V Praze
German film Romeos present attitudes which director Sabine Bernadi said she has encountered among straight audiences.
By Shuan Sim
On the screen of the Světozor cinema in Prague, the movie Romeos was screening. A man emerges completely naked from a car with tinted windows, lights a cigarette and talks to the lead character of the movie. Moments later, two more men emerge from the car, also in various stages of undress.
None of the audience stirred. After all, they were attending the 12th Mezipatra Film Festival, which celebrates and screens movies that deal with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and queer (LGBTQ) issues. What’s more interesting, however, is that approximately half of the attendees were straight, not gay.
Gracián Svačina went to university with a mission: "I wanted to show them that we are normal people too."
Moving ahead, despite an institutionalised past
By Shuan Sim
Gracián Svačina is a 21-year old who goes to a Czech university, where he studies mass communications. He has writing internships with the country’s leading daily newspaper, Mladá fronta Dnes, and with the news weekly Respekt. He appears to be ordinary. But behind that that appearance is an exceptional success story: Svačina grew up in a state-run children’s home. Only 0.6% of people like him make it into university.
Svačina recalls how his parents would spend their monthly wages in a week and could not afford to take care of him, his two younger brothers and grandfather. He spoke of no hot water and often no food in the house. He and his siblings were not sent to school sometimes. “Most importantly, my father was beating me and my siblings, my mother and our grandfather,” he said. “The police came one day and took us away.”
The Young Greens protest in Old Town Prague on September 30
Young Greens take anti-consumerism message to the streets
By Shuan Sim
While the Occupy Wall Street movement grabs headlines in America, a grass-roots movement in the Czech Republic is taking its own stand against consumerism and globalism.
On September 30 approximately 20 young people met on Prague’s Old Town Square with signs, banners and shopping bags filled with rags. “How much happiness have you bought today?” read a banner which a woman wore like a cape.
Czech science offers big hope in small packages
Czech scientists are creating manipulating molecules to create materials that do not exist in nature.
Czech research in nanotechnology rivals that in the West, but scientist are still struggling to make ends meet.
By Lecia Bushak
Jiří Rathouský led a visitor through a building which looked frozen in time from Soviet-era 1980s — tattered brown leather chairs encircling glass tables for a sitting room, plastic plants lining beige walls, an old man leafing through a typewritten directory at the front desk. The Department of Structure and Dynamics, an institute under the umbrella of the Czech Academy of Sciences, hadn’t changed much.
“These elevators are really terrible,” Rathouský said as the metal doors clamped shut on us in the 4 foot-by-4 foot elevator box. “Sometimes they break down, so we’re hoping for new ones soon.”
NGO Proposes New Solutions to Roma Problems
Roma girls show off the results of their dance classes at the Living Together community center in Ostrava.
Civic organization Living Together seeks to foster understanding between the Roma minority and general society in Ostrava.
By Rosie Gray
Music swells from the speakers as three teenage girls take the floor of the community center. Dressed in floor-length skirts, crop tops, and medallion-laden belts, the girls begin a traditional dance routine. They pop their hips and spin their wrists in moves not unlike belly dancing. The girls giggle shyly and miss a few steps; they seem like any average girls showing off the fruits of their dance classes.
Doctors inject a human egg with sperm in the IVF process.
American couples are discovering fertility treatment services offered in the Czech Republic.
By Ruby Hlivko
Dr. Štěpán Machač of Reprofit International, a fertility clinic in the Czech Republic’s second-largest city of Brno, asks his clients if the clinic’s treatment has changed their lives. The answer is usually yes. Couples for whom he has performed in-vitro fertilization (IVF) during the clinic’s first operating year in 2007 are now returning for their second babies, and showing him photos of their first. Nearly 25% of these couples are American.
Our Lady of Victory is just one of thousands of churches that have been robbed in recent years.
Burglaries plague Czech churches
Thieves have broken into nearly 90 percent of the country’s churches in recent years and stolen countless valuable works of art.
By Michelle Lee
For years, Lucia Suchá visited Prague’s Church of Our Lady of Victory weekly to pray. But on one visit four years ago, she noticed that a small, blue, stained-glass window in the church’s door was missing. Instead, a small piece of cardboard covered the four-square-inch opening.
Thieves had broken into the church’s main entrance, smashed through the glass of the second door and opened it from the other side. They stole a three-and-a-half-foot tall wooden statue of St. John the Baptist.
Job seeker Michaela Drahovzalová says employers are looking for candidates with more experience.
Degrees offer little help in job hunt
In a job market crippled by high unemployment, young Czechs find their academic achievements mean less and experience means more.
By Tiffany Lo
Michaela Drahovzalová attended a prestigious economics high school, has a bachelor’s degree in political science from Charles University in Prague, and is currently finishing a second degree in Russian and Lithuanian language studies. For six years now, however, the 27-year-old student has been struggling to find a job.
Her frustration is apparent as she ponders what she did wrong. “Maybe if I were out of high school now, I would choose something else. Maybe economics. It would be more practical to go to an economics university,” she says.
Plush Krtek dolls and other toys are available in many stores. Courtesy photo.
By Nancy Ryerson
If entertaining stories of your time abroad will not be gift enough for friends and family back home, take a walk through Prague’s holiday markets and shops and pick up these gifts for everyone on your list.
For your parents: Bring back a small bottle of Czech mead (medovina in Czech). Often served hot, this drink made of fermented honey, water, and other spices is sweet and tasty.
Where to find it: Most Christmas markets around Prague. Try the market at the Namesti Miru.
Price: About CZK 150 ($7.89) for a half-liter bottle.
By Modupe Akinnawonu
Old Town and the Vltava as seen from Letna. Photo by Modupe Akinnawonu.
Prague is one of those European cities that is simply breathtaking when seen from above, even on the dreariest of days. If you’re looking to take your own postcard-worthy photographs of the city, there are many places where you can get an elevated perspective. Here are just a few:
Letná Park: Letenské sady is an expansive park downriver from Prague Castle along the Vltava’s left bank. One of the best views is from in front of the Hanavský Pavilion.
Candy Shop, an installment by street artist Pasta Oner, part of the Metropolis exhibit at the DOX Center for Contemporary Arts.
Street art comes in off the streets
By Nancy Ryerson
The walls of the metro station are covered with graffiti. A barbershop offers “soul cutting,” and a doughnut shop gives a complementary weight loss pill with each pastry.
No ordinary metro stop, Metropolis is an exhibit of graffiti and street art at the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in the Holešovice borough of Prague. The exhibit features artists Cryptic 257, Masker, Pasta, Point, Skarf and Tron, all of whom seek to capture city life and street art within a re-imagined gallery setting.
Those interested in getting a tattoo should research local salons first.
by Nancy Ryerson
Though memories can last forever, souvenirs often cannot. A pair of garnet earrings may be lost; a Prague Drinking Team t-shirt might shrink. So some NYU students are looking to buy an infallibly long-lasting souvenir: a tattoo. But students interested in getting a tattoo should be careful to understand tattoo health risks and tattoo policy in the Czech Republic.
Tattoo studios are regulated nationally for licensing and sanitation standards. You must be 18 to get a tattoo in the Czech Republic without parental consent. Tattoo artists also must have a certificate that says Osvědčení o rekvalifikaci (Certificate of [re]qualification) which certifies that the tattoo artist is legally licensed.
“If the shop doesn’t look clean at first glance, there is something wrong. Some marks you should look out for are if there’s smoking inside, no autoclave [a sterilization unit], or no canister for used needles,” said Kanar Kilmentska, floor manager of Tribo Tattoo. “If the personnel aren’t able to show you these things or can’t answer your questions, go somewhere else.”
Who says romance has to be expensive?
A lunch break that won’t break you
By Modupe Akinnawonu
Getting sick of Paneria sandwiches and salty pizza, but looking for a cheap lunch? Look no further than Restaurant Rainer Maria Rilke in Old Town. An unexpected find in the midst of expensive-looking hotels in the heart of Prague, this easy-to-miss gem should be on the to-do list of every student studying here.
Walking into the restaurant is like waltzing into a romantic dream. Its theme is its namesake, with detailed ink-sketches of Rilke, a Prague-born poet famous largely for his German-language poems, decorating the walls. Portraits of Friedrich Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe can also be found among the old brass instruments, landscape photographs, and giant murals that adorn the restaurant. Music reminiscent of Disney films and opera of the 1930s serenades you as you eat.
Dealing with our Chipotle cravings
By Ann Perepezko
Just because the fried cheese and goulash has grown on us doesn’t mean we don’t miss certain foods from America. Some of our homeland comforts don’t seem to hold the same importance among Czechs and have eluded existence in grocery stores and restaurants. While we’re all trying to bare the loss no longer having 24-hour delis on every block, or free tap water anywhere, you don’t have to wait to return to the United States to enjoy the items you crave. Here are some things that students thought didn’t exist in Prague, but have close enough substitutes to hold us over for the next few months.
Would you like absinthe in your coffee?
By Caitlin Shapiro
Between partying in Berlin last weekend and planning your trip to Krakow later this month, it’s hard to find time to scope out the best cafe (or kavárna) near campus – but fear not, the Wanderer staff has done the legwork for you. Czech out U Budovce (Tynská 7) nestled along the left side of Týn Cathedral on Old Town Square. You won’t be sorry.
Don’t be fooled by its unimpressive exterior — let the echoes of live music will draw you in. U Budovce is a must if you’ll appreciate its mixed scenery consisting of wire and wooden chairs, brick floors, and a large collection of hanging mirrors (they even have a sink hanging like a picture frame).