By Ricky, on October 31st, 2016
Double-flagged tram for Czechoslovak Independence Day © Ricky Yates
Friday 28th October 2016 – was a public holiday here in the Czech Republic, celebrating the ninety-eighth anniversary of the declaration of independence of a country that no longer exists 🙂 In the dying days of World War One, the new nation of Czechoslovakia was declared independent of the Austro-Hungarian Empire on 28th October 1918, by Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, who then served as President of the ‘First Republic’, until 1935.
Although the state of Czechoslovakia ceased to exist on 1st January 1993, following the ‘Velvet Divorce’, the public holiday remains! Interestingly, it is no longer kept as a public holiday in Slovakia. Instead, they have double celebrations on 1st January each year, both to mark the New Year and to celebrate the establishment of the separate Slovak state, . . . → Read More: A long weekend of anniversaries and celebrations
By Ricky, on February 2nd, 2015 A Prague tram with two flags, celebrating a Czech public holiday © Ricky Yates
This is a post that I’ve been compiling in my mind for quite some time. So with Valentine’s Day being less than two weeks away, the time has come to commit it to writing and the public domain.
The genesis of this post was seeing more than one comment on social media in late November, of American friends of Americans newly arrived here in Prague, actually asking, ‘Do Czechs celebrate Thanksgiving?’ Another, asking an American teacher in an international school here, whether he had the day off for Thanksgiving.
I do appreciate that these comments and questions, came from some of the approximately 60% of Americans who do not hold a passport and have therefore never set foot outside their own country. I did enjoy the response . . . → Read More: Czechs don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, Halloween or Valentine’s Day
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