By Ricky, on May 8th, 2012
Statue of Soviet Marshall Ivan Konev with floral tributes © Ricky Yates
Inscription alongside the statue © Ricky Yates
Today is a public holiday here in the Czech Republic, as it is in several other European countries. The public holiday marks the ending of World War Two, sixty-seven years ago, on 8th May 1945.
I took the photograph on the left today. It is of a statue that stands in Námestí Interbrigády, a large square on one side of Jugoslávských partyzánu, the main thoroughfare leading from our nearest Metro station at Dejvická, to Podbaba where we live. And the person it portrays is Marshall Ivan Stepanovich Konev of the Soviet Red Army, who led the troops that liberated Prague from Nazi occupation, finally entering the city early on 9th May 1945, just a few hours after the unconditional surrender of all Nazi troops . . . → Read More: Liberation Day – 8th May 2012
By Ricky, on October 26th, 2011
Tábor with the spire of the Church of the Transfiguration of our Lord © Ricky Yates
As part of my two weeks of annual leave following my return from the Eastern Archdeaconry Synod in Bucharest, Sybille and I spent a long weekend at the beginning of October, staying in Tábor, exploring this fascinating historical town and parts of the surrounding area of South Bohemia. During the whole time we were there, we were blessed by some wonderful ‘Indian Summer’ weather as can be seen in the accompanying photographs featuring very clear blue skies.
Tábor lies about 100 kilometres south-east of Prague and it took us less than two hours to drive there. After walking around the historic centre of the town, we eventually found excellent accommodation in Penzion Modrá ruže which has a gated back yard where we were able to securely park . . . → Read More: Tábor
By Ricky, on August 11th, 2011
Footpath through Ceský les © Ricky Yates
We spent the second week of our recent holiday, Tuesday 19th – Sunday 24th July, staying as we had previously done in October 2010, in a delightfully restored house dating from the first decade of the twentieth century that belongs to Jack, an Irish member of the St. Clement’s congregation. It is situated in the somewhat unusually named village of Babylon, which lies between the town of Domažlice and the German border, in the far west of Bohemia.
The nearby range of rolling wooded hills are known as Ceský les which is sometimes anglicised as ‘Bohemian Forest’. These hills are far lower than the Krkonoše Mountains, the highest point being Cerchov at 1042 metres. The border between the Czech Republic and Germany runs along the top of the hills which are known as the Oberpfälzerwald . . . → Read More: Ceský les
By Ricky, on August 5th, 2011
Map showing those areas with a majority German population in the 1930s, superimposed on an outline of the current Czech Republic. Fair use assumed as the map is from a now defunct website
Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918, as part of the break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire following the end of the First World War. The country’s first President, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, was very keen that the western boundaries of this new nation should be the historic ones of Bohemia and Moravia which predominantly follow the ridges of the surrounding hills and mountains. This was to ensure that the new nation had defendable borders and that also nearly all Czech speakers would be living within those borders.
However, one important consequence of the adoption of these borders was that many people of German ethnic origin were also incorporated into Czechoslovakia. According to a census taken in 1921, . . . → Read More: Sudetenland and the Sudetendeutsche
By Ricky, on March 16th, 2011
Instruction in both Czech & German to drive on the right!
I started this blog more than two years ago, mainly to keep my friends and family back in the UK and elsewhere, up-to-date about my life, work and activities in the Czech Republic since moving here in September 2008 when I took up my new appointment as Chaplain of the English-speaking Anglican congregation in Prague.
I wrote about the original motivation behind my blog in a February 2010 piece entitled ‘Happy first birthday to my blog’. There I explained that I now know that many of my Prague congregation also read this blog and how I always have to be careful about whom or what I write! But what I never really expected is how much more widely this blog would be read. But using the tools provided by Google analytics, I’ve discovered that . . . → Read More: Driving on the ‘right’ side of the road – some photographic history
|
rickyyates.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.
|
Recent Comments