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Over the last week there have been reports of Ukrainian Roma refugees sleeping at Prague’s Main Train Station, sometimes for up to 10 days, as they wait to be granted temporary protection. As a stopgap solution, a tent city has been erected in the Troja district to provide accommodation for them. I spoke to Magda Faltová, director of the Association for Integration and Migration, to get her take on the situation.

One of the Czech items on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List is the craft of indigo dyeing with block printing, known as modrotisk. The tradition dates back to the 18th century, but today there are only two workshops in the entire country that produce the iconic blue and white folk pattern.

This week saw the establishment of the Ukrainian-Czech Chamber of Commerce. The organisation will support business cooperation between the two countries both during and after the war. To find out what this cooperation may look like, I spoke to the President of the Chamber Petr Krogman, a Czech businessman who owns a major agricultural company in Ukraine.

Viktoria Plzeň have been crowned Czech soccer champions for the sixth time in their history. The West Bohemian club have surprised many – even their own coach – with their first title since 2018.

The UN General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly for the Czech Republic to replace Russia on the Human Rights Council, the United Nations’ leading human rights body. The Czech Republic’s term starts immediately with the council due to meet for a special session on Thursday to examine the deteriorating human rights situation in war-torn Ukraine.

The Prague Spring International Music Festival was first held in 1946, and since 1952 it has traditionally opened on 12th May, the anniversary of the death of renowned Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. With the festival disrupted during the last two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Prague Spring is happy to return in full force this year with a special programme, as spokesperson Pavel Trojan told me.

The Bronze Age on the territory of the modern day Czech Republic, a period running from roughly 2,300BC to 800 BC, saw the rise and fall of several distinct cultures. Modern archaeology shows that some of them were far more interconnected with the wider Bronze Age world than previously thought. Meanwhile, the remnants of battles unearthed in Bohemia and Moravia show that the Bronze Age Collapse may have also had echoes in this part of the world. Archaeologists have also found evidence of cannibalism among some of the Bohemian settlers and were even able to recreate the curious millet beer that some of their warriors would have drunk.

We’ve all seen the headlines about how animal agriculture is one of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters and contributes to climate change. At the same time, most people are not willing to give up eating meat. How can we solve this conundrum? Entrepreneur Roman Lauš may have the answer – his Brno-based foodtech start-up aims to grow pork in a lab using cell cultures from pigs.

Prague councillors have voted in favour of stripping the late Soviet military commander Ivan Konev, who led the Red Army’s liberation of Prague, of his honorary citizenship. Among the reasons for the move is his repressive role within the Communist bloc in the years that followed. Others, who were honoured in the past, have suffered a similar fate.

A Czech company has started to produce anti-tank barriers for the Ukrainian army made on a special, 3D printer. The firm is also considering providing Ukraine with the printers themselves, which would allow them to produce the barriers right on the spot.