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Wish You Were Here

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Dear Tourists, Please come back Page 10

Anyone living in Prague has probably resented at some point the masses of tourists constantly streaming

through the city centre, the ubiquitous Bohemia crystal souvenir shops, the CZK 75 beers. But the crowds are noticeably thinner this year thanks to the economic downturn. And although the emptier streets may seem like good news for locals, those in the hospitality industry are understandably worried. Visitor numbers have fallen by more than 17% in the first quarter of this year, the biggest decline since the 2002 floods. Centrally located restaurants, travel agencies and shops are all noticing a significant drop in customer numbers.

Hotels in particular are feeling the painful effects of the crisis, with high-end establishments experiencing the biggest drop. Occupancy at Prague’s five-star hotels decreased by 18% in the first three months of 2009 compared to the same period last year. Four-star hotels have dropped by an average of 8%. In a move that industry insiders say is ill-advised, many of the hotels have entered a price war that is hurting their brands and their bottom lines. One of the main conclusions of a conference on tourism held in Prague in mid-June was that price-cutting alone won’t do the trick. Hotels and other hospitality services need to strengthen their brands, set themselves apart from the competition and offer their customers something unique. Our special report on Prague’s tourism industry (pages 10 to 15) examines some of the strategies businesses are adopting to stay afloat, and looks ahead at the possible long-term effects of the current slowdown.

Not everyone is complaining about the economy as you will learn in Crisisbusters (page 16), an article translated from Respekt. Crisis managers, the last resort for many struggling companies, are experiencing booming times right now. Analysts predict that some 1,600 local companies will become insolvent this year, a quarter more than in 2008. The industry joke is that business card producers are making good money because everyone wants a card that reads “crisis manager” these days.

Struggling to stay afloat is nothing new for social businesses. A fairly common concept in western countries such as the UK and the US, companies that aim to help people undergoing treatment – psychiatric patients, recovering addicts – in the Czech Republic can be counted on the fingers of one hand. A thicket of bureaucracy and insufficient state support is partly to blame as Labours of Love (page 18) reports.

What else? A review of a recently released book of photographs published by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes that collects photos taken by communist-era secret police agents. Slow Food, a movement that seeks to promote the careful preparation of local ingredients and turn back the clock on the McDonaldisation of the food industry. Terezín, the former military fortress and World War II concentration camp, and its struggle to find a modern-day identity while coming to terms with its painful history. Loft-living in Karlín. A weekend trip to Litomyšl. And a cross-cultural look at the issues surrounding circumcision. Happy reading.

Kristina Alda

editor ia l

praguemonitor.com 03

03 2009 | 26 June - 9 July

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ISSN 1803-9286

Evidenční číslo: MK ČR E 19023These days, there's no problem getting a street-side seat. | René Jakl

Editorial

News & Politics

The Top Prince

Commentary

In the News

Roundup of the last two weeks

No Point Talking About the Euro

Q&A with the finance minister

Monitor Report

Roads Less Travelled

The tourism torrent is now just a trickle

Survival Tactics

Crisis draws ethical battle lines for hotels

Business & Real Estate

Crisisbusters

Staying solvent via mercenary management

Labours of Love

Plus, the hard fight for a glass from the faucet

Lofty Visions

Praguescape

Life & Culture

Old Obstacles

Building a future amidst history’s horrors

Within the Walls

Photo Essay

Big Brother's Family Album

Book review

Taking Time to Taste

Savouring over scarfing

The Return of Herold's Wheat Beer

Beer Culture

Loving Litomyšl

Travel

Filling a Gap

Looking Back

Don't Miss

Karlovy Vary festival, and other happenings

To Cut or Not

Half-n-Half

04 prague monitor magazine | 03 2009 | 26 June - 9 Ju ly

Page 10-15 Destination UndoneIt’s no longer elbow-to-elbow at tourist attractions

table of contents

Page 24 Terezín’s TristesseEver-present past and the road ahead

Page 34 Worth the WaitSlow Food Prague’s ethical eating

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Photo: René Jakl

Photo: Günter Bartoš

Photo: Roman Plocek

Cover photo by Mauricio Flores

Translated from Hospodářské noviny 16 June 09 | article by Tereza Nosálková


commentary

For the third time, Karel Schwarzenberg has switched parties, and he also didn’t

fulfil his pledge that he would give up his beloved ministry post if he were forced to work with Jiří Čunek, a man suspected of corruption. But Schwarzenberg gets away with it. Having suspicions about this power-hungry prince runs tantamount to treason.

Recently, a slightly different Karel Schwarzenberg appeared. This one exchanged Václav Havel’s truth and love for Miroslav Kalousek’s pragmatism. Or he just staked his reputation to an almost impossible objective: to combine these two approaches. “Somebody has to do that,” the 71-year-old former foreign minister said, explaining why he took charge of Kalousek’s Top 09, a new party full of old faces. “They asked me, so I said yes.” The answer is typical Schwarzenberg: He distances himself from power, politics and politicians. He speaks as if he weren’t among them. But his answer still doesn’t explain why he recently fought tooth and nail for power – as his involvement in Topolánek’s cabinet implies.

Schwarzenberg brings moral cred and public life experience from the exile the communists forced his family into in 1948. By 1989, when he returned to the Orlík castle, which he got in restitution, he managed several things: wild parties featuring the cream of European society and public activities with a human rights angle. He hadn’t forgotten the fight against totalitarianism, and he strengthened his friendship with Václav Havel to secure a posting after the playwright assumed the presidency. This was how Czech society, newly freed from communist decay, learned to love the aristocrat. People remember Schwarzenberg for his imperfect pronunciation. He has turned his weakness into a strength, adjusting the degree of comprehensibility by topic. When he needed to promote the US radar, he pronounced words with the excitement of a first-year pupil, but when it came to Čunek, it was hard to hear a clear word. The kindhearted prince has some shortcomings.

In the late 1990s, Schwarzenberg was reserved, describing himself as forester and innkeeper. But his professions also included media and liqueur magnate.

From 1993 his money supported Respekt, a magazine of the Havel circles. Two years ago coal tycoon Zdeněk Bakala acquired a majority stake in Schwarzenberg’s R-Presse publishing house. Their partnership didn’t materialise from nowhere. These two became co-owners of Becherovka in the late 1990s. The national elixir’s sale ranks among the most criticised privatisations of the Václav Klaus era. The consortium Salb – consisting of Bakala, Schwarzenberg and French liqueur producer Pernod Ricard – acquired the stake even though its bid was far from the highest.

‘Lunatics’Schwarzenberg entered top-level politics in 2004. He won a Senate seat on the ticket of the Freedom Union, which no longer exists, and as a member of another dead party: the ODA.

Society had to decide definitively what to do about the nobleman in 2006, when Martin Bursík’s Greens began pushing him toward the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Schwarzenberg gained popularity by telling Austrian anti-Temelín activists they were “lunatics”. Czechs started to enjoy his straightforward comments.

Europe recently succumbed to his charm when he challenged Nicolas Sarkozy to a duel after European media said the French president wanted to steal the Czech EU presidency. Schwarzenberg hasn’t even shown excessive respect to the US, although he apparently regarded placing an American radar base in a Bohemian forest as key to his role as foreign affairs minister. To him, the radar is part of a fight for a central Europe torn from Moscow’s influence. After a new leader went to the White House, Schwarzenberg found that Obama is not as excited about the radar as George Bush was.

One wonders what cemented the inorganic group of Schwarzenberg,

Kalousek, Topolánek, Bursík and Alexandr Vondra. Perhaps the fragile EU presidency did it. Perhaps the macho feeling that Topolánek’s government got from negotiating the radar played a role. Perhaps it was unity in the face of the bulldozer-style opposition led by Jiří Paroubek.

What many people find surprising is Schwarzenberg’s confidence in the wheeler-dealer Kalousek. Maybe it’s because they sat side by side in the government. But the way Schwarzenberg talks about colleagues gives a better hint. He has said Topolánek was a prime minister with more luck than sense, that he only shares the diplomatic portfolio with Vondra because of their long friendship, and that Kalousek was the only

“non-amateur” in Topolánek’s cabinet.Schwarzenberg’s friendship with Havel,

a supporter of the Greens, brought Bursík’s party into this lot. However, this line seems a bit broken now. Maybe Schwarzenberg has concluded that truth and love can only prevail over lies and hatred if they’re backed-up by the unseen hand of “Richelieu” Kalousek. •

The Top PrinceKarel Schwarzenberg, secret politician

Cou

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EU delegation led by Czech lower house chairman meets HamasCzech Radio reported on 10 July that two advisors to lower house chairman Miloslav Vlček, Jan Kavan and Vladimír Laštůvka, both former ČSSD deputies, were part of a delegation led by the controversial Italian MEP Luisa Morgantini that met with Hamas on 7 June. The two men met with Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union, without Vlček’s knowledge, allegedly. Kavan told Vlček that he believes he was present at the historical moment when Hamas and Fatah shook hands, according to Lidové noviny’s 17 June edition. Prior to the trip, Vlček had repeatedly reassured anyone who asked that the EP delegation to the Middle East would not meet with Hamas. Vlček later condemned the meeting and distanced himself from it. Czech MEP Jana Hybášková, chairwoman of the EU delegation for relations with Israel, called the whole aim of the visit wrong and said that any contact with Hamas would be a breach of EU foreign policy. The controversy resulted in Vlček ending co-operation with both Kavan and Laštůvka on 18 June. Vlček also postponed his next trip to the Middle East.

Prague scraps bid for OlympicsCity councillors have decided that, because of the financial crisis, Prague will not make a bid to host the Olympic games in 2020. Mayor Pavel Bém, the biggest supporter of the bid, confirmed to Hospodářské noviny on 16 June that the project is unrealistic at the moment, given the unclear level of support from the state and private sector. The cost of preparing the bid had reached CZK 69 million, all of which went to the company set up to manage the offer, Praha olympijská, Lidové noviny

reported on 17 June. About 60% of the money was spent on services, including research, while another chunk went to salaries. Bém said the money was well-spent as the city has gained detailed planning studies as well as advertising from the marketing campaign. The capital city will lack some CZK 3 billion in its budget this year and has therefore postponed or cancelled several other projects, with the aim of saving almost CZK 900 million.

ČR has a new rightwing partySenator and former Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg was named the leader of TOP 09, a new rightwing party that was launched on 11 June by former Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek. TOP 09 – an acronym for the Czech words meaning tradition, responsibility and prosperity – wants to appeal to the voters who supported

smaller centrist parties in the European Parliament elections. Kalousek has said that TOP 09 may run in a coalition with another party. According to a survey conducted by Factum Invenio for the daily Právo, 43.8% of respondents said that they believe the party will be successful with voters. Several KDU-ČSL members, including former Defense Minister Vlasta Parkanová and MP Pavel Severa, left the party and joined TOP 09. Until recently, Schwarzenberg supported the Greens, which had appointed him to the former ODS-led cabinet. Former Green Party leader Martin Bursík told Lidové noviny that he does not understand why Schwarzenberg has accepted the role in TOP 09, saying that the party only represents a steppingstone before Kalousek enters the ODS. Kalousek denied the allegation in an interview with Právo. The party asked the Interior Ministry to register it on 15 June.


in the news

Prague Mayor Pavel Bém (right) and Czech Olympic Committee head Milan Jirásek laughed through the signing of Prague’s bid for the games last September. | ČTK

775 fewer children were born in the first quarter of this year than in the same period last year, according to the Czech Statistical Office.

5,705 The Czech Republic’s public debt is growing by CZK 5,705 per second, analyst Aleš Michl from Raiffeisenbank has calculated.

980,000 About 980,000 people from the Czech Republic are members of the internet social network Facebook.

Lower house passes ‘anti-smoking’ billPress have reported that smokers and the tobacco industry won when it came to a bill in the lower chamber to ban smoking in public places on 10 June. Out of three versions of the bill, MPs approved the least-strict version, which is even more tolerant than the current law. If approved by the upper chamber and signed by the president, the law would make it possible for restaurant owners to choose whether they allow smoking, which would have to be clearly indicated at the entrance. Under the current law, smoking in restaurants and pubs is prohibited if there is no notice clearly designating a smoking area. Tobacco companies do not deny that they have been lobbying legislators, but they see nothing wrong with that, Lidové noviny reported. Václav Stárek, head of the Czech Association of Hotels and Restaurants, welcomed the decision but said that he believes the majority of

restaurants will be nonsmoking within five years.

ČNB: Banks succeed in stress testsThe banking sector could withstand any possible catastrophic economic developments, according to the results of stress tests carried out by the Czech National Bank (ČNB). Even in the worst-case scenario, domestic banks would not need massive support from the state, ČNB governor Zdeněk Tůma said on 16 June. Czech banks have been shielded from the global financial crisis by the country’s high level of savings, high capital adequacy, very small holdings of toxic assets and small debts in foreign currencies. “Despite the risks being significant, the Czech financial sector belongs among the most resilient in the European context,” central bank board member Robert Holman told reporters. Nevertheless, the situation in banks is expected to get worse with respect to the falling number of loans and stricter conditions introduced by financial institutions. The ČNB has been testing banks’ resistance since 2004.

ČR officially in recessionThe gross domestic product decreased by 3.4% in the first quarter of the year, the biggest year-on-year quarterly decline in the history of the country, the Czech Statistical Office announced on 9 June. As the economy shrank for the second quarter in a row, the country has sunk into recession, according to some economists. Analysts said the economy would have sunk much deeper had household consumption not been much higher than expected. However, most economists expect that consumption will slow down and the economy will shrink by 3% this year, the daily Právo reported on 10 June. Compared with the EU average, the Czech economy has been contracting more slowly.


News Wrap“You’re not going to fight, are you?” a nervous-looking police officer asked competing groups of pro- and anti-Klaus demonstrators that had gathered at Prague Castle on 17 June. Prime Minister Jan Fischer’s 20-year-old son and the two children of Interior Minister Martin Pecina have been under nonstop police protection since 11 June due to the neo-Nazi arrests that took place earlier that week. “They disobeyed. Otherwise, I had them quite under control”, Lidové noviny quoted Miloslav Vlček, head of the lower house, as saying about the diplomatic faux pas in the Middle East when his two advisors met with Hamas, which is considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union.

Eighty percent of Czechs sort household waste, but only 47% save water and energy, a recent CVVM survey has revealed. Hundreds of households lost water in parts of Prague 9 on 16 June due to a burst pipeline. A fire brigade saved an ostrich from the Labe river in Řečany nad Labem in the Pardubice region on 17 June. Veolia Voda, the biggest company on the Czech water management market, has launched a campaign supporting tap water in restaurants, the daily Mladá fronta Dnes reported on 15 June. Czechs now prefer drinking wine at home to going to restaurants and drink more quality wines, Lidové noviny reported on 16 June. Czechs drink less beer and prefer to drink it at home, the same paper reported a day later. Kofola Holding, which produces nonalcoholic drinks, almost doubled its sales last year. Heineken will close its breweries in Znojmo and Kutná Hora, media reported in mid-June.

Four 24-hour vending machines selling flowers were installed in the Prague metro. Dismantling began on 16 stalls selling flowers, fast food, and other goods near the Tesco shopping centre on Spálená on 9 June to give way to the future business- and administrative-oriented Copa centrum to be built at the site. The number of shoplifters in supermarkets has increased recently, especially in regions affected by the economic crisis, E15 reported on 16 June.

compiled by Petra Pokorná

8 Christian Democrat MPs and dozens of other party members have either left or are preparing to leave the KDU-ČSL in order to join the rightwing party TOP 09.

For more news go to: praguemonitor.com/breakfastbrief and praguemonitor.com/newswrap

9m A breast cancer fundraiser in Prague’s centre on 6 June raised CZK 9 million.

Phot

o: Č

TK

It has never been as much of a problem to estimate the state budget revenues

in the last 10 years as it is now. It remains unclear whether what is estimated as revenue today will really get to the coffers, This, according to Eduard Janota, one of the most experienced public servants in the Finance Ministry and a man who has participated in putting the budget together for over 30 years. He worked under six ministers as a deputy responsible for the state budget. Now it is he who sits in the position of minister. Does he stand a chance to push through his expert approach against political interests? He himself says that any chance is not very big: “The budget is neither born at the ministry nor in the cabinet,” the finance minister says. “It is always a result of political agreements.” Nevertheless, he wants to attempt a change in state financing, which he thinks is heading for a dead end.

You became finance minister during the crisis. Have you ever experienced a more complicated period in the state’s finances?The time is extraordinary. It was never difficult to create a cushion for extraordinary expenses. Today, we find ourselves in a different situation. The necessary amount of revenue basically does not exist. Moreover, it is not certain that we will really take in what we’ve estimated today. Many macroeconomic formulas that we used to use for calculating the planned intake do not work anymore.

Do you personally believe the economic prognosis your ministry issued?For me, the target budget deficit for this year is CZK 150 billion, but I cannot guarantee it completely. We expect next year’s deficit to reach CZK 170 billion – if economic growth is positive at a rate of 0.5% to 0.8%. That is still possible.

Many economists forecast a drop.The question is which number you choose to believe.

What will you do if economic development worsens? Will you cut expenses or agree to higher state debt?I proposed extraordinary cost cuts. Those, however, cannot be repeated and can only be used in exceptional cases. I got “dead souls” involved in the financing. That means the reserves that the ministries have for empty positions. The catch is usually hidden in the details. Regulation does not solve the problem.

What is the main problem?We can only influence 20% of the state budget expenses. The remaining 80% is given by the legislative decisions of previous

governments. If we fail to implement change, the budget for future years will get even more complicated. We might end up with mandatory expenses and nothing else in our budget within a few years. The situation in Hungary and Latvia should serve as a warning. Moving on the edge of a 7% to 8% deficit will make investors more careful and will make interest more expensive. It is a circle that is difficult to come out of.

You, however, have attempted to involve yourself in the expenses that are not up to you to decide. You are testing the reaction that the slowing down of pension valorisation and limiting social security payments would bring, and you also support freezing public servants’ salaries ...Yes, that is true.


interv iew

Eduard Janota: No Point Talking About the EuroThe temporary finance minister also has dismal predictions for the deficit

Translated from Hospodářské noviny 17 June 09 | interview by Jan Beránek, Zuzana Kubátová


Those measures, however, are politically hard to push through. Has any of the six ministers you have worked for attempted such cuts?Miroslav Kalousek and Jiří Rusnok thought that way. Rusnok was a minister until 2002 and he pointed out the obvious risk of the budget deficit. And that is also why he failed to become finance minister for the second

time. Back then the prominent theory was that “the sources are there”, to use the words of Vladimír Špidla. It was possible to use the sources, as long as they were available, to cover up the deficit and the bad budget structure that was continuously getting worse. We were able to cover the Maastricht criteria with the 6% economic growth. Now, though, the deficit has reached such a level that there is no point in discussing the euro. All debates about euro adoption are unrealistic.

The question is whether a cabinet without a political mandate can push through lowering mandatory expenses?We can get the documents ready for the future government – whether left or right

– to suggest that something needs to be done, that it is impossible to go on like this

forever. We cannot have English taxes and Swedish expenses. I am certain that the measures need to be undertaken on the expenses side mainly.

Where would you cut expenses if you had the power?Some might suspect me of being fundamentally opposed to pensioners. The contrary is true. I think that, with regard to the level of inflation and valorisation mechanisms, our pensioners are relatively better off than families with small children or families with one or both parents unemployed. I think, however, that the problem is hidden inside the net of various benefits and social securities – whether or not they are related to children, sick leave benefits, parental benefits and so on. These expenses are reaching billions of crowns. It is also possible to amend the expenses for those who get their health insurance paid for by the state. Right now we are cancelling the unpopular medical fees and nobody wants to look ahead at what might happen. Due to the falling economy, wages will plummet enormously and so will the insurance payment. The drop in health insurers’ incomes might reach CZK 20 billion. And even if the country’s payment for those insured by the state increases some CZK 10 billion, even if we use the balances from years past, the generated income will be much lower if we cancel the fees.

Wouldn’t it be better to help the economy by commissioning big construction projects that could also lower the impacts of the crisis?I know that infrastructural investment supports economic growth. However, in my opinion, the threat of greater debt and the higher expenses that go hand in hand with it are worse.

Planned privatisation should also bring some money into the budget. Will your cabinet decide on the sale of Czech Airlines (ČSA)?I would like to bring it to a victorious end. But the offer must be appropriate. We will not sell the airline for just any price.

There have also been proposals to fill holes in the budget from the state company ČEZ’s revenues. How do you perceive the possibility of ČEZ paying

out an extraordinary dividend from its profit?ČEZ is the largest income-tax payer, and it also pays out a nice dividend. Just last year the company brought some CZK 19 billion into the budget. I do not understand why people suggest such-and-such dividends. ČEZ needs to operate following the commercial code, not according to political wishes. I considered the call for an extraordinary dividend pure populism.

If ČEZ is to operate purely on a business, as opposed to political, model, why did you exchange the state representative in the company’s board of trustees as soon as the cabinet changed?I only respected the change suggested by my predecessor. Similar to what Minister Tošovský did at the Industry Ministry.

You have worked under six ministers. Did you often think, “If I were doing it, I would do it differently”?Of course I did. I have never liked increasing the mandatory expenses. I used to have a cordial relationship with [ČSSD] Minister Sobotka, but his budgetary policy was different from mine. I had to respect his approach, however.

As a minister in the caretaker government, you still have to respect the politicians. Do you feel more free?Nobody is telling me what to do now. I am more free. I have an opportunity to propose things, to draw attention to something, to describe something. I do not hide anything. I cannot push anyone, and of course it is difficult to convince people who know that the elections are getting close and that more elections will come after these and so on. Budget is always created in Parliament anyway. It is a result of political – I don’t want to say haggling – agreements. My ambition is to prepare a budget that will cut costs as much as possible, introduce it to Parliament, and from then on it is no longer my problem. I can assure you that no one can put together a better budget than we can according to the given legislation. Whatever the outcome, this is my last engagement with the ministry and when the mandate of our cabinet runs out I plan to move into the private sector. If I fail to push through some of the sensible changes when it comes to the budget, it will be the last drop accelerating my departure. •

Eduard Janota (57)A University of Economics

graduate, he has been working

at the budget department

of the Finance Ministry since

1978 and served as deputy

finance minister for 10 years.

Janota wants to keep the

CZK 150 billion state budget

deficit for this year. Next year

he estimates that it will be at

least CZK 20 billion worse.

The debt has reached CZK 1

trillion, and expenses continue

to grow. The state should pay

CZK 82 billion in interest only

within the next three years.

Photo: ČTK

Old Town’s streets and cafes seem somehow emptier these days than

at the same time last year, and Prague’s previously thriving tourism industry is in for its thinnest season in years. Worse, the long-term firming of the crown and the notoriously poor quality of Czech services raise doubts as to whether the crowds will return when the global economy has finally bounced back.

“Our customer numbers dropped by 15% last year,” says Nils Jebens, owner of Kampa Group, which runs five upmarket restaurants in Prague. “The crisis has by now forced most restaurants to introduce

special offers. We have cut prices in general and come up with less-expensive lunch deals.”

Last year the country as a whole attracted some 6.7 million visitors from abroad, roughly as many as in 2007, according to the Czech Statistical Office (ČSÚ). A marked decline among Germans, Brits, Italians and Americans was offset by a magical influx of Russians and Poles (see table: Foreign Guests). But, as the global crunch spread east and the rouble crashed around the turn of the year, even Russians and Poles lost their appetite. The first three months of 2009 saw all arrivals tumble 17.1%, the largest slump since devastating floods shut down Prague in the summer of 2002.

What sector insiders find even more troubling is that this decline and the changing composition of the foreign clientele indicate a more substantial shift in the pattern of customer behaviour and are part of a long-term trend that started years ago and has been merely aggravated by the present recession.

Visits getting costlierUntil a considerable correction in the second half of last year, the crown ranked for years among the world’s fastest-appreciating currencies. Even today, at CZK 19 per dollar,

27 per euro and 31 per pound, tourists pay almost twice as much in constant prices as they did in 2000, when the exchange rate was CZK 40 per dollar, CZK 36 per euro and CZK 55 per pound. With most three- and four-star hotels in central Prague now charging over EUR 100 per night and a dinner at an average high-street restaurant costing EUR 15, the Czech capital is no longer exactly cheap.

A foreign visitor last year spent about CZK 2,200 per day on average, 14%


monitor repor t

Roads Less TravelledLacking infrastructure outside the capital hinders the growth of tourism

Kampa Group owner Nils Jebens

less than in 2007. Russians, Americans, Japanese and Brits were the biggest spenders, but the total amount of money they leave in the country is now shrinking fast with their less frequent arrivals and shorter visits. Total tourism revenues in 2008 declined by 30%, according to a survey by AČCKA, an association of Czech travel agencies. This year revenues are expected to continue in their steep fall.

The owner of a deli near Prague Castle said, for example, that, although her

revenue has not been affected by the recession, compared with 10 years ago, she now sees more tourists and backpackers buying alcohol in a supermarket and snacks from her and then consuming them on a park bench, whereas they previously might have gone to restaurants.

The strong crown has not only made everything Czech more costly for the rest of the world, but also the rest of the world more affordable for Czechs. This has undermined efforts by the Czech

tourism industry to benefit from the locals’ increasing prosperity and to use it to prop up the faltering profits. ČSÚ figures show the number of Czechs treating themselves to a holiday abroad last year jumped by 10%, while their presence in local holiday resorts was the same, although the former cost them about three times more.

Czech exporters and other businesses hurt by the strong crown have long urged the government to adopt the euro as soon as possible. But politicians have


Beasts are bearing a lot less burden, according to carriage drivers, who say that 2009 has been their worst year so far.

»

article by Kryštof Chamonikolasphotos by René Jakl

been hesitant to push the public sector deficit below 3% of GDP, a prerequisite for eurozone membership. As slumping retail sales and corporate profits hurt tax revenue and growing unemployment strains social spending, the country will likely run a deficit of some 5% of GDP in the next two years and will not be able to adopt the euro before 2014. Meanwhile, analysts expect the crown to get even stronger.

Bad publicityYet the biggest obstacle for renewed growth seems to lie in the Czech tourism sector itself. Many travel agents, tour guides, economists and visitors themselves agree that the quality of services, infrastructure and marketing is painfully lagging behind western Europe. Prague cabbies cheat, unwatched purses vanish fast, waiters rarely smile, trains are slow and shabby, museums close too early, castle guides bore visitors to death, and the range of places speaking no English is still shocking, to name just a few common complaints. This, more than anything else, tourism professionals say, discourages foreigners from visiting Prague more than once and maybe staying a bit longer to explore other parts of the country.

“Most westerners who wanted to see Prague have already done so. Now is the time for their second visits,” says AČCKA vice-president Tomio Okamura. “Whereas their first visit was mainly motivated by curiosity, now they expect to relax rather than have to worry about their wallets getting stolen. Our association has been urging Prague City Hall for years to pass a simple law forcing taxi drivers to place the meter on top of the dashboard instead of hiding it behind the gear stick. We’ve called for higher penalties for pickpockets. But the officials do nothing.”

These two most embarrassing deficiencies are now among the first things mentioned by every guidebook – and among the first experiences of those who still come to Prague despite the warnings. To make things worse, international media reported last year on a gunfire exchange in broad daylight between two Russian-speaking mafia gangs in one of Prague’s most touristy streets. A huge Christmas tree collapsed on Old Town Square in 2003, breaking a British tourist’s spine; City Hall only paid damages after being dragged

12 prague monitor magazine

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Taxi drivers not so long ago counted on tourists for illicit income; now they line up in the mere hopes of catching a legitimate fare.


through courts and the media for years.Still, Prague remains a huge magnet.

Euromonitor’s Top City Destination survey ranks Prague as the eighth most popular city in Europe and 23rd in the world. With 3.7 million visitors a year (4 million according to Czech statistics), Prague is a notch above Vienna and draws crowds almost twice as big as Athens, Berlin or Budapest. Where the Czech tourism industry completely fails is in its efforts to make the crowds come back, stay longer than just a night or two and spend more.

The capital can’t do it all“Here the single biggest holdback is the lacking infrastructure in other Czech regions. Prague is the only place offering comprehensive tourist services that meet western standards,” Okamura says with undisguised irritation. “Litomyšl is an UNESCO-listed town and the birthplace of the famous composer Bedřich Smetana. Yet travel agents can’t include it in their catalogues because the place has no four-star hotel that could fit more than 50 guests at a time. Český Krumlov has a small five-star hotel that is always fully booked, so coach tours would rather spend the night in Salzburg on their way from Vienna to Prague.”

As a result, 60% of all incoming tourists never venture outside Prague. Only South Moravia and the chic spas in Karlovy Vary win a noticeable slice at about 7% each; the rest of the country gets meagre leftovers.

This is not because the other regions have nothing to offer. The country is abundant in gorgeous yet affordable mountain resorts, picturesque medieval towns and splendid chateaux, local microbreweries, and the highest concentration of UNESCO World Heritage sites in the world. It is just not able to sell them to tourists.

“Neighbouring Austria attracts 22 million visitors a year; the Czech Republic gets a mere 6.7 million,” Okamura says. He thinks town halls and regional governments should channel EU funding to help build larger four-star hotels with comprehensive recreational and conference facilities ensuring year-round occupancy. To put themselves on the map, Czech towns should develop and adequately advertise their local gourmet specialties and other unsung attractions.

In a number of recent conferences and press releases, tourism professionals have reiterated that cheap beer, Charles Bridge and a few posh Prague hotels simply cannot do the trick alone and that a more comprehensive strategy is needed. “The pooling of financial means for the country’s promotion abroad is based on voluntary agreements between individual businesses and local or state administration,” reads a statement by the the ACKČR tourism association. “A nonbureaucratic tourism law setting binding rules for the country’s marketing would be much more efficient.”

The Regional Development Ministry, which is supposed to coordinate these efforts and pass on EU subsidies to worthy

regions and projects, was until recently headed by Jiří Čunek. Two weeks after his appointment in 2006, it turned out that the minister did not speak a single foreign language, and he spent the rest of his term covering up allegations of corruption and racism earlier in his political career.

“All he did was hold us back for years,” Okamura says. “Tourism is simply not the government’s priority.”

Post-crunch outlooksOkamura insists that the loss of western tourists cannot be reversed. Yet he hopes that the increasingly wealthy central and eastern Europeans, including Czechs, may bring about a partial recovery of tourism figures after the global recession ebbs.

“There are 40 million Poles living next door, which is a tremendous opportunity,” Okamura says. “Slovaks are less numerous but have a special relationship with this country. And a lot of Russians are yet to visit.”

Crowds may eventually return to Old Town streets, only the conversation over coffee will be increasingly in Slavic languages and less in English or German. Restaurateurs and hoteliers may have to tone down their prices a bit to accommodate the new clientele. It is now for the authorities and businesses to decide on the future of the Czech tourism industry. It can remain dependent on visitors flying in for a chic weekend in Prague, or it can exploit the country’s other undisputed attractions to become a major holiday destination, where visitors stay for a week or two and maybe come back next year – just like in Austria. •

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Foreign Guests at Surveyed Lodging Establishments in 2008

COUNTRY ARRIVALS CHANGE SINCE ‘07 AVERAGE NIGHTS

Total 6,653,053 –0.4% 3.0

1. Germany 1,475,717 –4.9% 3.6

2. UK 485,688 –13.9% 2.6

3. Russia 419,012 +30.6% 5.0

4. Italy 375,019 –9.1% 2.9

5. Poland 373,810 +25.0% 2.1

6. US 305,240 –6.4% 2.8

7. Slovakia 301,446 –2.8% 2.2

8. Spain 246,503 –3.9% 3.0

9. France 236,262 0 2.5

10. Netherlands 231,288 –6.7% 3.7

11. Austria 171,401 –3.3% 2.1

12. Japan 123,408 –9.6% 2.0

Tourism is not a priority of the government, says Tomio Okamurafrom the ACČKA association. | Courtesy

Source: ČSÚ

At the Aria Hotel, a 52-room music-themed establishment a few doors

down from the US Embassy on Tržiště street, lodgers can eat their lunches off of Rosenthal plates created by Josef Blecha and featuring the caricatures of such legends as Jimi Hendrix and Johnny Cash. They get a loaner iPod loaded with thousands of tunes at check-in, and a music library will fill any gaps should they need to customise their soundtrack while staying in, say, the Elvis Presley room. It’s amenities like these that helped the Aria earn the Tripadvisor Travelers’ Choice award for 2009 as the best luxury hotel in the world, and it’s awards like that that help bring in faces – especially in lean times.

On a recent afternoon, US businessmen milled around in the lobby, another American caught a cab, and a Canadian

couple was checking in. Petra Daliborová, the hotel’s marketing and PR manager, says the bulk of the clientele comes from across the Atlantic, something she attributes to the location near the embassy and to positive coverage in the North American press. Still, she says, times are tough: “We feel it.”

Occupancy at Prague’s five-star hotels was down 18% for the first quarter of 2009 from the same period last year, four-stars have seen an 8% drop, and pensions have dipped 6.5%. The capital city – which has more hotel rooms than nearby Vienna, for example – is struggling to bring tourists in this year during the financial crisis, which has caused some establishments to drastically cut rates. The problem with such price wars is that hotels use short-term tactics instead of employing long-run

strategies, and a shoddy stay will not only turn guests off to the place they’ve booked, but perhaps to the city itself.

‘Trying to steal business is not a long-term solution’

According to CzechTourism’s Markéta Chaloupková, four- and five-star hotels appeared resilient last year, at the start of the crisis, but their numbers have fallen sharply in the first quarter of 2009. And that’s when the prices began to fall. Nobody interviewed for this article would name names when referring to competitors that had significantly cut their rates, but clearly almost everyone considered the practice to be treachery.

“What many people don’t want to do is cut costs, because we have to optimise,” said Michal Chour, general manager of the

Survival TacticsHigh-end hotels are struggling to come up with effective crisis-coping strategies

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Radisson SAS Alcron General Manager Michal Chour says hotels cannot compromise quality. | Martin Mráz

by Milan Gagnon


Radisson SAS Alcron Hotel on Štěpánská street. Hotels that go that route, in his opinion, are taking the wrong bait and using poor practices to compete. “You try to steal business from everybody else, which works for two months or less – until the other side wakes up,” he said. “It’s not an individual fight. Trying to steal business is not a long-term solution.”

At a recent tourism summit organised by BlueEvents, industry professionals looked at the issue. Four- and five-star hotels rather than lower-level lodging are facing the biggest problems, according to BlueEvents’s Barbora Krásná, but engaging in price wars simply hurts their brands and bottom lines. “What is evident is that they are in crisis,” she said, adding that price wars only make the problem worse. It is

“killing them”, she said. “People want more than low prices.”

Still, hotels can’t ignore the tough times. “The price factor has definitely become the main factor to keep the business going during the global economic crisis, but cost control, efficiency and the productivity of our staff are further

elements we concentrate on,” said Dana Tomášová, marketing and PR manager of andel’s Hotel and Suites and the angelo Hotel Prague, four-star establishments in Smíchov. She wouldn’t specify strategies employed by her hotels, saying just that the group is working on innovative sales and marketing ideas. She also wouldn’t point out competitors’ poor practices, but she said she was aware of them.

Overall, the occupancy in Prague is expected to drop to below 50%, according to an estimate by Mag Consulting and reported by ČTK, a significant drop from 2008’s 55.4%.

And the prognosis is not good. “The crisis in tourism, the first signs of which already showed up in statistics for the second quarter of 2008, will extend until at least the end of 2010,” Mag director Jaromír Beránek told the news service. “We can expect that smaller and midsize hotels won’t resist such pressure and will have to close down,” he added.

It seems that many in the industry anticipate this culling effect. “I don’t think everybody on the market is going

to sustain,” Chour said. “Everybody’s losing. The strong performers will become stronger, the average performers will become weaker, and the ones which have been bad will not be around anymore.”

The Aria, for example, is doing well enough for now, but as an independent hotel it doesn’t have funding from an office elsewhere in Europe or in the United States, so it needs to stay strong through the crisis. “It’s much harder if you know that you don’t have any backup, so we have to do the best to have the money to run this hotel,” Daliborová said.

And if things pick up again after next year, the hotel industry could be set back even after the tourists return. “It takes approximately five years to stabilise rates, according to the experience of our hotel colleagues from abroad,” Tomášová said.

“On the other hand, the principles of the market economy might cause that the small independent hotels will not survive and their business will be overtaken by international well-established hotel corporations like our Vienna International Hotels & Resorts and others.” •

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In high times, the Czech economy had no demand for certain well-compensated

adventurers, brilliant negotiators, butchers unafraid of painful decisions. Now, crisis managers represent collapsing companies’ last hopes.

“This is a wonderful time – brutal, but fair,” Václav Novák says. “Much fairer than the seven previous years.” Novák has a mythical reputation in Czech business. Since he returned from exile in the 1990s, he’s managed to rescue several companies burdened with multibillion-crown debts. The younger crisis managers who worked with him then still get occasionally called

“Novák’s children”. However, during recent years of plenty, his experience seemed unnecessary. Last autumn, everything changed. “I get about one call a week: heads of companies, shareholders, creditors or banks,” Novák says. “My rule is to at least meet them and give some advice. But I carefully choose the businesses I rescue in the end. At the moment, I’m negotiating six offers.”

Experts estimate the economic crisis will make more than 1,600 businesses insolvent this year, 25% more than last. Recession diminishes orders, production slows or stops, and banks pressure firms to settle loans. After unpaid invoices, suppliers stop co-operating; employees fear they’ll lose their jobs. Nobody trusts the old management, talks with creditors stall, and debts grow markedly. External rescuers step in as a last resort. Firms need managers who don’t bear the burdens of bad reputation and blame for previous failures – bosses capable of risks and sharp cuts. “As recently as last year, clients typically sought CFOs who would introduce shares on the stock exchange,” says Jan Bubeník, head of a headhunting company. “Now they want crisis managers to cut costs and rescue companies.”

A simple ideaWhen Václav Novák escaped communist Czechoslovakia, he sought adventure, so he went to northern Canada, where he taught

children math on an Indian reservation for two years. He finished business studies at 35 and returned here just before he turned 40. “I had a simple idea: to manage the biggest problem available,” he says.

He offered to fix companies’ problems, but nobody seemed to need his services.

“I saw that firms were unhealthy, but management didn’t realise it,” Novák says.

“So I waited. After all, when you’re struck by a tram and lying on the traffic island in a pool of blood, your willingness to do what the doctor says increases.” His first major opportunity came late in the 1990s with the engineering company Stavostroj heading toward bankruptcy. Within two years, he cut costs considerably and production resumed. The plant was sold to a supranational company. This made him a sought-after crisis manager and a candidate for the biggest Czech restructuring project at the turn of the millennium: the rescue of state-run Vítkovice Steel.

“People from the ministry offered several times for me to take charge of the company, but I said no because they wouldn’t give me enough power,” Novák says. “To do your job well, you need almost dictatorial powers early on.” The government finally gave in, and Novák moved to Ostrava to become the crisis director of a company with 12,000 employees and CZK 15 billion in overdue debts.

“Crisis management is not nuclear science,” Novák says. “You can come up with solutions using common sense. You have to have a plan, set clear rules and persuade people. You need a story to tell them. Rescuing a company is about selling a story that is always painful, but you have to promise that something good will come. People usually like their companies and will tighten their belts for the firm. They accept bad news very well if they get it beforehand and if good news follows.”

He called employees to the local stadium and told them what would happen. “You must be brutal in the beginning because there’s no other choice,” he says, “but never tell lies; otherwise, you lose people’s

confidence and it’s over.” Almost half the workforce had to go, and he sold off some assets and subsidiaries. The hardest part was persuading suppliers and banks that they’d never get 100% of what Vítkovice owed, but, if they resumed shipments and loans and didn’t force the company into bankruptcy, they’d eventually get part of their claims. Crisis managers don’t carry the burden of previous failures, so creditors trust them. In two years, Vítkovice made it through the worst, and many regard Novák’s involvement as a textbook example of well-done transformation.

A fast fallCrisis managers get generous pay. “It’s multiples of standard managerial wages, though, of course, it depends on what companies can afford,” Jan Bubeník says. “They come for limited times, and remuneration often depends on achievements: maybe a percentage of savings, profit or company shares.” Risk abounds, and crisis managers only have their reputations, so high pay makes sense.

Abroad, crisis managers mainly comprise older experienced businessmen who no longer work day to day but enjoy temporary adrenaline tasks to liven up financially secure existences. The Czech economy does not yet have this type of boss because of short free-market experience.

“They’re people aged between 50 and 70 who experienced the business cycle several times, so they can recognise a storm when the first cloud comes,” Bubeník says. “Here, those with experience did restructuring of industrial companies in the 1990s or worked in cyclical sectors like the paper industry. That’s also why companies are now inviting crisis managers from abroad.”

For many managers, the recession represents an opportunity to test skills. Triton’s Miroslav Hudeček originally studied teaching. However, working for trading companies for years, he found his way into the position of a turnkey manager that his parent company lends to other businesses for various tasks. Over a decade in this job,


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CrisisbustersWho you gonna call? Nowadays, companies ring hired guns

translated from Respekt 15 - 21 June 2009 | article by Petr Třešňák

he has established Czech branches for an Austrian bank, advised the head of a US telecommunications company and helped transform the Česká spořitelna bank.

Three months ago, he became a crisis manager for an engineering company with 40 employees that manufactures machine components and closed-circuit television cameras; it lost a key customer when the automotive industry fell, and began to experience problems.

“This happens with small and midsize firms,” Hudeček says. “They rely on key customers, and, when they lose them, they go down immediately.” Owners of small businesses have a more difficult time acting resolutely and come less-informed about the market.

They also fear letting outsiders into the companies they’ve built. After a few days, Hudeček won the owner’s confidence and they worked out a plan. They had to dismiss some employees and create a strategy for acquiring orders. “The firm didn’t have an efficient promotion policy or its own business plan,” Hudeček says.

“Now, we call about 40-50 firms a week, which leads to about 10 meetings and one or two orders. We’ve decided to focus on the food industry, which needs machinery and hasn’t been hit as much by the crisis.” After three months, Hudeček finds himself mid mission and thinks he’s basically won: The company is talking with 15 new customers about supplies worth CZK 20 million.

Tough times as opportunityIt doesn’t always work so well. Companies can fall past the point of resuscitation. The break-even point is hard to guess, and analysis is as important as intuition. “I don’t fight to lose, but to win,” Václav Novák says when asked why he refuses a great deal of offers.

Last year, he refused to take over management of a printing house that ran debts and had to stop production. Soon after, managers from Boston Venture looked at the company. Tomáš Lhoták and his American colleague Mark Sanders worked for a government restructuring agency and managed the transformation of Tatra Kopřivnice and Zetor, for instance. They agreed with the printing house owner to buy two-thirds of its shares for a symbolical price of CZK 3.

“We had to fire 200 people immediately,” Lhoták says. “The firm hadn’t calculated what pays off and what doesn’t, there was enormous waste, and a large portion of the output was defective products.” A 90-page analysis of opportunities helped convince banks and creditors to give the company a chance. Customers accepted that they would only get 30% of claims (better than nothing), and production partially resumed.

It has become popular to seek opportunities in the crisis, and looking at how troubled businesses are managed suggests one possible answer. Bad times teach managers forethought and efficiency. “Czech firms and banks typically wait terribly long before dealing with problems,” Václav Novák says. “They simply think problems will fade away somehow. But they won’t.”

The crisis works as a remedial treatment that not everyone survives, and that might seem unfair because it hits some sectors entirely, and no cure exists for that. “I see this time mainly as an opportunity that companies, which have no right to economic life, will cease existence because managers didn’t want to notice problems and deal with them,” the headhunter Bubeník says. “And the supply of people, money and raw materials will be redistributed in a better way.” •

For further information please contact:

Turkish Airlines, Václavské náměstí 19, 110 00 Praha 1, tel.: +420 234 708 708, [email protected]

Explore the world with Turkish AirlinesTel Aviv 4 044 CZK Damascus 4 444 CZKDubai 4 444 CZKTbilisi 4 444 CZKJohannesburg 5 944 CZKBangkok 7 444 CZKShanghai 7 444 CZKBeijing 7 444 CZK

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*prices do not include taxes and fees ** prices are valid until 31st March, 2010

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A goat path leading from the Zoo bus stop to the Botanical Garden in

Prague’s Trója goes around a house with a sign advertising gardening services. Anyone passing by in the morning may see a group of people with yard tools digging around the hilly place. Few would notice that these gardeners have psychiatric problems.

Alice Frelichová, 31, developed schizophrenia eight years ago when she was working as a shop assistant. Since 2004 she has been receiving full disability benefits. From 2005 to 2006, she worked as a cleaning lady at a bar, and she came to the Zahrada centre three months ago. “I like working here,” she says. “The people here are nice, and the pay is better than when I worked at a bar.”

Her colleague Milan Kmoch, 34, a patient with paranoid schizophrenia, came to Zahrada nine months ago. “I like almost anything we do here,” he says.

“It’s a great experience, and one learns a lot about gardening.” He had previously worked as a garbage collector and as a car mechanic in Dejvice. He now wants to continue gardening.

Zahrada’s main goal is to provide jobs for people with mental illnesses and help them lead normal lives. Up until May 2006, the centre was registered as a protected workshop within Fokus, a nonprofit association for mental health that organised a conference on social firms two years ago and is preparing another for September. But Fokus wanted to gain bigger financial independency and decided to transform Zahrada into a social enterprise three years ago. The firm provides gardening services from repeat or one-off maintenance to general cleanup and planting of flowers and shrubs. “The only difference from a regular company is that we employ people with mental illness,” says Zuzana Strnadová, one of the gardeners.


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Labours of LoveSocial companies face too much bureaucracy and not enough support

Former mechanic Milan Kmoch has refined his gardening skills. | Kateřina Heilmann

Excessive paperworkThe concept of social enterprise, which serves disadvantaged people and is quite common in countries such as Great Britain, Italy and Austria, is being adopted in the Czech Republic with difficulties. The first social firm registered in the Czech Republic was Jůnův statek. For 10 years now, the restaurant and guesthouse in Sedlec, near

Prague, has employed people with mental illnesses.

According to socialnifirmy.cz, a portal that provides information on social business, there are currently three such firms registered in the Czech Republic. The model was created as part of a project on developing social firms in the period between 2005 and 2007. The project

was organised and implemented by Fokus Praha and the civic association Sananim, which works toward drug addiction treatment. The project drew inspiration from partner organisations in Britain and Italy.

“There are very few social firms here because it requires too much paperwork,” says Petra Jiráňová, one of the managers at Zahrada. “State institutions make it harder for us instead of supporting a good thing. Imagine, each of our clients must collect a number of permissions from various places to get this job. These people find it difficult just to take public transportation and go out in the streets. Now imagine they must go from office to office.” Zahrada currently employs 10 people part-time and is preparing to hire one more. The capacity is 12. “We can’t take anyone who applies,” Jiráňová says.

“We sometimes leave for work before rush hour in the morning, which is something our clients may not handle. They take medications, and too much work makes them tired. But if they are financially motivated and treated with respect, the boys are able to work all day long without any problems.” Work at the nearby Botanical Garden, with which Zahrada has an agreement, is especially popular among the clients. “Working at botanická is usually less demanding than working for other customers,” she says.

The ability of the clients to adjust to a workload played a role in the process of transforming into a social firm. Some clients could not be hired because their health was too poor. That’s why a selection process took place under the supervision of a social expert. Now the company receives enough orders even in winter, when the work is restricted to making ad stickers, which is something men especially get tired of doing after a while.

Bureaucracy is not the only problem behind establishing a social firm in this country. A lack of finances, insufficient state support and missing legislative framework are among those problems often mentioned by people involved in the business. “Ever since we established our cafe in 2005, the conditions haven’t changed much,” says Marcel Ambrož, a social therapist with the Sananim addiction program. “A grant for this year has been


»

by Kateřina Heilmann

Alice Frelichová is relatively new to the gig, but so far, so good, she says. | Kateřina Heilmann


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provided through the European Social Fund, but this doesn’t include Prague.”

Sananim's Cafe Therapy is another social enterprise. The cafe, situated in the centre of Prague on Školská street, employs the clients who have been treated for addiction at Sananim’s Doléčovací therapy centre. Café Therapy provides them with the qualifications they need to be able to compete for jobs in the gastronomy sector. Since its opening in 2005, the cafe has employed 38 clients and more than 80% of them live normal lives now, according to Ambrož.

But the economic situation is not as good. “We are in the red even though the loss is not as deep,” Ambrož says.

“But we are not making any profit these days. Making our business transparent is the main reason behind it.“ Many in the gastronomy business earn wages as low as CZK 10,000, which means the employer pays less to the state. Sananim, on the other hand, pays a standardised wage depending on clients’ education and experience. What also contributes to the loss is the fact that the company, as any other social enterprise, employs a higher number of staff than necessary as Sananim clients have no experience with gastronomy services.

Finding the right balanceAnother social firm may open in the country soon. The Czech Environmental Partnership Foundation organised a workshop in Prague several weeks ago with an aim to establish a social bike business. The event was attended by Sue Knaup, an executive director of One Street, a nonprofit international organisation that works to increase bicycling mainly through establishing social businesses.

After talking to a number of local bicycling promoters, Knaup expressed high hopes for the project. “I have been astonished how pervasive the understanding is,” she says. “Sometimes I don’t even finish my introductory sentence naming the Social Bike business programme before someone excitedly interrupts offering comparisons to other legitimate social businesses. People absolutely get it, no matter what part of the world they are in.”

The Partnership Foundation, together with representatives from the AutoMat

At the Therapy cafe, recovering addicts man the tables to ease their transition from drugs to day jobs. | Martin Mráz

“I find it very helpful having the option to work with people with the same experience,” 22-year-old Monika Svobodová says. | Martin Mráz

Therapy has employed 38 clients since opening in 2005. | Martin Mráz

environmental project, is currently looking for a suitable place and a business concept to establish a centre that would provide locally manufactured affordable bicycles and riding lessons for disadvantaged people, and training for repairs, customer service, management and shop ownership. It would be owned and operated by disadvantaged people, and all profits would increase service to disadvantaged people. “I feel that One Street’s international Social Bike Business programme has caught a rising wave and we are in the perfect time to bring our bicycle expertise to this social business movement,” Knaup says.

Despite all the obstacles to the social

business movement, the number of enthusiasts is slowly growing. A new firm established by the Rozmarýna organisation is opening in July to help children from state homes through various programmes. Children will work at the new Café Rozmar on Prague 2's Trojická street between Palacký square and Výtoň.

The people from Rozmarýna have already selected the first employees who will work at the café as assistant chefs and waitresses. Since the main goal is to give them job experience, have them get used to regular working hours, and increase their motivation and sense of responsibility, they will be getting only

half-year contracts. Once they leave, they will see if they can use their experience.

“We’d like them to realise that working as a cook is not a low-class job,” manager Zuzana Hippmannová says.

Simona Bagarová, who is a PR manager and fundraiser at Rozmarýna, says it took three years to find money and a good place for the project. “When starting four years ago, we had difficulties finding information that would help us set up the business. People here don’t know what a social firm was. We were lucky to get help from Café Therapy,” she says.

“No one has found yet the right balance between making profit and supporting the disadvantaged.” •


You have to have courage if you want to order ordinary tap water in a restaurant

or pub in the Czech Republic. In the best case, the staff will comply with your

“strange” wish, but they will accompany your order with a meaningful shrug of the shoulders or roll their eyes. In the worse case, they will refer to sanitary regulations, and they will not serve it to you.

The supranational water company Voda Veolia is currently trying to change this “tap unwillingness” with a campaign in which it is offering restaurants original glasses and the results of a survey it commissioned, according to which, 86% of Czech guests would like to drink tap water with their coffee.

For more than a year, Václava Kuncová’s website vodavoda.cz has promoted, independently of that company, drinking

“ordinary” water. Besides a statement by the sanitary officer on the quality of tap water and its bottled “sisters”, the website also contains a table evaluating restaurants’ attitudes toward serving from the faucet. Vodavoda.cz has evaluated about 100 restaurants and cafés; the marks correspond to the Czech school system. No 1 is given to restaurants that will serve tap water automatically or that offer it, while

No 5 is given to restaurants that do not serve it at all, often explaining that the owner or sanitary officer forbids doing so. Out of 100 businesses, about 10% received a No 1, while half of them got No 5.

Even this rebellious website notes, however, that to offer tap water just by itself is not appropriate: “The evaluation is not relevant without a meal, and it is not even suitable to request something like that,” vodavoda.cz says. It is not inappropriate, though, if you are west of the Czech border, best of all in France, where serving tap water for free is even

required by law. Tap water must be served on all occasions – that is, with wine, coffee or just by itself.

The obligation ensuing from the relevant law has become part of common culture in France, while in the Czech Republic customers still await the traditional Yes or No. Some restaurant owners are excited about the campaign for free tap water, others disagree with it, and the rest are calculating how much washing glasses will cost them. They are willing to offer tap water for a symbolic price, but not on the drinks menu. •

Water, if You PleaseOrdering from the tap in Czech restaurants raises eyebrows

translated from Respekt.cz 17 June 2009 | article by Kateřina Čopjaková

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Before the floods of 2002, Karlín was a crumbly sort of neighbourhood

with vast abandoned factory complexes, elegant but battered apartment buildings and broken-up cobbled streets. In spite of this, Karlín never felt like an urban wasteland. Tucked just north of the city centre in Prague 8, the neighbourhood always had a distinct community feel to it, with locals actually hanging out in the streets, kids riding on bikes, dog-walkers stopping to chat.

Much has changed in the last seven years. The factory buildings are still there, but most now wear new coats of paint on their repaired facades. And high-end projects such as the Danube House, Amazon Court, River Diamond and Corso Karlín are changing the face of the former working-class neighbourhood. Happily, the community atmosphere remains. Outdoor cafes have livened up the streets, and grimy pubs still crouch between shops selling designer furniture.

One of the latest additions to gentrified Karlín is Cornlofts, touted as the Czech Republic’s first loft-living complex (if you overlook the much smaller Nuselský mlýn). Like many new projects in Karlín, it is the work of the developer Real Estate Karlín Group, which aims to transform Prague 8 into a high-end neighbourhood.

The complex was designed by the Austrian architectural firm Baumschlager & Eberle and is housed in the shell of a former 19th century refinery. I say shell because just the northern facade of the building has been preserved. Everything else - the floors, the roof the inside walls - has been gutted and replaced with entirely new material. As part of the CZK 400 million reconstruction project, architects Martin Šenberger and Tomáš Šenberger carried out an in-depth study of the former refinery’s history and current condition. Their conclusion was that despite the building’s multifarious roles – it was used as a refinery for only nine years after construction – the refinery was in good shape and that its interiors could be modified to suit their new loft

function without any drastic changes. It seems that the investor wasn’t convinced. Over the last two years, I watched the building’s transformation with a certain distaste and expected little more than a generic luxury apartment complex wearing a historical mask.

Now that the project is all but finished, I am happy to take my words back. The original northern facade on Šaldova street, repainted a shade of warm beige, retains its connection to Karlín’s traditional streetscape. The southern facade, meanwhile, is made up of large moveable milky glass panels, that sit on the side of the building like the scales of an enormous reptile. Across a narrow courtyard stands another building, an entirely new structure, also covered in the glass panels. The transition from the old to the new is surprisingly seamless. The entire complex looks modern and fresh, without overpowering its historical surroundings.

Inside, the connection to the building’s

history is more tenuous and awkward. The preservationists’ demand that windows be kept at their original level on the Šaldova street facade mean that some rooms have relatively small windows at nearly floor level. Also, since the interior has been replaced entirely, the flats (there are duplexes, triplexes and single-floor flats) are not lofts in the true sense. The architects have, nonetheless, tried to covey a sense of openness through the use of skylights and bright open spaces on the southern side, where the sliding glass panels cover terraces that run along the length of the building’s whole facade. In the communal areas, only large black-and-white photographs of the former refinery recall the building’s history

– but the stairwells and corridors, perhaps through the use of iron pillars and clean lines, still manage to convey an industrial character. It’s a building of compromises, but the result is surprisingly compelling. •

Lofty VisionsCornlofts project reflects the changing face of Karlín

by Kristina Aldapraguescape

For more Praguescape stories go to:praguemonitor.com/praguescape


Cornlofts seamlessly combines the old and the new. | Courtesy

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In aerial photographs Terezín looks like a diamond or a snowflake. The city’s

fortification system, with its massive walls and the sharp corners of its ravelins and bastions, radically separates fort from the rest of the landscape. Festung Theresienstadt was constructed in a pragmatic, unorganic way, according to strategic military plans. These days the town is struggling to come to terms with its military heritage and the dark period during World War II.

A proud fortification“Joseph II, the builder of empire, father of the country, laid this founding stone for this eternal structure on 10 October 1780,” the plaque on the fort’s founding stone proudly displays. But the empire did not continue expanding after that: It started shrinking because the expansionist Prussians took over Silesia. The Habsburgs could not afford the loss of another economically important region. In order to prevent a Prussian invasion of Bohemia, they built Terezín and Josefov, two fortifications in the northern part of the monarchy.

It took only 11 years to build Terezín in the swampland near the confluence of the Labe and Ohře rivers. The complex structure, with a pair of defensive circles and a mining and irrigational system, was able to resist artillery fire and was very hard to conquer. The internal town planning was subordinate to defence as well. The checkerboard system of straight streets enabled the fast movement of troops and artillery. The military authority required that even civilian buildings be equipped with resistant vaulted ceilings and that houses not be taller than the internal rampart. The military element prevailed over the civilian one in all aspects.

“The architectural monotony of the fortified town, which was built in a short period of time, was strikingly different from the variety of architectural styles in historic towns,” the historian Andrej Romaňák wrote. The classicistic Terezín is a flat and horizontal town, as if one-dimensional. The tower of the local garrison church is the only major vertical there. Perfectly straight streets delimiting the plain space do not provide any mystery, protection or comfort. At first sight, it seems impossible to get lost here. “The town used to make me

history


Old ObstaclesA former fortress gets used to civilian life and tries to find a new identity

stressed,” says a local water utility worker. Like most other people, he refused to give his name. Perhaps the military paranoia is still present in Terezín. In the end, he at least said that he got used to the town and that he enjoys coming back.

The fortress for 10,000 soldiers cost the empire’s coffers 12 million golden florins, but it was never involved in war operations. Military leaders innovated their seizing strategies and simply avoided forts. Rather than long-term blockades, generals chose the method of quick attacks and decisive battles. Despite that, Terezín fulfilled its role of a military base by simply being there, Romaňák said.

Silence in TerezínWhen arriving from Prague, the entry to Terezín is a long line of tombstones built in front of the Small Fortress to commemorate the victims of Nazi oppression. Along with a huge Star of David and a big cross with a crown of thorns, it makes the area a place of reverence, a national cemetery.

The Small Fortress in Terezín functioned as a place for the oppressed as early as during the monarchy, when cells for political prisoners were built there. “On the first floor of the wing on the left, the Sarajevo assassin, Gavrilo Princip, died of tuberculosis in April 1918,” a sign next to the former military hospital says. During the Nazi occupation, the entire town became a prison. Some 35,000 people died in the concentration camp, and 160,000 others passed through it on their way to death facilities in Poland.

By entering Terezín, we are entering the universe of a death camp, which, because of the extent and burden of what happened, defies words, as philosopher Slavoj Žižek wrote in Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?. In the text, he quotes a Hassidic master, the Rabbi of Kotsk, as having said “There are truths which can be communicated by the word; there are deeper truths which can be transmitted only by silence; and, on another level, there are those which cannot be expressed, not even by silence.” Because of its tragedies, Terezín has become a place where one cannot even remain silent.

Every year, 300,000 people visit the Holocaust memorial. Most of the visitors don’t leave the path connecting the parking lot and the Small Fortress and don’t go to the centre of Terezín. And maybe they

article & photos by Günter Bartoš


Terezín's town square was itself part of the concentration camp.

»

Terezín: young, old, empty

history

don’t even know at all that there is another, much bigger fortress behind Ohře.

Empty townMayor Růžena Čechová comes from a military family and has lived in Terezín since 1955. She says she was unhappy there as she only saw misery everywhere, and wanted to move away as soon as possible.

“Now I am a patriot and won’t hear a word against Terezín,” she says resolutely in her modern office.

Terezín used to be a garrison town in the times of the pre-Munich republic. By 1942, the Nazis displaced all civilians and changed the entire town into a concentration camp. After the war, it was again a garrison town with people migrating and no one being at home there for a long time. The army supervised all activities there, from mowing lawns to repairing water pipes. After the military left in 1997, the town lost its major source of finance and its identity. The population has dropped by more than one-half. These days, the population is at its wits’ end with Terezín. The town is experiencing some strange stopgap period, suffering from a shortage of flats and jobs, but having a surplus of idle barracks and military premises that are slowly falling into ruins. The fortification system tightens the town like a loop and restricts its development.

On this cold day, Jiří Klokočík is riding his bicycle in the empty streets of Terezín. When asked what it is like to live in the town, he waves his hand swiftly: “There is nothing here!” Like most of the local residents, he once depended materially on the army. When the soldiers left, he failed to find a permanent job and now lives on social allowances. “I am homeless. My cow and my garden is what keeps my head above water.”

'Death and misery behind every corner' Terezín’s first attempted recovery came in 2002. Under a generous project, it was to become an international university campus. But disastrous flooding came rather than EU funding. Even a special government commission for Terezín failed to launch the project, worth CZK 10 billion to CZK 12 billion. “It was all megalomaniacal and impossible to finance,” Čechová said. “No university wanted to participate in it.”


Few jobs exist aside from security services and gardening.

This railway was once used to bring in prisoners.

The historical barracks, with their beautifully arched passages, are therefore falling into despair. The clacking of the shoes of army horses and the commands from officers are a distant history. The original cobblestones peep through the asphalt of Terezín’s streets, and semiwild cats occupy the empty quarters. It is difficult to find a new purpose for the buildings, which are protected as monuments. “Just guarding and insurance costs us CZK 4 million a year,“ Čechová said. That is a huge burden for a town with a CZK 35 million budget.

What can prevent Terezín, which is known in the world as a point on the Holocaust map, from decaying? Only tourists perhaps. The town hall wants to draw attention to the historical military heritage and build an artillery museum.

As Čechová said, to “offer something other than just the concentration camp”. The town even organised Jozefínské slavnosti festivities, and citizens and visitors liked them. But we are still talking about the site of a former concentration camp. “I can see death and misery behind every corner,” former inmates told the mayor. “How can you have fun here? How can you laugh here?”. The media in the world dealt with a similar problem years ago in connection with Auschwitz: Can there be a disco on the premises of a former concentration camp? The present residents think yes because they want to live normal lives, which involves having fun. However, Auschwitz and Terezín are not “normal” towns. They will never get rid of their stigma. •


history

“There is nothing here,“ Jiří Klokočík says. “Can’t you see that?“

Within the WallsA murderous past, a melancholy present


photo essay

Nowadays, the guards at the ghetto gates are private security.

photo essay by Günter Bartoš


The old army barracks are slowly falling apart.

Terezín’s perfect fortification system was never put to use.

A concentration camp given back to nature


photo essay

Thirty-five thousand people died in the concentration camp.

The recently published Prag ue through the Lens of the Secret Police, a

project by the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes, shows the city and its people as framed by the cameras of the StB. The Czech-English book comprises more than 200 photos, most of which are grouped together according to the files of the monitored individuals from which they were pulled. The photographs are accompanied by brief captions stating the names of the files, the dates when they were taken and the places. Many of the photographs captured people accidentally as one learns from the index, which identifies some of the subjects and specifies the periods during which they were monitored.

The book can be approached from an artistic, as well as historical point of view. On one level, there is the aesthetic value of the black and white photographs; on another, there is the documentation value as the photos powerfully convey the atmosphere of communist-era Prague.

The police photographers' aim was to gather documentation that could be used in convicting the monitored people of anti-government activities. In some chapters, the book offers an inside look into the operational system and development of the Surveillance Directorate and profiles the division’s chiefs. An English-speaking reader will find special notes on the text placed at the very end of the book dedicated to further clarifying the hierarchy of the various institutions and an explanation of the translations used.

The book’s photo editor, Vladimír Bosák, explains in an introductory chapter that he picked the photographs from approximately 7,000 files put together by the Security Services Archives according to the “criteria of the photographs’ aesthetic quality, their falling within the period of normalization (1969-1989), and their capturing the image of the Prague of that time”. Bosák did not use the photographs developed by the secret service but made his own from the negatives.

Because the book can be interpreted on several different levels, it requires the reader’s active participation. Although most of the photographs can very well stand on their own, especially those that include famous Czechs such as Milan Kundera and Miloš Forman, more information would be welcome.

An index at the end of the book groups the photos according to the names of the particular files they were taken from, and an introductory paragraph gives you the name of the monitored person, but that is all. Half of the people in the photographs are foreigners, and one would naturally like to know who they are and what they were doing here. But the book fails to provide any of this information, and the reader is left hanging.

As Jan H. Vitvar notes in the opening chapter, the photographs do a very good job of showcasing the “grey, dead city” that was communist-era Prague. The photographs come across as sombre and grim, though this may be due to the tonal scale chosen by Bosák, who writes that it “adds atmosphere and further transforms the meaning”. One must wonder whether the viewer is thus being invited to perceive the atmosphere of that era as much bleaker than it was in reality.

Vitvar also remarks on the contrast that becomes obvious when comparing the postures and facial expressions of those monitored (supposedly for subversive activities) with the accidentally captured people: “The only people who appear relatively relaxed in the pictures are the

‘subjects’ of surveillance themselves. … It is evident from the pictures taken throughout this tiresome pursuit that those being monitored retained their inner freedom.” Looking through the photographs, one has to agree. Examples include Hadrovský and Viola, on page 211, who even smile for the camera. We’re left to guess whether this was knowingly or accidental: Does the inner freedom spring from the liberating certainty of being watched? Here again, it would be fitting to introduce the stories of the people so that one learns what happened to them and how they fared.

But the many levels on which the book can be read come at a price and ultimately the project feels like a compromise. For an art book offering a historical view of the communist times, there is a disturbing burden attached to each of the pictures, since the viewer cannot escape the reality and the purpose for which they were taken in the first place. For a testimony of secret police practices and the disclosure of how intensely it surveilled the lives of the individuals portrayed, it lacks enough background information to let the viewer understand the full story. •

Big Brother’s Family Album Secret police photographs evoke the oppression of communist Czechoslovakia

book rev iew


by Barbara Bindasová

Prague through the Lens of the Secret PolicePublished in April 2009

Available in bookshops, the library of the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes at Siwiecova 2, Prague 3, or online at www.kosmas.cz/knihy/146632/praha-objektivem-tajne-policie/

Price: CZK 390

Photos: Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes

Once, people sat around the table enjoying quality food. Food bought

from local farmers, baked by neighbourhood bakers, prepared using unprocessed ingredients and cooked to be savoured. It seems like a fairytale, now replaced by ready-made minute-meals in jars and plastic containers consumed without thought about the food’s origins – and often without pleasure. But the international Slow Food movement has strived since 1986 to put the brakes on the fast food life. The Czech Republic counts itself among the 132 countries that compose the 100,000-plus-member organization.

Journalist Carlo Petrini founded Slow Food in the northern Italian town of Bra in reaction to a McDonald’s opening on Rome’s Piazza di Spagna. A parallel to the fast food movement this event epitomised, Slow Food seeks to protect local traditions, bring together producers of excellent cuisine with consumers (or co-producers, as they’re called) through tastings and other events, and reawaken palates by educating people to recognise good fare.

Although the Slow Food movement is headquartered in Italy, Slow Food’s heart is in the local “convivia” that members join to spread the movement’s principles. The 50-member Slow Food Prague began in 2001. It was created by a group of people from various countries who shared a love for food and whose main focus was to find good restaurants where they met for Czech and international cuisine. They also met in one another’s homes to cook the cuisines of their respective countries. In 2005, however, the group shifted its focus to Czech products. Through building relationships with producers, Slow Food Prague supports

Taking Time to TasteThe antithesis of fast food slowly gains ground in the Czech Republic


dining

Left to right: Slow Food Prague’s Eva Jelínková, Zdeněk Štefan and Blanka Turturro

article by Joann Plockováphotos by Roman Plocek

a group of people threatened by industrial manufacturers; provides members and nonmembers with the opportunity to know where their food comes from, what it contains and how it ought to taste; and preserves the heritage of Czech cuisine.

“We would like to find producers who are specialised in good products that are not sold in supermarket chains,” Slow Food Prague vice-president Blanka Turturro said.

“To be in a supermarket chain, you have to be selected on the basis of your investment, and there are so many small and good producers who are unknown because they are not able to be competitive.”

“Cost over quality” is the phrase Zdeněk Štefan, Slow Food member and bakery owner, uses to describe it. The criteria producers and products must meet are defined by Slow Food as good, clean and fair: good as in recognisable to a trained palate for being made from mainly raw materials using methods that don’t alter ingredients’ natural state; clean as in produced in a way that doesn’t harm the environment, animal welfare or humans; and fair in that suppliers are treated respectfully and compensated appropriately. Many consumers buy pre-made fare and are unaware of what’s inside it. “Knowing what the product contains I think is very important,” Turturro said.

Along with working to find producers, who are introduced to consumers through tastings and press conferences, Slow Food Prague holds discussions about various food-related topics, organises lectures by

members and friends of the movement on subjects such as the use of fresh herbs in Czech cuisine, and plans trips and outings for aficionados to enjoy different cuisines. Last winter, for example, members went to a brewery where the entire meal was based on beer.

‘The thing of marketing’Another activity that the group has recently begun, and which has become one of its main focuses, is what members refer to as the presentation of regions. Providing another opportunity to discover good local producers who can then be introduced to consumers, the first instalment was the presentation of the Vysočina region, which took place in May. The products included baked goods, honey, Havlíčkův Brod’s Rebel beer, Mr Liška’s mead from Pravíkovice, wine from northern Moravia’s Sádek vineyard, organic flour from Biomlýn Březník, cheese, smoked meat, an assortment from a Vyskytná chocolatier who produces 60 varieties based on an original recipe from the 1930s, and a selection from the Hotel Jelínkova vila, which has its own small brewery and uses fish from its private lake to serve at the hotel’s restaurant. Along with providing an efficient means of bringing more visibility to Slow Food Prague – in the hopes of recruiting more members, another focus of the group

– these presentations (the next will look at the Pardubice area) offer the opportunity to expose people to regional traditions and remind them of their cultural heritage,

something Turturro and the movement feel is important.

“I think we belong to our country, and our heritage we have inside,” she said.

“Therefore we have to, from time to time, know that Mr. Štefan, for example, produces his sweets because the recipe is from his grandmother. It is very important to know, because otherwise we will forget and we will only eat the thing of marketing.”

The “thing of marketing” is that standardised taste, the result of food made by machine as opposed to by hand. This idea is the impetus behind one of the group’s activities currently in the works: the creation of a list of Slow Food restaurants, which would be followed by the establishment of a group of eateries dedicated to the movement’s principles. Like the local producers, these restaurants would have to meet Slow Food's good, clean and fair criteria. And because the group wants the restaurants to find the majority of their raw materials within the country, but realizes this is not always possible, it has set the very specific criterion that at least 50% of the raw materials must be Czech-made.

Learning to recognise good things“Our recipes are very based on handwork,” Turturro said. “Therefore, today, in our restaurants there is not as large of a selection as in the past. Recipes today in restaurants are based partly on ready-made products. This is a pity because if, for example, you find fruit dumplings already done, it means they were made by machine and all have


»

Svatý Vavřinec serves as the patron saint of cooking and winemaking at U Koně, where Jaroslav Sapík and family grow their own herbs,vegetables and grapes for the dishes and drinks served indoors.

the same taste, but if they are done by the cook, it is another thing.”

One of those cooks is chef Jaroslav Sapík, owner of the U Koně restaurant just outside of Prague. The eighth generation of a family that has been dedicated to the gastronomic trade since the 17th century, Sapík describes his cuisine as modern Czech and old Czech and characterises it by cooking according to the season, by his patient preparation, and by what is most important to him: freshness.

“In the past people didn’t prepare a menu for the week. Everyday they bought fresh products,” Sapík said. “For me it is logic to buy from producers close by.”

Taking part in the establishment of the criteria for the Slow Food restaurants list, as well as the selection of the restaurants, Sapík was approached by Slow Food because his own restaurant meets the criteria. “We didn’t even know we were a Slow Food restaurant,” he said. “The philosophy of Slow Food has just been inside me my whole life.”

The formation of the restaurant group is to satisfy both locals disappointed that the

cuisine in many restaurants is prepared for tourists – “without the taste of home,” as Turturro said some of the friends of Slow Food Prague have complained – but also to serve discriminating tourists and devotees of worldwide convivia who are passing through and looking for a wider selection of regional specialities.

Hosting convivia from other countries is one of the several international activities that Slow Food Prague involves itself in.

“Slow Food is not only to learn and know about one’s own habits, but also about others’ habits,” Turturro said. “Habits from other countries influence your own cuisine.” In addition to cultural exchanges with a group from southern Italy that came to the Czech Republic and invited several local producers for a visit south, Slow Food Prague has participated for the last several years in a biennial international event called Terra Madre, in which small creators from around the world attend conferences and seminars and, most importantly, exchange ideas and insights with one another. Another important cultural exchange is one

with a Germany-based convivium. This past April, Slow Food Prague attended a fair in Stuttgart, Germany, and has been asked by a German convivium to be involved in a children’s education program in which it would organize lessons on the cooking and baking of typical German meals. Turturro says she would like to reciprocate the exchange. Education, which Turturro would like to see as the group’s main focus, is Slow Food’s starting point: teaching children through cooking and exposure to good cuisine.

“You have to educate the children to recognise good things, to have good taste,” Turturro said. “But you can do it only [in such a way] that you teach them to do it themselves: to recognise real taste from artificial taste. If you buy it, you don’t recognise it. You can recognise it only by doing it yourself. These lessons must carry on into the school cafeteria, to the parents and into the dining halls of the elderly. This is infinite work. We are the first fighters; we are not fighting, only teaching the people to recognise good and honest quality.” •


dining

Sapík takes his time preparing the hyperlocal cuisine.

You hit the road for a few days of peace and solitude in South Bohemia and what happens? A great beer that has been

AWOL for years suddenly returns to the scene.The brew in question is the very nice wheat beer from Pivovar

Herold, a brewery I pass each time I drive down to my wife’s family’s summerhouse in Písek. The history of the brewery in the town of Březnice is covered in Ludvík Fürst’s monograph Jak se u nás vařilo pivo (How We Used to Brew Beer). In that book, Fürst quotes documents that mention the production of wheat beer at Březnice in the 16th century. When Herold reintroduced its modern wheat beers in 2002, they were the only Czech wheat beers available in bottles at the time.

That seemed to set off a small wheat trend here. Today, of course, we’ve got the nicely clove-scented Weizenbier from Pivovar Primátor, which is available in Tesco and other big supermarkets around the country. Many brewpubs have started making their own wheats; Duchmaus from Pivovar U Rybiček is even distributed in plastic bottles, a new development for many small Czech brewers. And yet, as far as I can tell, Herold – one of the first Czech producers to make a name with wheat beers in the recent era – had stopped brewing its own by 2007.

Then came last summer’s change of ownership. While the brewery’s black lager remained strong enough to inspire imitations abroad, there were whispers that the new owners might make some changes, including the reintroduction of the wheat. And then, just in time for summer, a shipment of Herold’s wheat beer was delivered to Pivovarský klub in Prague on 14 May.

There’s something interesting on the label: In English, Herold identifies this beer as “wheat lager”, which seems to present a contradiction. As many brew fans know, “lager” is often used as a term for bottom-fermented beers, while wheat beers are mostly top-fermenting. However, that doesn’t mean that this is a wheat-lager hybrid; as I understand it, this beer is still made using traditional top-fermenting wheat beer yeast. Instead, the term on the label is an English-language approximation of the Czech

“ležák”, which refers to the relative strength of the beer, covering those beers produced at 11° and 12° Plato or Balling. (The term

“výčepní”, literally meaning something like “tap” or “taproom”, covers beers brewed at 9° and 10°, even those which are not served on tap or in taprooms.)

So how does Herold’s “wheat lager” taste?Good. It pours a very pretty, cloudy gold with a fluffy white

head. There’s not nearly as much clove in the nose as in other beers; instead, I thought I noted tobacco before I detected a bit of clove on the palate as well as some pronounced barley malt flavours. Perhaps it’s the “wheat lager” on the label, but I thought it was a very Pilsner-like Weizen, reminding me of Weltenburger’s

Hefe-Weißbier Hell in its citrus notes. It has a very light body and is very easy to drink.

The next time you drive by Březnice, you have a very good reason to stop and pick up a case. And while Primátor’s Weizenbier has had a near-constant presence on Pivovarský klub’s tap No 6, that should change in the near future: a recent delivery included bottles as well as several kegs, meaning you’ll be able to try Herold’s wheat beer on draft at Pivovarský klub for a good while to come. •

by Evan Rail

The Return of Herold’s Wheat BeerThe groundbreaking brew had been missing for too long


beer culture

Herold Wheat Beer: A History 1506 Herold brewery in Březnice founded 1990 Herold brand established 1993 First wheat beer in the ČR 2005 Herold wheat beer brewing stopped 2009 Herold wheat beer brewing resumed

AD

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.heroldbeer.com

travel


Litomyšl is a town of about 8,000 people in far East Bohemia, just a stone’s throw

from the historic old border with Moravia. It was founded in the time of the king of iron and gold, Přemysl Otakar II, as a fortified settlement on the Trstěnice way, the trade route that connected the ancient Bohemian and Moravian capitals, Prague and Olomouc, respectively.

The main dish on Litomyšl’s sightseeing menu is its immaculately restored four-winged Renaissance chateau. It’s one of 12 UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Czech Republic. Not only can you tour the fascinating interiors and marvel at the intricately decorated patterns of the facade for hours, but there’s also a sculpture gallery in the old wine cellars, and, if your timing is good, you might even be able to do a spot of tasting.

Classical music lovers visit the chateau year round to see the birthplace of Bedřich

Smetana in the brewery outbuilding. The four rooms are furnished in period style, much of Smetana’s study is preserved, and the entrance fee is only CZK 40. The highlight of the cultural year is the annual Smetana’s Litomyšl opera festival, which runs to 6 July.

Smetana is not the only prominent artist to be associated with Litomyšl, though. The chateau’s wine cellars house a massive collection of the works of the country’s greatest living sculptor, Olbram Zoubek. Former president Václav Havel was often photographed in his office with one of Zoubek’s angelic maidens gazing over his shoulder, and the sculptor’s work is also visible in the dancing fountain of Litomyšl’s monastery gardens and on the main square. There are dozens of sculptures in the gallery, and the gracefully vaulted cellars themselves are worth the symbolic CZK 20 admission price.

Two great artists in one small town, then? Nope, three! Josef Váchal is an artist’s artist who worked in the early part of the 20th century and has a cult following among aesthetes familiar with the Czech scene. Váchal’s life story is known well, thanks to a collection of correspondence spanning decades, and the Litomyšl house that he painted for his patron, Josef Portman, has been restored and opened to the public as a museum. Like Zoubek, you can also see Váchal’s work (this time in reproduction) for free in the murals along a narrow lane running from the main square towards the chateau. But, with an entry fee of CZK 40, can you really afford not to go to the museum?

If you discover Váchal’s lane from the chateau end, following it will bring you to the main square. The statue up near the trees to your right is Smetana, and the tall tower to your left is the old town hall. The

Loving LitomyšlAn oft-overlooked East Bohemian town packs in lots of culture and history

tourist information office and house with the Zoubek window are up a little farther. The square is almost entirely ringed by colourfully painted arcade-fronted houses, a typical feature of the Renaissance period.

Also at the Váchal and Smetana end of the long narrow square is a good place to eat, Restaurace U Slunce. It’s an old fashioned pub serving fortifying meals such as goulash or fried cheese for CZK 60-90. When you are not in the mood for that kind of food, there’s also the Malý Svět restaurant on Mariánská street back toward the chateau. The prices here can be double those of U Slunce, but the food is lighter and fresher and there are nice seats outside with an outlook towards a small park.

If you stay overnight in Litomyšl, Pension Petra is very nice, but the price for one person (CZK 900) is the same as the price for two, so if you’re by yourself, it’s not cheap. U Černého Orla across the street is a very reasonable CZK 400 for one person, and the standard of accommodation is only cosmetically lower than at Pension Petra.

Something to consider, though, is staying in the chateau. There’s an apartment in the old brewery building (Smetana’s birthplace) that is furnished with antiques and available to accommodate small groups at quite reasonable prices. There’s no staffed reception, and you need to arrange an arrival time so that somebody can meet you to let you in, but it’s not every day that you get to spend the night in a chateau, so the slight inconveniences shouldn’t be too hard to put up with.

Getting to Litomyšl is not difficult. Highway 35 from Hradec Králové (58km away) to Olomouc (97km) passes right through it, and buses travel up and down several times each day. If you’re coming from Prague (163km), it’s probably best to take the train as far as Česká Třebová and switch to the local bus at the station.

Litomyšl certainly has as much to offer the visitor as famous destinations such as Karlovy Vary and Český Krumlov do. It’s a mystery to me why it’s not as popular as either of those places. The only reason I can think of is that you can’t get there on a direct bus from Prague and that discourages lazy travellers. I guess that’s good for the rest of us, though, isn’t it? •

by Greg Chandlerphotos by CzechTourism


The popular shopping centre Myslbek looks like one of the many historical

buildings rebuilt in the steel-and-glass style that seems to dominate Czech architecture these days. Except that before this building emerged on Na Příkopě street, there was nothing. Just a park where mothers took walks with their kids. It’s a bit surprising that one of the most expensive and biggest vacant plots of land in Prague was not built up for decades, until the middle of the 1990s.

As a result of various circumstances, there was this strange gap in the middle of a busy street that began to become one of Prague’s commercial and banking centres during the 19th century. Besides some backyard facilities belonging to the houses on the Ovocný trh square, passersby on Na Příkopě could only see the tiny building (address No 21), which looked almost comical among the grand structures surrounding it. The building was owned by the banking union and served as a warehouse for Singer sewing machines.

In 1929 all structures on the site of the current building, from Na Příkopě through to Ovocný trh, were demolished to make way for the construction of the union building. The bank did not end up realising this project, though, and the space remained vacant for 65 years. One of the provisional solutions was the exhibition pavilion of the artistic society Myslbek, built in the 1930s and removed in the 1950s. After World War II, the gap turned into a park with benches and a fountain, and from the 1980s, it was used as storage space serving the construction of the Prague metro and other large nearby projects.

The new building, Myslbek, named after the famous sculptor Josef Václav Myslbek, opened in 1996.

Location: Na Příkopě 21, near metro Můstek

Filling a GapA swanky street finally filled out in 1996

by Lenka Scheuflerová


looking back

1922 / from the archive of Pavel Scheufler

2009 | Lenka Scheuflerová

Karlovy Vary International Film FestivalSpa treatment is not the only reason to visit Karlovy Vary at the beginning of July. The town’s annual international film festival opens 3 July, offering more than 220 feature films from around the world, and many of them are world premieres. The Open Eyes section will present movies from the Cannes festival, including Lars von Trier’s Antichrist and Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces. The winner of this year’s Cinéfondation student section of the Cannes festival, Bába, from the Czech director Zuzana Špidlová, is also included in the programme, as are selected Czech films from 2008 and 2009 shown with English subtitles. For the first time this year, visitors will have the option to reserve tickets to all public screenings ahead of time, from 10am on Monday, 29 June, until midnight 30 June. The reserved tickets will be available at the main box office for CZK 65 each. The festival runs through 11 July.

www.kviff.com

Respect Festival on Štvanice island The annual Respect Festival brings world music to the Vltava’s Štvanice island between 26 and 28 June. The Slovak-born accordion player and songwriter Mário Bihári, will play traditional Gypsy music to open the Friday programme at 5pm, followed by Erik Truffaz and Benares. British guitarist Justin Adams will play with the percussionist Dawson Miller and Juldeh Camara, a Gambian musician and virtuosos on the ritti, an African rustic one-stringed fiddle. Blending traditional Persian music with flamenco, Iranian-born musician Shahab Tolouie will kick off the Saturday show at 2pm, followed by Hungary’s Muzsikás, Norway’s Mari Boine, the Congolese Kasai All Stars and Issa Bagayogo from Mali.

www.respectmusic.cz

Rock for People As far as music festivals are concerned, Rock for People ranks among the most popular in the country. The event has grown so much in popularity that the organisers had to move it to a larger venue to accommodate some 20,000 people. Opening on 4 July at the former military airfield near Hradec Králové, this year’s rock fest offers three days of international music with headline names including Therapy?, Gogol

Bordello, the Kooks, Hadouken!, Underworld, Placebo, Arctic Monkeys and the Bouncing Souls. Among the

bands representing the Czech colours are the ska formation Sto zvířat, Tony Ducháček & Garage, Už jsme doma, Circus Praha, Švihadlo and Visací zámek.

www.rockforpeople.com

Colours of Ostrava Maceo Parker, Morcheeba, Joe Anderson, Stereo MCs,

Asian Dub Foundation, Jamie Cullum, David Byrne, Speed Caravan and many other

great musicians from around the world and the Czech Republic will play at

this year’s Colours of Ostrava, taking place in North Moravia 9-12 July. The annual event will feature more than 100 bands and DJs on 10 stages located in the green area near the city centre. Across the river by

the Slezskoostravský castle, theatre groups, including the headliner, Sklep,

will offer a variety of performances in genres such as improv, cabaret, experimental

and pantomime. www.colours.cz

Rudy Linka plays jazz with Stenson Czech-born guitarist Rudy Linka and Swedish pianist Bobo Stenson will play at Rudolfinum on 29 June on the occasion of the EU presidency’s handover to Sweden. They will play from their repertoire as well

as traditional jazz songs and music inspired by Czech and Swedish folk. Readers of Down Beat Magazine

voted Rudy Linka one of the world’s best guitar players. He is also known for organising

the Bohemia JazzFest, which takes place in public spaces in Czech towns and will begin this year on 12 July.

www.bohemiajazzfest.cz

Jiří Anderle exhibition at the Stone Bell House

The Stone Bell House in Prague’s Old Town Square presents a retrospective

exhibition of the Czech artist Jiří Anderle, whose works are found in many art galleries

around the world, including Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, New York's Metropolitan Museum

of Art and Paris's Centre Pompidou. The Prague exhibit, Batrachomyomachia (Frog-Mouse Wars and Other Petty Tussles), features the primal art-inspired graphic works, paintings and statues he has created since 1959. The exhibition runs through 4 October.

www.ghmp.cz

by Kateřina HeilmannCourtesy photos


don’t miss

For more events go to: praguemonitor.com/dontmiss

Photo: ČTK

Photo: ČTK

Photo: ČTK

When I learned our second baby would be a boy, I never gave much

thought to the circumcision debate. I assumed that since he would be born in the Czech Republic, where the practice is uncommon, it was a no-brainer. I asked my husband, Radek, how he felt and his quick but passionate response – “What? No one is going to cut my son.” – sealed the issue.

Radek’s veto was a relief. But, since I grew up thinking circumcision was necessary and routine, I anticipated questions from family and friends in the US, although I knew that even there the trend has slowed since the rate peaked at 85% in the mid-60s, according to the Circumcision Reference Library. Even though parts of the nation and certain ethnic groups have long favoured genital integrity, the practice remains prevalent, with the lowest recorded rate being 56% in 2006.

I knew my mother felt a little uncomfortable when I told her we didn’t plan to circumcise the baby, although, apart from suggesting I read a Time article on the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2007 that claimed that the practice can prevent HIV, she didn’t try to persuade us. Knowing that the “locker room” mentality is among the most common reasons for nonreligious circumcisions in the US, my mom may have figured our son, Oliver, would fare better looking like his father and other guys here.

I had my doubts when two married but childless American girlfriends of mine engaged me in debate with arguments based on historical, religious, cultural

and health reasons – but giving the most credence to hygiene and studies on sexually transmitted diseases – and tore into my unresearched go-with-my-gut argument.

I quoted from the 2004 edition of Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care, in which he writes that “most doctors now agree that there is no medical justification for routine circumcision”. Although the book mentions a slightly higher incidence of bladder and kidney infections in uncircumcised boys, it concludes the data are not medically significant. It seemed that with proper hygiene (and, down the road, safe sex), most health concerns could be avoided. Plus, I couldn’t argue with the part of me that believed it unnecessary to subject our newborn to nonessential surgery.

When I talked with other non-Czechs in Prague, I realised again how cultural norms factor in the decision. A Swede remembers children mercilessly teasing the one circumcised boy in her school. Other American expats who’d circumcised their newborns here expressed anxiety over doing it in a country where the procedure isn’t common, although it always went smoothly. I found a website for cosmetic surgery with a list of physicians who circumcise here. Interestingly, most of the doctors bill themselves as offering “beauty” services.

In 2007, a few weeks after Oliver’s birth, we travelled to the US for my brother’s wedding. One afternoon in the midst of the wedding-related chaos, I handed the baby to my aunt for a diaper change.

“Oh my goodness,” she exclaimed as she opened his diaper, “I’ve never seen one of these!” I’d expected my aunt, as the

mother of four, to have had the full range of experience with children’s bodies, so I had to laugh when she tried to avoid explaining to Oliver’s wide-eyed 3-year-old male cousin why the baby’s penis looked different.

When I thought about it later, I guessed it would have been complicated to address the subject on the spot in child-friendly terms, but I probably would have tried. As the boys grow up, I’m certain we’ll have the discussion more than once. As part of a multicultural family, Oliver will have circumcised and uncircumcised friends, and I hope his penis will never be seen as unnatural, just as I hope he’ll never tease circumcised friends.

This spring the debate again gained press when a study in the New England Journal of Medicine called for more circumcisions to promote sexual health after a two-year look at Ugandan men concluded circumcision reduces the prevalence of herpes by one-fourth and human papillomavirus by one-third. Although American scientists advocated the procedure, UK doctors cautioned against using the procedure as a solution for sexually transmitted infections or applying research from another part of the world to the British population.

Each family makes its own circumcision decision. Historical, cultural, religious, aesthetic and health implications contribute to this. I’m thankful, for Oliver’s sake, that his father and I decided, with minimal stress, together. •

To Cut or NotConsidering a controversial custom

by Emily Prucha


half-n-half

Ecological AgricultureThe toils and triumphs of green growers

In BerlinThe German capital’s sights and nightscoming

soon

Please see the online version of this article for links to additional articles and references at: http://praguemonitor.com/half-n-half

Photo: Günter BartošPhoto: Mauricio Flores

Dokument1 22.5.2009 13:15 Stránka 1

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