were leaving the building, I asked Barbora why the slip of paper I had been given the previous week, had three numbers on it? The explanation? Officially I had three appointments – one to change my passport number, one to change my registered address, and one to apply for permanent residency! As I first wrote back in March 2009, I love the Czech Republic but NOT Czech bureaucracy!

Language and visitors

Stará Oleška from the hills above Huntírov © Ricky Yates

There are two questions I am regularly asked in comments on this blog, by email, or on Facebook. One is, ‘Are there many English-speakers where you’re now living?’ The other is, ‘Does the area get many visitors?’ This post is my attempt to answer both these questions.

Stará Oleška has had many visitors over the five months I’ve now lived here. This is because the village is home to three camping & caravan sites – Autokempink Ceská Brána, Autokemp Aljaška and Camp Pod lesem; and two pensions – Pension Vyhlídka and Penzion Rosalka. Many of those who come are Czech, from right across the country. But there are also many foreign visitors, most notably Germans, together with Dutch, Flemish-speaking Belgians and Danes.

Why do Germans visit? There are numerous reasons.

Proximity – In a straight line, Stará Oleška is little more than ten kilometres from the Czech-German border. However, you cannot drive or walk there in a straight line because of the hills and mountains in-between. Instead, it takes about half-an-hour to drive from the Schmilka-Hrensko border crossing that lies alongside the point where the Elbe becomes the Labe. And plenty of Germans from nearby Pirna, Dresden and Meissen do come, judging by the registration plates of vehicles passing through the village, along with those from major centres slightly further afield such as Leipzig and Chemnitz.

Price – Petrol, cigarettes, beer and eating out are all cheaper than in Germany. Some Germans cross the border just to fill up and buy supplies. But it does mean that a weekend, long weekend or week’s visit can be had at a considerable lower cost than if spent in Germany.

Heimat – A word that is almost impossible to fully translate into English! The usual translation is ‘homeland’, but it has a far deeper meaning. For many Germans, travelling to the Böhmische Schweiz/Bohemian Switzerland is revisiting the Heimat.

Therefore if local Czech people have a second language it is almost always German. Menus in Bar-Restaurants are in Czech and German. Staff working in these establishments have to have at least basic German as visiting Germans usually don’t speak a word of Czech, beyond knowing that ‘beer’, (or Bier 🙂 ), is ‘pivo‘.

With regard to language, most visiting Germans also have the annoying habit of greeting people on entering a restaurant, or meeting fellow walkers on waymarked footpaths, with either ‘Guten Tag‘ or ‘Hallo‘, with absolutely no recognition that they are no longer in Germany. I always reply very firmly with ‘Dobrý den‘, sometimes following it up with, ‘Wir sind in der Tschechischen Republik, nicht in Deutschland‘. The reactions are interesting 🙂

The other typical German assumption is not to bother to exchange currency, believing that they can always pay in Euro, rather than in Czech crowns. Most hotels, restaurants and many shops are happy for them to do so. But sometimes German laziness can be costly.

Bar-Restaurace U Soni was using an exchange rate of CZK 24.00 to EUR 1.00 over the summer. The current official exchange rate is around CZK 25.50 to EUR 1.00 so I think they were being perfectly fair as they will be charged by their Czech bankers, for banking foreign currency. I know, as each time the Frauenkirche in Dresden reimburse me for my travel expenses, I lose CZK 100 for the privilege of having Euro paid into my Czech bank account 🙁

But when exploring this area a year ago, I had lunch in a bar-restaurant in nearby Ceská Kamenice. This is the scan of my bill. The Euro price at the bottom has been calculated at an exchange rate of CZK 20.00 to EUR 1.00. At that time, the correct exchange rate was nearly CZK 27.00 to EUR 1.00!

One final story about visiting Germans and currency. On Saturday 23^rd September, I attended a most enjoyable classical concert in Kostel sv Václava, Srbská Kamenice. The entrance fee was a very modest CZK 100. The male half of an older German couple immediately in front of me at the Church door, produced a fifty Euro note from his wallet & expected change!!!!!!

What about visiting Dutch, Flemish-speaking Belgians and Danes? Why do they come?

My usual answer to this question is because they have no hills or mountains in their own countries 🙂 Actually, the Flemish-speaking Belgians do; but they would have to travel to Wallonia and speak French 🙁

All three nationalities love caravanning and camping and so the facilities here are perfect for their needs. And for all of them, it only takes one long day’s drive to get here.

As with the Germans, the other important factor is price. Nearly everything is cheaper here than in their home countries. For a Dane, used to paying around DKK 45.00, (over CZK 150.00), for 0.5l of beer, being charged CZK 22.00 in Bar-Restaurace U Soni for the same quantity of liquid refreshment, is like being in heaven 😀

But then comes the question of language. Because very few people, other than their fellow citizens, speak their native tongue, Dutch, Flemish-speaking Belgians and Danes recognise that to communicate when outside of their home countries, they need to speak another language. And for nearly all of them, it is second language English. But that is where they sometimes come unstuck as very few people here speak English!

Several times this past summer, when sitting on the terrace at Bar-Restaurace U Soni, I have heard Dutch/Flemish/Danish people say in English, what they want to drink. In Prague, that would be fine, but not in the Böhmische Schweiz/Bohemian Switzerland. Other than ‘beer’, because it sounds the same as ‘Bier‘ in German, they are not understood. Instead, they have to resort to third, or even fourth language German, bearing in mind that Flemish Belgians and many Dutch people, are often also fluent in French.

Several times this past summer, I have been quite proud of myself by helping convert second language English, into my best bar-restaurant Czech, in order to help Dutch/Flemish/Danish visitors to obtain what they want.

So to further answer the first question at the beginning of this post, there are very few English speakers living in this part of the Czech Republic. I have now met a small number when doing business in Decín, usually people who have spent time working or studying in the UK or the USA. But because very few native English-speakers visit this area, people who speak fluent English are very few and far between.

Why adding the letter ‘y’ is so funny

Right from the beginning of my time spent living and working in the Czech Republic, one of the things that has constantly amused me, is seeing an English word on a shop, an advertising hoarding, or in a menu, with the letter ‘y’ added to the end of the word. For example – a sports shop advertising that it sells ‘Snowboardy’ and ‘Skateboardy’.

There is a simple explanation as to why this occurs – adding the letter ‘y’ to the end of a noun, is the most common way in Czech, to make a word plural. It is the virtual equivalent of adding the letter ‘s’ in English, so that ‘snowboard’, becomes ‘snowboards’.

However, very few of even the most fluent English-speaking Czechs, understand why ‘snowboardy’ and ‘skateboardy’ seem so funny to a native English-speaker. But the reason is because, adding the letter ‘y’, is the way the diminutive is made in colloquial English. For example, ‘John’ becomes ‘little Johnny’. In fact it is more common, for the diminutive to be made by adding ‘ie’, with ‘James’ becoming ‘little Jamie’ But the way both ‘y’ and ‘ie’ are pronounced, when added to a noun, is exactly the same.

Some of the earliest examples I observed are above supermarket shelves which offer ‘Snacky’ and ‘Chipsy’. This second example I find particularly amusing. Czechs have adopted the American English ‘chips’, for what in British English, would be called ‘crisps’. Yet despite already being plural, because of the letter ‘s’, they still go ahead and add the letter ‘y’ 🙂

Similar examples can be found in bookshops. There will be section headed ‘Thrillery’ and nearby, another section headed ‘Detektivky’. This second example does include a slight change from the English spelling, but the origin of the word is still obvious.

Other examples I’ve come across include, for feminine hygiene purposes, you require ‘tampóny’. And in the male toilets of some bars, you will find a machine from which you can purchase ‘kondomy’ 🙂

Until recently, my favourite example has been the one featured in the photograph at the beginning of this post – ‘hot dogy’. I saw it first, over four years ago, when stopping at a service area on the Prague-Dresden motorway. Sadly, when I last called in there, some months ago, the sign had gone, during the redevelopment of the venue. But in similar fashion, I have also seen signs for ‘fast foody’, but not yet captured them on camera.

The example in this photograph is the hot drinks menu in one of our local bar restaurants. It is amusing because of featuring ‘drinky’ 🙂 But as any Czech language purist would tell you, there is actually no need for it. There is a perfectly good existing Czech word for ‘drinks’ – ‘nápoje’. But in this venue, popular with students from the nearby Technical University, the English word is preferred – but made plural the Czech way!

I am always on the lookout for fresh examples to bring a smile to my face. In recent months, I’ve seen more than one conference offering, as part of their programme – ‘workshopy’. And I gather it it possible to go shopping in a number of edge of town ‘hypermarkety’.

However, my current favourite, I spotted (appropriate description 🙂 ), in an advert on a tram, a few weeks ago. Last Sunday morning, it was the tram on which I travelled from the Chaplaincy Flat to Church, and so I got a photo. A wi-fi provider is offering the possibility of several ‘hotspoty’ 😀

Two Ecumenical events from November 2015

November 2015 was quite an ecumenical month. Not only did I sit through a nearly two hour meeting in Dresden, conducted predominantly in German and attended by various German Protestant ministers and theologians, I also attended two important services in Prague, conducted in Czech.

On 21^st November, I was an ecumenical guest of the Ceskobratrská církev evangelická/Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren – the main Czech Protestant Church. The service was to bid farewell to the Moderator and Synodal Council of the Church for the past six years, and to welcome and formally install their successors who had been elected a few months previously. The service was held in Salvátor Church in central Prague which is effectively the ‘Protestant Cathedral’.

Whilst the whole two-and-a-half hour service was in Czech, because of having guests from other countries, there was a simultaneous translation service offered in English and German for parts of the it and I was also given a printed translation into English, of the new Moderator’s sermon. There were inevitably one or two rather ‘interesting’ interpretations. The most notable was when the new Synodal Council members, were asked a series of questions to each of which they had to answer, affirming their commitment to their new roles. But what should have been ‘I commit myself’, was interpreted as ‘I oblige myself’!

One very nice bonus arising from this event was that most international guests attending the service, were in Prague for the whole weekend and were therefore looking for somewhere to worship on Sunday morning. So my good friend Rev’d Dr Karen Moritz, brought several fluent English-speakings guests, to our 11.00 Eucharist the next day.

Monika, Petra & Martin with Bishop Dušan following the Ordination Service © Ricky Yates

The following Saturday morning, 28^th November, I attended a Eucharist held in the Old Catholic Cathedral of Sv Vavrince on Petrín Hill, Prague, during which Bishop Dušan Hejbal ordained three new deacons – including two women! From left to right they are, Monika Johanka Mádlová, Petra Baslová & Martin Kovác.

Whilst the whole service was in Czech, I am now quite familiar with the Old Catholic liturgy, not least because it is quite similar to ours, and so was able to join in fairly well. And like us, the Old Catholics stand to sing their hymns, unlike the Czech Protestants who do so sitting, something I always find very strange.

With Martin following his ordination as deacon © Ricky Yates

Following the ordination service, I posed for this photograph with Martin. He is Slovak but has done his academic studies in Prague and is also a fluent English-speaker. So I may well invite Martin to ‘deacon’ at St Clement’s on one Sunday in 2016.