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The Centre for Metropolitan Planning (CAMP) in Prague is hosting their first annual Archirun , an event spotlighting the iconic architectural work of Karel Prager who was born 100 years ago. The run will take joggers on a tour across the city, where they will stop at the buildings Prager designed to learn about their history, which at times is seen as controversial. I spoke with Štěpán Bärtl, head of CAMP, about what’s in store for Saturday, and why we should remember the work of Prager.

The Enjoy Respect Prague campaign that launched last year aims to encourage tourists to behave with more respect towards the city and its local residents, for example by supporting local businesses rather than buying tacky souvenirs, using public transport rather than hop-on-hop-off buses, being quiet after 10pm, and not littering. But the newest addition to the campaign may raise some eyebrows – posters asking tourists not to pay money to people in the city centre offering the chance to take a selfie with a snake, owl or parrot.

A new program being launched by the Ministry of Industry is hoping to attract more highly skilled workers to Czechia, but they don’t necessarily need an employment contract from a Czech company to lock down a visa. We spoke to Lucia Legáthová from the Expat Centre in Prague about what this move means for Czechia and foreigners wishing to relocate to the country.

Folk architecture is one of the cornerstones of regional and national identity, but it is rapidly disappearing. That is why ethnologists from the National Museum and Czech Academy of Sciences worked together with IT specialists from the Czech Technical University to create a virtual museum of folk architecture in Czechia.

If you live in Czechia and are planning to get your bathroom or kitchen remodelled this year, you may just be out of luck. Companies and online portals offering the services of tradesmen are reporting a significant increase in demand, especially for jobs like home insulation, solar panel installation and roof renovation.

New numbers are revealing that Czechia is home to one of the most expensive real estate markets in Europe – it would take 13 gross annual salaries to purchase property in the country. This year, Czechia is falling behind Slovakia, the neighbouring nation taking the first place spot. We spoke to Petr Hána who works at Deloitte here in Prague about the market situation.

August 21 marks the 55th anniversary of the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet-led Warsaw Pact troops. The crushing of the Prague Spring dashed people’s hopes of democracy and ushered in a long period of political and moral decline. More than 130 people died during the invasion and thousands fled the country in the years that followed.

As Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia on the night from 20 to 21 August 1968, Czechoslovak Radio played an important role in keeping people informed of what was happening. The radio building was an immediate focus for the invaders, but remarkably, during the days that followed, radio journalists and engineers managed to carry on broadcasting, firstly from the building itself, and then from other secret locations around the city. One of the prominent voices on the airwaves was Jiří Dienstbier, who many years later reflected on the importance of those uncensored broadcasts at a time when the occupiers were trying to sow confusion in the country.  To mark the anniversary of the invasion, we return to Jiří Dienstbier and his memories of that time.

Helene Ritchie spent many years as a politician in her home city of Wellington, New Zealand. She has just written a book telling the moving story of her search for her family’s past. In 1945, Helene’s mother Lidi Hess, received a letter from a relative in Prague. It included a long list of names of members of the family who had been murdered in the Nazi death camps. Faced with the unimaginable scale of the tragedy, Lidi burned the letter, and went on with her life in her new country. It was only many decades later that she told her daughter how she regretted destroying it. This inspired Helene to try to piece together her family’s history, to find out who all these family members had been.

This Saturday, the Summer Shakespeare Festival will be concluding in Prague, with a special performance of Romeo and Juliet in English . The performance will take place in the courtyard of the Liechtenstein Palace in Prague’s Malá Strana neighbourhood. We spoke to the director of the show, Guy Roberts, about what’s in store this weekend.