Radio Prague International - latest articles

Normally the Prague Fringe brings leading alternative theatre troupes from around the planet to the Czech capital. From Tuesday to Saturday, however, it is doing something else entirely – streaming cutting-edge Czech performers to viewers around the globe, for free. I discussed “Prague Fringe Reimagined” with the festival’s founder, Steve Gove.

Prague 1 plans to place blue plaques alongside iconic red street signs throughout the district, encompassing most of the medieval heart of the city, including Staré Město and the Jewish Quarter and, on the other side of the Vltava, most of Malá Strana and Hradčany, by Prague Castle.

The Museum of National History in Šumperk has breathed new life into what is believed to be the largest orchestrion in the Czech Republic. The self-playing musical cabinet from the beginning of the 20th century had been out of order for decades and the museum had it completely taken apart and reassembled in order to restore it to its former glory.

Czechia has a Bethlehem. No one knows when and why it got its biblical name, but it is a unique quarter of 200-years-old log cottages in the town of Hlinsko. Formerly a center of pottery making and later weaving, it is now an open-air museum, protected by the Czech National Heritage Institute.

With the intensity of the coronavirus epidemic slowing down in the country, the Czech government jhas decided to ease restrictions. These include the return of final year students into high school and practical university classes, as well as an extension in the opening hours for shops.

Czech Radio has launched a fourth edition of its nationwide charity project called Ježíškova vnoučata or Santa’s Grandchildren. It aims to encourage members of the public to grant the elderly living in social facilities a wish as a special Christmas gift. Its organizers say helping seniors during the coronavirus crisis is more important than ever.

The Czech cosmetics company Dermacol has been a well-known and respected brand in the West Bank for some time, recommended by beauticians and dermatologists. This year it went a step further –in addition to offering tried and tested beauty products it is helping women in the Arab world to launch their own business and run it with self-confidence. I spoke to Dermacol’s Lucie Šarkadyová, who is in charge of overseeing the opening of a series of beauty salons in the Middle East, and asked her to tell me more about the project.

This week, Charles University unveiled a bust to one of the most accomplished Czech surgeons - Eduard Albert. Little known today outside his discipline, Albert’s name has nevertheless enshrined itself into Czech history through the various events that took place on Albertov, the street named after him. Today it houses several scientific departments that are helping in the fight against COVID-19.

According to an annual report issued by the Czech Hydro-Meteorological Institute, the Czech Republic had the cleanest air in the past eleven years in 2019. Data for this year have also been promising so far. Among the factors that contributed to the positive trend were warm temperatures in winter, rainy and windy weather, but also the coronavirus outbreak.

For the past few years, the American historian Joshua Teplitsky has been collecting materials to write a microhistory of an early 18th century outbreak of plague in Prague, focusing on the city’s large Jewish population. Suddenly, he found himself writing in the midst of a coronavirus outbreak – a “surreal” experience that has sharpened his focus on reconstructing “the quotidian, communal, and cultural aspects” of life under the shadow of death, and “the emotional foreboding that precedes the crest of an epidemic.”