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Czech-born mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená (born on May 26, 1973) is one of the bright lights of world opera. Although based in Britain, she returns regularly to Czechia to perform and was one of the biggest attractions of this year’s Prague...

The organisers of the Karlovy Vary film festival have just unveiled its two competitions, a month before the 57th edition starts. The main Crystal Globe competition will have one fewer entry than usual, after the Chinese authorities intervened...

A largescale project is currently in the works that seeks to present the history and current forms of Czech graphic design to both the domestic and international audience. Bohemian Identity, as it is called, will trace the story of how various...

The tragic earthquake that recently hit Turkey and Syria served as another reminder of the catastrophic damage earthquakes can cause, especially in countries that can’t afford expensive early warning systems. But a new cheap sensor that is...

The Covid pandemic placed a lot of restrictions on the society and resulted in a large number of court cases in which people sought compensation. A father who was banned from seeing his child born has now won an important battle over his rights...

An exhibition presenting an overview of independent Polish art of the 1980s got underway in Gallery of the Central Bohemian Region this week. Called Uncensored, it presents the Polish equivalent of the post-1968 Czech underground art scene. I...

I had to get up very early in the morning, but I did not regret. The scope owl was very near the place, for which I got the tip. In the morning gloom, before the sunrise, it could be barely seen in the opening of the tree cavity – but it was...

The statues of three of the apostles gracing Prague’s famous Old Town Clock, which were damaged by vandals last June, are being dismantled and taken away for restoration. The clock dating back to 1410, which is admired by millions of tourists...

If you regularly take the Prague tram between Čechův Most and Nábřeží Kapitána Jaroše, you may have noticed the giant pieces of artwork on display in the niches of the wall that runs parallel to the Vltava river below Letná. Until June 6, those...

23/05/2023 On 23.5.2023 President Petr Pavel met for the first time with a group of his foreign policy advisers. Its members are Petr Kolář, Karel Schwarzenberg, Michael Žantovský, Jiří Pehe, Tomáš Petříček and Jan Macháček. The group is...

For the group of gorillas in the Dja Reserve, the outdoor enclosure has reopened after the winter break. The Kisumu male and the daughter of the famous Prague gorilla Moji Duni, whose pregnancy was confirmed last week, took a look at the...

Earlier this week, Czechia and the United States signed a Defence Cooperation Agreement in Washington. The treaty creates a legal framework for the possible deployment of US soldiers on Czech territory, though officials on both sides insist it...

Machine translation experts from Charles University have developed a new system that can translate between 43 languages in real time. Intended for international conferences, Elitr shows words said by a speaker on a screen within milliseconds...

The next stop on our Vltava tour takes us to a valley near the small village of Teletín, offering some of the most beautiful views you can find of the Vltava River. At first glance, Teletín, with a population of less than 100 people and few...

The NW Präsident set off with a crew on a 328-kilometre-long journey to Vienna on 21 May 1898. They arrived a day later. The car’s average speed was 22.62 km/h. The history of the Tatra car company goes back to 1850, when Ignaz Schustala, with...

Czechia possesses several leading institutions of higher learning that have produced internationally renowned scientists, businesspeople and academics. No wonder then that the number of foreigners studying in the country has been growing. We...

Less than three weeks after the coronation of Charles III, Czechia has received its first visitor from the British royal family, H.R.H. Prince Edward. The prince, who drank a pint with Czechia’s President Petr Pavel on Tuesday, is in Prague to...

Many of Prague’s architectural gems will open to the public for free this weekend within the Open House Prague festival, which is now in its ninth year. Visitors can admire the interiors of more than 100 buildings as well as spaces that are...

When Time Stopped is the title of Ariana Neumann’s first book, about the history of her Jewish family in Prague during the war. Before he emigrated to Venezuela in 1949, her father Hans (or Hanuš) Neumann survived the Holocaust thanks to false...

The Czech government announced on Wednesday that Czechia would abstain from a vote on the EU’s accession to the Istanbul Convention on combatting violence against women. Two of the ruling parties are reluctant to support it and the cabinet is...

In the early 2000s, native Scot Steve Gove decided to resurrect the intimate feel of the original Edinburgh Fringe festival, before it became the gargantuan beast it is today, and bring it to Prague. Now in its 22nd year, the Prague Fringe is...

A new exhibition showcasing the fashion style of Czechoslovak and Czech first ladies is currently on display at the National Museum in Prague. Visitors can see dozens of items from the first ladies’ wardrobes, including a blouse and skirt that...

The Czech government has decided to scrap several Communist-era decrees that allowed Russia to use land in Czechia rent-free for diplomatic purposes. The decision has elicited an angry reaction from Moscow, which is threatening to retaliate...

Two valuable documentary collections from Czechia have been inscribed on the UNESCO Memory of the World register: the Antonín Dvořák Archive, which contains most of the great Czech composer’s manuscripts and the Moll Map Collection, a set of...

Many thousands of people helped Czech Radio celebrate its centenary this week at a special free concert at the Prague park Riegrovy sady. The line-up for the marathon event included a whole host of popular Czech names, including Aneta...

The east Bohemian city of Pardubice is gearing up for its annual aviation fair this weekend. Highlights this year include air shows by Lukasz Czepiela, who successfully landed a plane on top of a skyscraper in Dubai in March, and Felix...

The foundation stone of Adolf Loos’ last house, which was designed in 1932 but never came to fruition, will be symbolically laid on Tuesday outside the National Technical Museum in Prague. Originally commissioned by the influential Czech...

The Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Markéta Pekarová Adamová, ended her five days working trip to the United States of America in the Georgian capital, Atlanta. Here she met with the influential Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as well...

Until recently, it was thought that the oldest full-length radio play preserved in the Czech Radio archives was from after the Second World War. But that changed thanks to a chance discovery of a Czech adaptation for radio of Jack London’s 1906...

The 78th edition of the Prague Spring music festival gets underway on Friday night at Prague’s Municipal House. The country’s top classical event will traditionally open with Bedřich Smetana’s Má vlast or My Country, this time performed...

One of the last battles to take place in World War Two Europe occurred south-west of Prague around the town of Milín, several days after Germany had officially capitulated. It was unique in that the combat saw units of the Wehrmacht, SS, Soviet...

For the first time in the country’s history, Czechia is sending its own team to the ISA World Surfing Games – the sport’s world championships. Six contestants are traveling to the upcoming event, which is set to take place in in El Salvador...

Czech Radio’s youth and alternative station Radio Wave lost its FM frequency not long after its launch. But that didn’t stop the channel finding sustained success online, thanks to clever marketing and pioneering use of podcasts. The Czech...

A radio receiver used by the first Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk or the microphone into which the very first radio announcer spoke. These are just some of the rare exhibits that are currently on display at the National Technical...

The President of the Republic, Petr Pavel, spoke at the summit of the Council of Europe in Reykjavík, where he supported the establishment of a Register of Damages Caused by Russian Aggression. Its establishment also became the main output of...

The President of the Czech Republic Peter Pavel was received by Her Majesty Queen Margaret II at noon. & His Royal Highness The Crown Prince Frederik at Amalienborg Palace. The President was accompanied by the Minister of Immigration and...

Perhaps the most anticipated event of the 78th Prague Spring takes place on Wednesday night, with rising classical star Klaus Mäkelä making his debut appearance in Czechia, conducting the Czech Philharmonic and viola player Antoine Tamestit...

Ponrepo, the Prague cinema administered by the National Film Archive, will be screening a very special film this Tuesday evening. Arsenal is a revolutionary epic that depicts the January workers uprising in Kyiv in 1918. Directed by the famous...

Lasvit is Czechia’s leading exporter of high-end glass and light installations, producing often stunning creations for luxury hotels, residences and retail outlets around the globe. The company was co-founded in 2007 by Leon Jakimič, who was...

A very special exhibition of the Czechoslovak born painter Nicholas Egon was open today ( 18.11.2023 ) at GALERIE JAKUBSKA – Thunovská 183/18, 118 00 Malá Strana. The exhibition will be open for the public until 1.6 , every day from 11...

One of the first challenges foreign students in Czechia face after arriving in the country is finding accommodation. While most universities offer places in dormitories, many foreign students prefer to stay in private housing. How difficult is...

It was exactly a hundred years ago, on 18 May 1923, that listeners in Czechoslovakia were first able to tune in to regular radio broadcasts. Much has changed since then. Today Czech Radio has ten nationwide stations and fourteen regional...

Bass-baritone Boris Prýgl ranks among the most talented Czech young opera singers. One of the finalists of Plácido Domingo’s Operalia, Prýgl has performed at the Slovak National Theatre and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. He is now a guest...

When I left my office to watch the couple of hamerkops that were tirelessly carrying material to their already gigantic nest in the aviary under the cliff, Helena Růžičková’s replica from the well-known Czech comic film Sun, Hay and...

The Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in cooperation with the United Nations Office in Prague, National Museum of Agriculture in Prague and Apiculture Museum Radovljica, Slovenia organizes the commemoration of 6th World Bee Day (20 May) which...

Prague City Hall has commissioned a new copy of the Old Town Square astronomical clock calendar that will replace the heavily-criticised version that was created in 2018. The artist who created the copy was lambasted by art historians and...

In Czechia, as well as in most Central and Southern European EU states, still wines are not subject to consumption tax. However, with the ongoing need to balance the budget, government experts have suggested introducing precisely such a tax...

Some of the most beautiful views of the Vltava River are at the river’s turn near Úholičky, an area linked to the rulers of the Přemyslid dynasty – Prince Bořivoj and his wife Ludmila. This trail is ideal for day trip for cyclists and...

The annual international book fair and literary festival Book World Prague got underway on Thursday at the city’s Výstaviště grounds, featuring over 350 exhibitors from 30 countries. I spoke to Radovan Auer, the head of Book World Prague and...

The Czech opera singer and actress Soňa Červená, who gained worldwide fame for her rendition of Carmen in the world’s leading opera houses, has died at the age of 97. Červená started her career in the early 1950s but had to flee the country due...

Located just below Prague’s Vítkov Hill, the Czech Army Museum is one of the places to check out if you are into military history, thinking of honouring Victory Day, or just generally into great exhibitions. It features more than 7,000 exhibits...

Bohumil Pospíšil, a native of Přerov, was once a famous Czechoslovak traveller and adventure. The man, who spent five years on a journey around the world in the 1920s, was known as the Moravian Marco Polo. His estate, including thousands of...

The coronation of King Charles III is taking place at Westminster Abbey on Saturday. Although it has been 13 years since his last visit to Czechia, the former Prince Charles took a huge interest in the country during the 1990s and 2000s...

The organisers of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival have announced that Hollywood star Russell Crowe will attend the 57th edition. A previous star guest, Johnny Depp, is set to appear in this year’s trailer. Antipodean movie star...

Prague music lovers can look forward to a treat on Wednesday. The US contemporary classical greats Kronos Quartet are set to celebrate half a century of existence alongside the Czech ambient artists the Havels, who are themselves marking 40...

The Czech University of Life Sciences is a place where an education rooted in science and agriculture is merged with other subjects like economics and business; a place where students from all over the world can get a truly unique and well...

Czechia is second on the crony capitalism index compiled by The Economist, after Russia and just ahead of Malaysia, Singapore and Mexico. According to the paper, the Czech share of crony capitalism wealth is over 15 percent of GDP. I asked...

The Fiala government has unveiled an austerity package aimed at reducing the country’s deepening state deficit and plans for a radical reform of old-age pensions. To understate the gravity of the situation the package titled “Czechia in Good...

The Czech-American community in Chicago will be marking 150 years since the birth of Anton Cermak, a Czech immigrant who became the mayor of Chicago and was assassinated in 1933, after only two years in office. Two such events are planned for...

“200 km straight, then a mild curve to the left, again 200 km straight, right turn and after another 50 km we will stop for the night,” I wrote home with only a little exaggeration when we were heading by cars to the “Golden Steppe” Altyn Dala...

Pilsner Urquell was created in Pilsen in the 1840s and is today the best known Czech beer around the world. Its producers Plzeňský Prazdroj run a fine museum in the West Bohemian city. Now, however, visitors to Prague can also learn a lot about...

Czechia was the place where the last shots of World War II were fired in Europe. The generally accepted narrative is that, with most of the country liberated by the Soviet Red Army, the former Czechoslovakia was inevitably headed for the...

This week marked the 50th birthday of one of Czechia’s best-known violinists. Pavel Šporcl, often recognised for his signature head-scarf, has had a rich career filled with both domestic and international successes. He has performed with...

Russia’s war against Ukraine has had widespread negative impacts outside the country’s borders. Among them is a drop in interest in Russian studies at Czech universities and a gradual loss of academic contacts. More than fourteen months after...

Czech President Petr Pavel arrived in Ukraine early on Friday morning, shortly after Kyiv and other cities were hit by Russian missiles. Accompanied by his Slovak counterpart, Zuzana Čaputová, Mr. Pavel visited the sites of atrocities and...

Archaeologists from the Moravian Museum in Brno have announced a unique discovery. During a survey near the city of Ostrava they discovered a stone with an engraving of a mammoth and a horse, which dates back about 15,000 years ago. According...

Mrs Palermo’s Cottage is a novel by AR Parker, inspired by the Czech borderlands. Vit Pohanka spoke to the author about what brought him to Czechia and what led him to set his latest novel in the town where he bought a house and settled. “The...

As of this week, commuters in some of Prague’s busiest metro stations are seeing photographs of war-stricken Ukrainians sheltering in their own underground. The images were captured by Ukrainian photo journalists and were first displayed in the...

Last year, the non-profit Centre for Civil Liberties was one of three recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize – the first time ever that a Nobel Prize has been awarded to a Ukrainian citizen or organisation. Ukrainian human rights lawyer...

A new iRozhlas.cz report has found a sharp rise in the number of single-occupant homes in Czechia, from 32 percent in 2011 to 39 percent a decade later. The jump is attributed to an increase in single people in major cities and more seniors...

The Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavský made it clear during his meeting with his American counterpart Antony Blinken in Washington on Tuesday that Czechia is aligned with the US on important issues such as support for Ukraine, mutual defence...

Good Soldier Švejk creator Jaroslav Hašek, who was born on 30 April 1883, is closely associated with the small town of Lipnice nad Sázavou in Moravia.The writer was allegedly brought to Lipnice by the painter Jaroslav Panuška, and the famous...

What was life like in the Gulag camps, how many of these camps were there in the Soviet Union, and how could a person end up in one? These are just some of the questions explored by a new educational project designed for primary and secondary...

Renowned for its technology focussed programs, CVUT gives students with a technical mindset the chance to learn from some of the best professors in the field, while gaining hands-on work experience in practical internships. Walking through the...

It was an unbelievable paradox. During my journey to Cameroon, I received news about the progress of the pangolin female Šiška and at the same time I was daily seeing pangolins in street stalls and on markets or cooked in local restaurants…...

In their hey-day Czechia’s many spas attracted royalty and celebrities from around Europe. To this day many of them have mementos of their famous visitors. The Teplice spa boasts the Beethoven Spa House where music lovers can book their stay in...

The annual Anifilm festival of animated films kicked off in the north Bohemian town of Liberec on Tuesday. Over the next six days, dozens of films, as well as music videos and computer games, will be screened in numerous venues all over the...

Brian Jakubec was born in South Africa and is a successful IT manager at Lenovo. But his life was shaped by events that took place in far-away Czechoslovakia when his father, still in his teens, joined the Bata shoe empire, where he would one...

85 years ago, on April 24, 1938, Konrad Henlein of the Sudeten German Party voiced a list of demands commonly known as the Carlsbad Programme. They opened the way for Hitler’s Third Reich to annex the Sudetenland and rob Czechoslovakia of its...

Czechia’s most important classical event, the Prague Spring International Music Festival, will kick off, as every year, on May 12. But this time out there will be a new director at the helm – 38-year-old Pavel Trojan. Ahead of the 78th edition...

Suicide themed phone calls among seniors rose twofold between the years 2021 and 2022, according to Czechia’s helpline for old age people Linka seniorů. I asked the head of the helpline, Dr Kateřina Bohatá, why this is the case. “Our helpline...

President Petr Pavel has repeatedly said this week that Petr Fiala’s coalition government is poor in communication with the public, echoing a commonly heard assertion. But is the head of state correct on this point? I spoke to political...

Palacký University located in the Moravian city of Olomouc is a multicultural hub for students from countries the world over. Of the university’s 23,000 students, over 4,500 are foreign nationals. Hugo Fonseca, from Colombia studies...

Czechia’s king of castles, Karlštejn, ceremonially opened new spaces for visitors this Friday after a major CZK 164 million reconstruction. They are the result of three years of work, which included the reconstruction of the imperial residence...

Two months before it kicks off, the organisers of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival have just revealed the first details of this year’s programme, including a retrospective of Japanese director Yasuzo Masamura and a restored version...

Sit-ups, push-ups, long jump and beep test run — these athletic disciplines were used by the Czech School Inspectorate to measure the physical fitness of schoolchildren across the country. Compared to the same tests carried out 30 years ago...

The European Space Agency (ESA) is looking for ways by which its future spaceships and probes could use nuclear-powered engines in order to travel across the extreme distances of outer space. Scientists at the Czech Technical University in...

Sloths, slugs, and starfish – those are some of the unlikely patterns that young textile designer Anna Šebestová draws as the basis for the prints on her clothes and accessories, which she markets and sells under her brand annanemone. Her bold...

The film festival in Cannes has revealed its La Cinef school film selection and two films from students at Prague’s FAMU film school have made the cut. The 2019 student Oscar winner Daria Kashcheeva will be competing with her master’s thesis...

The Czech cabinet recently approved drug policies that include introducing a strictly regulated cannabis market. The details of the plan, which its architects say will deliver major tax revenues, are still being fine-tuned – but there already...

For many years I had a wish, which I rather did not want to tell anybody about. It seemed so immodest and unrealistic to me. The wish was to get pangolins to our zoo, and also to live to see their baby and watch it how rides on its mother’s...

The small town of Vysoké Mýto, in north-east Bohemia, has been named Czech Historical Town of the year for 2022. The award, which comes with a one-million-crown cheque, honours those towns and cities that have excelled in preserving and...

Czech scientists are collaborating on an international project, SMELLODI, which aims to digitise human scent. At the moment it is not yet possible to record a smell, send it halfway around the world and then regenerate it, but SMELLODI is...

President Petr Pavel and the First Lady received a group of Romany high school and university students at Prague Castle on Thursday. In an unprecedented gesture of support for young members of the Roma minority, he encouraged them to follow...

Ploština was a small settlement in the Zlín region of Moravia. On April 19, 1945, close to the end of World War II, it was set on fire and many of its inhabitants were massacred by the Nazis for having supported the anti-Nazi resistance. A new...

Founded just a year after the birth of Czechoslovakia in 1918, Masaryk University bears the name of the country’s esteemed co-founder and its first president, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. Over a century later, the university has established itself...

Harry Macourek, who would have turned 100 this month, was active in various musical genres and styles, scoring pop hits as well as working in the jazz, film score, classical and other fields. He was born Karel Macourek on 11 April 1923 in...

Kotěra was an internationally-recognised practitioner of modern architecture, straddling the boundaries between contemporary art nouveau and modern functionalism. He left an indelible mark on many towns and cities across Czechia. Born in Brno...

Russian journalist and politician Vladimir Kara-Murza received a 25-year jail term on Monday on charges linked to his criticism of the war in Ukraine. It is the longest sentence Russia has handed down to an opposition figure since it launched...

A portrait of a Jewish woman called Anna Wotzilkova, who was born in South Moravia and died in the Holocaust, has been donated to the newly planned Mehrin Moravian Jewish Museum by her descendants, who now live in the United States. The...