What to buy when visiting the Czech Republic

I just had to show you these - they are some oven gloves I bought in the little supermarket opposite Cesky Krumlov castle. They are just so Czech! For starters they are dressed in national costume, but it is more the quirky humour that strikes me as Czech.

Visitors to the Czech Republic and Cesky Krumlov so often go home with standard tourist gifts - painted Easter eggs (very appropriate today), wooden toys, amber jewelry, puppets, Bohemian glass. All are good things to buy to take home with you. But if you want something different as a memento of your trip, do check out the shops for the locals. In local supermarkets or haberdashers you might find something like this. In ironmongers you might find mushroom knives or scoops for forest berries. In florists you might find straw wreaths decorated with mushrooms, or squirrels made of straw. And the great thing about these type of presents is that you can be certain as you board the plane home you will be the only person with those gifts and that they are genuinely Czech.

Does UNESCO know?

The big question is does UNESCO know about what is happening in Cesky Krumlov.

For those of you who have not been following my posts about the destruction which is happening in the name of flood reduction. Here is a brief summary of what has happened so far:

• 21 mature trees have been cut down from the banks of the River Vltava and the island just downstream of the Lazebnicky Bridge.
• The island itself (a natural feature which can be seen in historic pictures of Krumlov) is under threat of removal.
• The natural banks will be replaced with concrete ones under the proposed "flood prevention" measures.
• The river weir at the foot of the castle will be replaced by a modern metal one.

All the above will have a major impact on the historic aesthetic of the town, particularly as the river falls considerably in the summer from its winter levels which will mean that the concrete will be particularly visible at the time when the town is most full of visitors.

The local community has reacted with horror.

• A recent open letter to the Town Council collected over 800 signatures in a matter of a fortnight and the number continues to rise.
• All the residents in Parkan Street, the street the Town Council claims to be protecting have all expressed their unhappiness.
• Proper consultation clearly has not taken place - no one knew about the proposals until the bulldozers arrived.
  

So where does UNESCO stand on this? Were they consulted? They should have been and it seems impossible to believe that they agreed the changes. The townsfolk could do with their help.

For my previous posts on the subject visit:

Ducks Fight Back 17th March
Flood Control and Willows 30th March

On a previous campaign:

UNESCO or No 22nd May 2007
The Alchemist's House 24th May 2007
News from UNESCO 7th September 2007

Bohemian Baroque

The Victoria and Albert Museum in London has a big exhibition on Baroque opening on Saturday, which gives me an excuse to blog about the Bohemian Baroque.

In my post about the Ales Gallery I wrote of my love of Bohemian Gothic religious art; I am afraid this does not extend to Bohemian Baroque. I think it must be my English background that makes me so ill at ease with the baroque style of religious decoration. Czech churches are sometimes full of it and give me the creeps - those tortured or ecstatic saints looking upwards with elaborate hand gestures, those doves of the Holy Spirit like gilded guided missiles. In fact all together too much gold, marble, wealth and power. It's the in-your-face Counter-Reformation intolerance that the Catholic Baroque symbolises, that gets to me. For that matter I am not very keen on English church baroque either.

Now, I love a good carved medieval pieta or Last Judgement wallpainting, but then they are part of my English upbringing, something that would surprise many Czechs. On my first visit to the Czech Republic I was taken to a church service in Prague. “You probably won't like it, being a protestant,” I was told. Actually there was nothing in the service that I had not seen in Anglican church services – in fact there were if anything less “bells and smells” than in the High Anglican church in which I then had an office and where you had to open all the windows to get rid of the clouds of incense after the service. I was struck by how similar the Anglican Book of Common Prayer was to the Czech Catholic service I was listening to. Indeed my host would have been shocked to hear that on Sundays all over England “protestants” were giving witness in the Credo to a belief “in the one catholic church”.

But that is the point I think – the Anglican Church is catholic (with a small c), it is designed to be open and tolerant to all sorts of beliefs. When I tried to explain that the English Church was designed as a compromise to allow Catholics and Protestants to worship together, my Czech hosts laughed. It was another example in their eyes, I fear, of a lack of principle on the part of the English. I beg to differ. Looking at the religious fundamentalism of those Baroque churches and the Counter Reformation, it seems to me that pragmatic tolerance is actually a principle worth standing up for, now as much as ever.

Flood Control and Willows

The Town Council is arguing that the way to control floods in Cesky Krumlov is to cut down the willows and to remove the natural banks on which they stand with concrete walls. There are several arguments against their plans - a) the aesthetic one, most of the time the river is low and the concrete will look awful, especially in this UNESCO heritage site, b) the heritage one, they are destroying an island which has been around for centuries, c) wildlife - the island is home to nesting birds and even occasionally plays host to otters. But I for one am not convinced that what they are proposing is the best way to control flooding either.

The key thing to note is that flooding is not common in Cesky Krumlov - in fact they are planning for a 100 year flood event. How can such a rare event justify such vandalism? Now as it happens flooding is common in Gloucestershire (my English home), indeed it is pretty common in Britain fullstop. In the UK we have rather moved away from constantly resorting to concrete walls, preferring to "focus on ways that work with nature, not against it" (in the words of the UK Government). Part of that strategy is the use of willows and other riverside trees to bind the river banks. There has been some fascinating approaches which create riverwalls from living woven willow (example shown above).

Equally important is to address the cause of the flooding rather than the flood. Locally the general view is that the last big flood was caused by someone opening the sluices on Lake Lipno and releasing a huge amount of water into the River Vltava, which swept down and flooded the towns, such as Cesky Krumlov, along its banks. The simple answer would then appear to be, don't open the sluice gates like that!

For an account of the open meeting of the Krumlov Town Council, visit http://krumlovbrit.blogspot.com/2009/03/protest-update.html.

If you want to help the protest you can do two things - 1/email the Town Hall (addressed to the Mayor, Ing. Luboš Jedlička) c/o Bozena.Kaliskova@mu.ckrumlov.cz adding your name in support of the petition of March 2009 that asks for the retaining of the small island under Lazebnicky bridge
2/ write to UNESCO and ask whether they are aware of this situation, the citizens' protests, and the extent of damage the projected works may cause. The name and contact details are:wh-info@unesco.org

More on Town Planning & Cesky Krumlov

As I mentioned in my previous blog, we have seen a sad decline in community shops and other usage in Cesky Krumlov. One such loss is that of the ironmongers which sat on Latran among the hotels and hostels. The doorway was always framed with spades, metal buckets and other 'mongery. When you went in you were faced with an assortment of tools and kitchenware. You could buy individual screws and hooks in all sizes and designs, metal brushes, scythes for the orchard, coal skuttles, clothes airers, a pronged tool to gather forest berries, things familiar and things whose purpose was a mystery to me. The shop had that very special smell that took me back to the ironmongers that I had visited with my father in my childhood, of polish and firelighters. The owner spoke not a word of English and very little German and so I communicated by pointing, miming and when all else failed drawing the object of my purchase. Then one day it was gone and the town is the lesser for it.

Another shop that has disappeared is the old hunting shop a few doors down from the ironmongers. The window was always full of the green huntsman jackets, hats, knives of various types, and shotglasses decorated with painted hunting scenes. I would go there to buy mushroom knives, such as the one shown here with a useful brush at one end for removing the dirt from one's finds. Now I cannot find anywhere that sells them in Cesky Krumlov, and, given the ease with which one can lose knives when mushrooming, I miss it. Now the shop sells trendy snow and skateboarding clothes.

Town Planning and Cesky Krumlov

The ongoing saga of the ducks and the island has reminded me that I have been meaning to blog about town planning in Cesky Krumlov. Regular readers of this blog will know of my concerns about the commercial exploitation of the town at the expense of its heritage and community - if you haven't do check out my post on the Alchemist's house and UNESCO or Not.

Some of you may even know that I work in community development and planning. I am fascinated by the way towns work both practically and spiritually. In my profession I am amazed by how little is taught to town planners on how to study the historical geography of place. Towns do not simply appear, they evolve, they respond to the dynamics of their community and the physical geography of the landscape. The town gains a memory, a grain in the wood, and planners play with that at their peril.

If you look at Cesky Krumlov you will be struck by a number of things. Firstly there is the oxbowing river with two bends so acute that they nearly touch and create an island. This river brings trade and money, its control means power. And so on one side there is the castle built on to a cliff, the second largest in the Czech Republic, its owners richer than the Holy Roman Emperor himself. And spilling down the hill from the river are houses and shops, in the foothills of the castle so to speak, serving the castle.


Across the river there is another force in play – the New Town with its many elaborate merchant houses focusing on the town square. Just as the Castle had its tower as a prominent statement of power, so in the New Town the tower and spire of St Vitus church speak of the power of the church. A dialogue is taking place between earthly and heavenly powers (of castle and church). While around their feet the process of trade and transaction gives the town its life blood.

Water forms boundaries – the river a natural moat and highway. Water also is at the centre of things, as both in the castle's courtyard and in the new town square there are wells and fountains. And under all is the granite rock that forms the cliff on which the castle sits and the building stone for church, castle and merchant home alike. But look close and you will see that the granite cliffs are riddled with holes, where mines have been dug to extract graphite and where water springs from the rocks.

Modern Krumlov is moving away from the old dynamics. The community life that was the life blood of the town is being forced out, evicted by commercial pressures, to the outskirts of the town and in its place come hotels, shops and restaurants catering exclusively for the tourists. Schools, banks and foodshops are being displaced. I understand that some Japanese tourists have been under the mistaken belief that the frontages of the town's buildings are folded away for winter. If this carries on, they might as well might be. But it is even more profound than that – Cesky Krumlov is a place of great power. It has an ability to knock people sideways in a way only a few special places do. I believe that is because of the forces at work in its geography. These forces are more than playthings for people to abuse for self gain. In circumstances such as this I have faith that this extraordinary town will get its own way and it will gather around it and within it people who will ensure that it does.

Which brings me back to the current campaign about the destruction of the island. Both of the photos I have chosen to illustrate the historical dynamics were taken when there were trees on the island. The trees have been lost but there appears to be some hope. In the light of public anger about the issue, the Town Council is holding a special meeting to discuss a compromise. For the latest visit http://krumlovbrit.blogspot.com/ So let us hope that the power of community action is beginning to be felt in Cesky Krumlov.

Ducks Fight Back in Cesky Krumlov

The people of Cesky Krumlov watched in horror as 21 trees were chopped down on the island in the middle of Vltava River, which has for so long formed a green backdrop to photographs of the ancient centre of the town. The reason given for this savagery has been "some flood prevention" works, but how this justifies the destruction of mature trees (mostly willows) whose roots bind together the soil and resisted the flood of 2002 is hard to see. Local sentiment sees a more sinister and mercenary motive - ie there's money to be made somehow. How did this get through planning without anyone realising what was proposed? Answer: the planning application had not mentioned the trees' destruction. Very quickly a petition was gathered with hundreds of signatures, but it was too late to save the trees, but could it save the island?

In addition to the trees the island was also something of a nature reserve with a colony of wild ducks, which were often the subject of tourist photos, and also the home of grey wagtails. Now the island is churned earth, which will be eroded away by the next winter flood. But overnight the ducks started to fight back. A metre high duck appeared together with a placard saying "Ducks against diggers." and "Don't take our island away." With mutant ducks on the case in this country with a taste for the surreal 'the powers that be' should quaking (or should that be quacking) in their boots.

For more on this story do visit http://krumlovbrit.blogspot.com/ and for a historic pictures of the island visit http://www.vizeck.cz/