More on Prague

by annie

Prague is a place where you can meet people our age who grew up during communist times. Maybe their parents are still communist. The Velvet Revolution of 1989 got it's name from the smoothness and peaceful nature of it's process. After only 10 days of non-violent protest, the Soviet occupation withdrew. It was part of the greater resistance throughout parts of Europe.

You can still see bits of communist influence throughout the Czech Republic (which split peacefully from Slovakia in 1992). For instance, the Astronomical Clock in Olomouc was repaired under communist rule after a fire and represents typical communist propaganda- the anonymous working man, a hero. Working was a virtue. Low wages didn't matter to an ideal communist hero. He worked for the sake of working, for the good of everyone. In fact, he worked longer hours than his colleagues and volunteered to work on holidays, rarely taking a day off. He sought no recognition and little compensation, yet he knew that working long, extra hours played an integral part in the fight against the United States. Through propaganda, the Soviets had to work hard to convince Czechs that USA was the enemy. An example of a notice posted by timecards: While the anonymous heroes were working hard for the collective, supply and demand got all wonky and store shelves were empty. Only those with enough money to pay "behind the counter" prices could obtain what they needed. It goes without saying that those working the hardest generally did not have the means to exercise such privileges.


After a lovely time in Olomouc, we returned to Prague for 2 more days, milling about parks and random neighborhoods, and hopping on trolleys just to see where they went. We climbed up the tower of the New Town Hall, admiring the photo exhibit entitled "Intimacy" on the way up. And we stared up at the Praha Tower, creeped out by the giant babies crawling all over it.














Barka and Tomas hosted us for the last two nights in Prague. They gave the insider scoop on Czech beer while Barka played the accordion for us and even let us try. She fed us fantastic mushroom soup, creamy Czech honey and homemade chestnut cake. Over breakfast, Brian and I noticed that one of their tarantulas had apparently escaped. It sat on the wall opposite us as we devised a game plan to prevent it from crawling into our sleeping bags in our absence. Later that night, we learned that it was a decoration made of real spider skin ( kind of like the deer heads you see on hunters' walls, except different because, for instance, you know that the deer didn't escape from the woods and suddenly poke his head into the hunter's wall. You know it's not alive. Furthermore, deer heads, to my knowledge, are not poisonous). We had a good laugh of course, at our own expense. We had fun with Barka and Tomas, and they recommended great places for us to visit, including Kutna Hora, a 1 hour train ride east of Prague.

There we walked around the Gothic historic district, visited the Corpus Cristi- a cavernous ossuary, toured the alchemist museum and cursed our luck when we arrived right at closing time of the more elaborate ossuary located in a church on the edge of town. We arrived back in Prague just in time to catch the overnight bus to Budapest.

If you missed our account of Olomouc, click HERE.