A Brief 100 Year History of Prague

Prague is an unusually confident city probably because of its history over the past 100 years. It seems the city has the attitude of yeah - a lot has happened here in recent history, but we have overcome it and it has made us who we are today. I guess from having their archduke Ferdinand assassinated, which started WW1 and ended the Austrio-Hungarian rule creating Czechoslovakia, to being occupied by Nazi Germany starting in 1939 through the end of WW2, to being communist until "Prague Spring" in '68 which was an effort to become more democratic, to having the Soviet Union step in during '68 being like "no you aren't going to be a democracy, you are communist," to the fall of the Berlin Wall in '89, to becoming the Czech Republic in '93.. yeah a lot has gone on here.

Old Town Prague. Mostly Medieval and  some1890s buildings.

Equally impressive through this time period was the Czech people's ability to resist. There were times during World War II where the Czech people were so rebellious that Nazi Germany had to pull back troops from the Eastern front to deal with the people of Prague. This led to massive murders of the Czech intellectuals and the Nazi's sent students, teachers, and politicians to concentration camps. Meanwhile the allied troops continued to drop bombs on Prague. Patton reached Prague first, but under Eisenhower's order was told not to liberate them and let the Russians take care of Prague.

Vaclav Havel

All of this history is embedded into the city and if you know what to look for you can really see the influence. The most obvious of this is the architecture. There's an old Medieval area, which is the most pretty. However, as you leave that area you can tell which areas were bombed because they are replaced with really ugly communist buildings made largely of concrete. I do not know why the Soviets loved concrete blah looking buildings - but they are everywhere. Oddly enough, you see architecture like this in the newer parts of Havana as well, I don't know why, but something about communism makes residential development look incredibly depressing. (It's like they are saying "Here: Live in a Concrete Box!")

During their forced communism days the Czech people were equally not happy even though they were largely grateful the Russians liberated them during WW2. Very little was done under communism to help the people, buildings were in much needed repair, and the new government was unpopular. Finally in the 90s they were able to take control of their country and I am told had the most awesome president, Vaclav Havel, who organized the Prague Spring in '68 and spent several years in prison because of this. He was a famous playwright in the '60s creating art that was anticommunist and continued writing when he was in jail. Needless to say after the end of communism he was the natural choice for a leader and won re-election by a landslide.

Examples of Communist architecture near where I'm staying.

Furthermore, you notice the communism influence in the city with the way the traffic and walking paths are organized. This I find personally infuriating because it DOESNT make sense. The philosophy about how to lay out the city seems to be "you walk here because I said so and I have decided this is best" instead of you know actually thinking and analyzing the patterns in which people walk and move. For instance, the biggest intersection near the apartment I'm staying in, which I cross every single day, DOESNT allow you to cross at the intersection. They have literally barred off every side of the intersection at the 4 corners. SO, what you have to do is walk to the middle of any of these roads, cross at the middle where you have to wait for a light for pedestrians, and then be on your merry way. WHY? It doesn't make sense! You see this everywhere in the city. Here's a picture that kind of shows what I'm talking about that I found on the internet. I HATE them - its all about controlling how you walk. I hate it.

The red and white bars are the annoying barriers I've been talking about.

The sad thing about this frustrating infrastructure is it will take several decades to undo because once the layout is made - it's done. It's more difficult to destroy and replace a traffic path than initially creating it.

This post may sound more negative than I intend it - I am enjoying my time here a lot. For instance, yesterday I spent time with a local artist creating a handmade notebook. Today I'm going to go to the KGB museum to look at old Soviet secret service things. I think what I'm struggling with most is that Prague is not as intuitive to me as other cities I've been in. Most cities I intuitively figure out in a day or two. I've been in Prague for 4 days now and I don't feel like I'm any closer to "figuring it out." I know a large part of this is because of its history and also the Eastern European cultural gap. I think it would take me much longer than a week to assimilate, but I only have a week. I find that frustrating - Northern Vietnam and Cuba were much much easier for me to assimilate to.