Winter comes early to Prague

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 in Prague doesn’t grind to a halt as soon as snow falls!

As it was the day after Advent Sunday, I spoke to the children about the Advent season and how we can use it to prepare ourselves for the coming of Christ. I also explained why Advent had begun the previous day and not on Wednesday 1st December when every commercial Advent calendar producer thinks it does! Here are the school children enjoying their break time out in the snowy playground immediately following my assembly. I’m sorry that the picture is a bit grey and grainy – it was still snowing when I took it!

My Renault Scenic in the snow © Ricky Yates

The snow continued to fall leaving large accumulations. The photo above shows the front of my car twenty-four hours later.

Overhanging snow & loose downpipe © Ricky Yates

Last week, we did have a couple of days when the temperature rose above 0 degrees and some of the snow began to melt. Besides causing some lying snow to turn to slush underfoot, a far more serious problem was accumulations of snow suddenly sliding off roofs and landing on unsuspecting individuals below.

I took this photo from our office in the Chaplaincy flat, looking across to the neighbouring block of flats which has recently been completed as part of the fourth and final stage of the Podbaba development. As you can see, a serious amount of snow is about to come off the roof! The sheer amount of snow also dislodged a piece of downpipe which has since crashed to the ground, along with the snow.

Then, just as I thought that all of the snow would melt, the temperature dropped below freezing again and earlier this week, yet more snow fell. The accumulation of snow hasn’t quite reached the proportions experienced in January this year, but it is rapidly heading in that direction.

In the midst of all this snow, life continues quite normally. Up the hill, behind the Podbaba flats complex, is a sports stadium. It is the home of Dukla Praha football team who currently are top of the Czech second division. Sensibly in view of the weather, they are currently on an extended mid-winter break and, having last played on Sunday 7th November, they are not due to play again until early in March 2011.

The football pitch is surrounded by a running track together with a variety of all-weather pitches and facilities. The stadium is also used for other events. Quite what event was being staged there last Tuesday evening I do not know? But what ever it was, it ended with a spectacular firework display. The Czechs seem to need little excuse for having a firework display and clearly, a serious amount of lying snow wasn’t going to stop them!

Firework display at the Dukla Praha Stadium © Ricky Yates

Baba and Podbaba

'Residence Podbaba' with the Crown Plaza Hotel © Ricky Yates

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’!

Podbaba Lock with the Hydrological Station and sewage works © Ricky Yates

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.

View across Prague from the Baba ridge © Ricky Yates

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.

Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates

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.

Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house © Ricky Yates
Bauhaus-style house in need of some renovation © Ricky Yates

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.