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Published: March 21st 2007
Whatever happened to...?
Well, the sporty looking Skodas from the 1960s and 1970s are now used for: ferrying around rich European tourists on Prague sight-seeing tours at 30 Euros an hour...
Tom Griffith And so I find myself catching a fleeting glimpse of Eastern Europe. In one of those unpredictable moments that occasionally crops up when you're on the road, I ended up deciding to flee Germany for a couple of days, and head to the Czech Republic. I woke up from three hours sleeping on a Frankfurt airport floor, and it seemed like a great idea - hell, it was only ten hours to Prague! After travelling on five trains, and snatching myself several meals of yet-more cold meats on bread (is that all they eat in central Europe?), I had changed my opinion a little. Then, after two hours of traipsing around Prague in the sleet to find a hostel in another country where I didn't speak the language, didn't hold no currency, I was convinced: I should have stayed in Germany, where I could at least order a coffee and sleep in the airport.
But then I met a lovely local (always the greatest moments when you're travelling), and he pointed me in the right direction. I found this hostel with free internet, warm and empty dorms, free brekky, and pints of beer for a dollar, and Prague
Good King Wenceslas looked out...
The sort-of heart of Prague - Wenceslas Square, where the statue of St.Vaclav, as he is know here, looks out over the souvenir shops and McDonalds restaurants below... suddenly became a wonderful place. I slept and showered after 30 hours on the road, and checked the place out properly.
Since shaking off communist dictatorship like it was a severe case of fleas back in 1989, Czech has come forward in leaps and bounds. It broke off its 80-odd year marriage with Slovakia (they never did go well together, I thought), and positioned itself as the new destination for those who wanted a bit of old-style central Europe
kulturny. The old buildings were jazzed up (thankfully, Prague wasn't overly-afflicted with those Soviet-style concrete monstrosities that other Eastern cities were), the proud Czech traditions of literature, music and art were promoted, and all of a sudden, there emerged a nearly-fully-fledged member of the European Union. Quite a jump for the place that used to churn out dodgy Skodas and rip-off AK-47s.
There is still a slight air of faded grandeur, of a city that was once great, but has lived in the shadows for a little too long, and collected a spot of dust: the profusion of mustachioed, mulleted men, the grimy statues, the constant playing of 1980s pop hits on the radio (remember
I Am The One Jewish Town Hall
The old Jewish Town Hall in Prague's once-thriving Jewish area. Note the clock with Hebrew numbers. Just in shot is the 'Old-New Synagogue', Europe's oldest...and I wish I remembered why it had that funny name! And Only?), and the peeling paint, all remind you that Czech was a Soviet satellite for 40 years. But the beauty and the timelessness of the old city manages to overwhelm the shabbiness most of the time.
I spent the day wandering the streets, taking in the wonderful mix of medieval, Gothic and art-nouveau architecture, and trying to avoid the South American migrants handing out leaflets advertising any number of classical concerts, being played by any number of top orchestras, in any number of incredible venues, and all tonight. Either Prague has a lot of amazing music, or it has a lot of gullible tourists paying 1000 korunas to watch the local kindergarten students play
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik on their recorders.
Eventually I had seen enough churches, synagogues and bell towers to last a lifetime, so I tried to distill my Prague experience. I decided to use the Kafka Museum as a focus for my visit.
Franz Kafka is probably Prague's most famous son. He epitomised much of the history, and many of the contradictions, of the city. He was a German-speaking Jew, born into the Czech part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire (if my Year 12 class
Tyn's place
The church of St. Tyn, one of about nine squillion in the Prague city environs are reading this, you should all know what that is!) He worked as a bureaucrat, yet wrote novels in which bureaucracy had created nightmare situations. He died in 1924, barely in his 40s, and published only 7 works, but he has become something of an icon. Indeed, the term 'Kafkaesque' has come to mean an intolerable and nightmarish situation (think David Hicks in Guantanamo).
The museum itself was suitable Kafkaesque: the highlight was an entire room consisting of floor-to-ceiling filing cabinets, some containing extracts from his works, a true bureaucratic nightmare. It told some interesting stories, not least the tragic history of Prague's Jews. Kafka was dead by the time the Nazis came, and by the time Stalin came after him, but he still provides a useful focal point for both regimes. Until last century, the city was a venerable melting-pot of cultures, with the Jews a sizeable minority of around 100,000. Hitler ended all that when he invaded and swallowed up Czechoslovakia in 1938-9: the Jews were moved to a ghetto, and then annihilated. Today just 3500 have returned to the country. However, the old Jewish Quarter remains, including the intriguingly-named 13th-century Old-New Synagogue, Europe's oldest.
After
New World Symphony guy
A statue of Antonin Dvorak, one of Czech's top classical music dudes 1948, when Czech became a Soviet satellite, Kafka was barely tolerated. The events of the Prague Spring of 1968, when a spontaneous burst of liberalism threatened to end the Russian stranglehold, hardened the attitude of the authorities. Kafka was banned, and scholars of his works were persecuted. This sort of dictatorial bureaucracy was exactly what he had predicted in his books, but Czechs weren't allowed to read them to see that. In 1989, the 'Velvet Revolution' occurred, and Czech cast off its communist cloak. Kafka was rehabilitated, and no longer represented dissent and bourgeois idealism: now he stood for modernity, sophistication and liberalism.
I have kept an eye out for any vestiges of the communist regime that dominated Czech for four decades. The country has done a pretty good job of getting rid of that history. In fact, the only thing I saw today that alluded to it was the newly-opened Museum of Communism. Two things that show, quite beautifully, the esteem in which that part of Czech's past is held: One: the promotional poster for the museum shows a Russian doll, with sharp fangs exposed. Two: the museum is housed in a building that also holds, directly below,
Jon Voight died here!
At least, I think this is where he faked his death in Mission Impissible. The Charles bridge, leading into the loveliest sections of Old Prague over the Vltava River. Prague Castle is visible on top of the hill a McDonalds; and, directly, next door, a casino. Now,
that would really give Stalin the shits...
My very own Bohemian Rhapsody ends as quickly as it began, with me heading back to Germany tomorrow, and then, finally, on Monday, to Egypt...because I do recall telling everyone some time ago that this was meant to be a trip to Africa. Stay well all.
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Martin
non-member comment
sweet jesus
You are veru handsomwe