Martina Navrátilová

Today is the second significant day of the year.  It is the Day of Czechs Abroad and it is meant to honour Czechs who emigrated.  The USA is the country with the largest number of Czechs living abroad and one of the most famous emigres is Martina Navrátilová.   

Martina Navratilova is considered one of the greatest tennis players of all time.  She dominated women's tennis in the 1970s and 1980s and with 59 major titles.  She won her first major title in 1974 and won her last major title in 2006, just before her 50th birthday.  She'd been winning major tennis titles for 32 years.  Wow!  Here's the official trailer from YouTube for Martina Navratilova: Unrivalled.

©US Open Tennis Championships

She was born in Prague in 1956.  She started playing tennis at a young ago and she won the national tennis championship in Czechoslovakia when she was just 15.  In 1975 she turned professional.  While on tour in the USA in 1975, when she was 18 years old, she asked for political asylum and was given a green card.  When she defected, the communists stripped her of her Czechoslovak citizenship.  In 1981 she became an American citizen.  After the Velvet Revolution and Velvet Divorce, she was able to gain Czech citizenship in 2008 and is now a dual citizen of the USA and Czechland.  

Once she was an American citizen she came out of the closet and has been an active spokesperson and role model for the LGBT community.  It's sad that she could not come out earlier but if she did then it could have disqualified her from gaining U.S. citizenship.

Here's a short video I found on YouTube that talks about her life and career.

©Juana Chaves

Here's a short video about the first time she returned to Czechoslovakia in 1986.  This was the first time that she was able to see her parents since she defected.  

©Tennisfamer

I'll be honest.  When I was moving to Czechland, if someone asked me to name a famous Czech I would have only been able to name Václav Havel, Věra Čáslavská, and Martina Navrátilová.  Thanks to living here, now I know way more but I'd have to say that Martina is still the best well known.

Meet the Mayor 2023

Yesterday I got to meet the mayor.  The mayor's office wanted to hear from people about how to better meet the needs of foreigners as the city continues to grow as a centre for technology and innovation.  

Kyndryl is the city's largest private employer with about 1700 foreigners working here in Brno.  We were provided two tickets and I was lucky enough to be asked to go. 

After work I showed up at the town tall for the event.  This was my first time inside and I was floored.  

Some of it has been recently renovated and I had no idea of just how beautiful it was.

JUDr. Markéta Vańková has been Brno's mayor since 2018.  Before she was mayor, she was a representative for the South Moravian Region.

One of the chaps from the Brno Expat Centre knew me from my blog.  That was a surprise but then later on I remembered that my blog had been mentioned back in 2017.

I was impressed with how the city is trying to bring in more highly-qualified expats, especially in the field of nanotechnology, and what the city can do to help people settle in.

There are foreigners from 149 countries registered in Brno.  Slovaks don't have to register as foreigners in Czechland so their numbers aren't included.  The largest number of foreigners in Brno are from Ukraine, followed by Vietnam, Russia, India, Romania, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria, Philippines, USA, Poland, UK, and Belarus.  

I was gobsmacked to find out that there are 629 Americans living in Brno.  I have no idea of where they are hiding because I don't know them.  How are there more Americans here than Poles when Poland is next door?  I honestly only know a few Americans here.  I know way more people from Italy, France, Spain, and Germany here in Brno and these countries aren't even on the list.

There were maybe 50 or 75 people that were invited and I got the chance to meet up with a few friends from other companies that I haven't seen in a while. 

It really was a great experience and I count myself very lucky to have had the chance to participate.

Now to figure out where are of these other Americans are.

80th Anniversary of the End of the Battle of Stalingrad

Today is the 80th anniversary of the end of the Battle of Stalingrad.  It lasted from 23 August 1942 to 2 February 1943.  The Battle of Stalingrad was the largest and deadliest battle ever known with approximately 2 million people killed on both sides. 

The Battle of Stalingrad was the first major defeat for Hitler's army and is regarded as the turning point in the war in Europe.

In 1925, Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad, after the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.  In 1961, the city was renamed Volgograd.

Here's a five-minute YouTube video about the Battle of Stalingrad.

©Simple History

There have been a few movies about the Battle of Stalingrad.  Stalingrad was a German language film released in 1993.  It follows a platoon of German soldiers transferred to the Eastern Front in WWII and they find themselves fighting in Stalingrad.  Here's the movie trailer with English subtitles.

©Strand Releasing

Another well-known film is the 2001 release of Enemy at the Gates.  

It tells the story of Vasily Zaitsev, a young sniper who killed over 225 enemy soldiers.  Here's the movie trailer.  

©Paramount Pictures

Vasily Zaitsev was a celebrated Hero of the Soviet Union for his service in WWII, which in Russia is known as "the Great Patriotic War".  Following the war, he settled in Kyiv and lived there until he died in 1991, just 11 days before the Soviet Union broke apart.  He was buried in Kyiv but he had wished to be be buried in Stalingrad so in January 2006 he was reburied in Volgograd.

Volgograd has been on my list of places to visit.  At the Stalingrad Museum his sniper rifle is on display which I'd like to see one day.  However, I don't think that it's going to be anytime soon.

Apparently Russia is glamorising Stalin again and have put up a new bust of him in Volgograd.  Although he was responsible for the deaths of 6-9 million people.

©EuroNews

Who knows how Putin will try to spin the 80th anniversary into a propaganda event trying to further justify his war in Ukraine.

Я за Україну. Я за Україною. Слава Україні  Stojím za Ukrajinou!  I stand with Ukraine. 

Update:  Here's two minutes of CCTV coverage of the anniversary.

©CCTV

New Czech President

The results are in and Czechland is getting a new president.  Petr Pavel will replace incumbent president Miloš Zeman.  When he takes office in March he will be country's fourth president.

Here's what's gone over here.  Following the election in 2021,  Petr Fiala became prime minister and Andrej Babiš was out of a job.  For some reason he decided to run for president.

The first round of presidential elections took place on 13-14 January.  General Pavel ran as an independent candidate and won the first round of elections with 35,4% of the vote.  Babiš came in second with 34,99%.

Most of the other candidates put their support behind Pavel and he won the second round of voting with 58,33%.  He won by more than a million votes.  There was just over 70% voter turnout which was the highest turnout in any national election since 1998.   

President-elect Pavel enlisted in the Czechoslovak People's Army after graduating high school in 1983.  Following the Velvet Divorce, he served in the Czech Army and from 2012 to 2015 he was the Chief of the General Staff of the Czech Armed Forces. From 2015 to 2018 he was the Chairman of the NATO Military Committee; the first military officer from the former Warsaw Pact to hold the position.

While he doesn't have any political experience he does have a master's degree in international relations from King's College London and speaks English, French, and Russian. 

Pavel is a social progressive who supports gay marriage, euthanasia, and rejects the death penalty.  He is pro-Western, pro-EU, pro- NATO, and he supports Ukraine.  He was endorsed by Spolu, the centre-right governing alliance.

Following the Velvet Revolution, people chanted "Havel na Hrad" ("Havel to the Castle") for Václav Havel to become president (because Prague Castle is the official office of the president).

During the campaign, it became "Pavel na Hrad".

Babíš was endorsed by outgoing president Zeman and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia.  Babiš tried to portray Pavel as a warmonger.  Babiš also caused additional controversy when he said that if Poland was attacked by Russia, then he would not comply with NATO's article 5, and would not go to Poland's defence.

Here's a short video I found on YouTube about the election.

©Al Jazeera

Hustopeče, Czech Republic

Kája's birthday was three week ago but we've been busy with work so we decided to celebrate later.  I surprised him with a wellness weekend in Hustopeče.

Hustopeče is a town about 30 km (~19 miles) southeast of Brno, located between Brno and Břeclav.  It is home to about 6.000 people and it is known for almonds and wine.

The area was settled by Germans in the 13th century who called it Auspitz and its first mention was in 1247.  The Germans brought viticulture to the area.  From the start of the 14th century to 1599, Hustopeče was owned by St. Thomas's Abbey in Brno.

In 1572, Hustopeče was given town status by the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II.  It belonged to the House of Liechtenstein from 1599 to 1848.  In the mid-18th century, Hustopeče was Moravia's largest wine-growing municipality.   

Following WWI, and the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the area became part of the newly independent Czechoslovakia.  After the 1938 Munich Agreement, which gave the Sudetenland to Germany, the Nazis took over.  It then became part of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.  

The 1910 census indicated that most of the town's inhabitants were ethnic Germans.  After WWII, the German-speaking population, even those who lived here prior to the Nazis, were expelled due to the Beneš decrees.

Almond growing is not that common in Central Europe.  It dates back to the 17th century.  In an effort to supplement food during Communism, the first large-scale orchards were planted in 1949.  

A lot of the almonds goes to making mandlovice (almond brandy).  The almond version of slivovice.  

There are three versions - normal, coffee-flavoured, and cherry-flavoured.  The original mandlovice is my favourite of all of the Czech "-ovices", followed by merunkovice, hruškovice, slivovice, and jablkovice (Calvados).

The town's main landmark is the Church of Saints Wenceslaus and Agnes of Bohemia.  The church was built in 1994 on the site of the original church that dated back to the early 14th century.  

The Baroque plague column dates back to 1736.

The Žumberák fountain dates back to 1595.  It used to be one of the town's few sources of drinking water.

Town Hall

The Neo-Renaissance town hall was built in 1906.  

Dům U Synků

The Dům U Synků is a Renaissance house dating back to 1579.  It was renovated in 2001and today the building is used for cultural purposes.  It is home to the City Museum and a Gallery.

The House of Lords of Vizovice was built from 1488 to 1492.  It was renovated in 2002.

At Calvary Hill is the Chapel of St. Rocha that was built in the 17th century during a plague epidemic.  It sits in a park overlooking the town.

T.G. Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia lived in Hustopeče from 1861 to 1868.  There is a 2 km (1.25 mile) trail that can be followed to see places associated with the family. 

His parents are buried in the town cemetery.

Near the town cemetery is the Red Army cemetery.  There are 101 individual graves and a total of 1.875 Soviet soldiers buried here.  Renovations that took place in 2005 were financed by Russia.

The earliest known Jewish community in Hustopeče was during the 15th century.  The Jewish cemetery dates back to 1886 with the last known burial taking place prior to 1942.  During the German occupation the cemetery was vandalised, and later the Communists removed all of the gravestones in the 1980s.  Now there is just a memorial plaque for the town's Jewish population that perished during the Holocaust.

The train from Brno to Hustopeče takes 45 minutes and we arrived at our hotel on Friday evening.  I booked us in at Hotel Amande and really enjoyed our stay.

The hotel restaurant was excellent and on Saturday we had the full wellness experience complete with a private relaxation room and massages.

I hear that from the second half of March to the beginning of April, the almond orchards are covered with pink flowers.  I'm sure that its beautiful and we'll need to make a return trip to visit some of the local wine cellars. 

Brno Philharmonic

Filharmonie Brno was formed in 1956 and last September it kicked off its 67th season.  The season includes three international tours.  Last October the Philharmonic was in the UK and South Korea, and in February it will play seven locations.

08.02. - Carnigie Hall - New York City, NY
10.02. - Hill Auditorium, Ann Arbor, MI
13.02. - Granada Theatre, Santa Barbora, CA
14.02. - McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, CA
15.02. - The Soraya, Northridge, CA
18.02. - Helzberg Hall, Kansas City, MO
20.02. - Buddy Holly Hall, Lubbock, TX

This will be the first time that the Brno Philharmonic has played in the USA in 50 years.

©Filharmonie Brno/Brno Philharmonic

Besední dům is home to the philharmonic.  In May it will celebrate 150 years since it opened.

It 1918, the front balcony was used to inform the townspeople that the newly formed country of Czechoslovakia declared independence after almost 400 years of being ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Dennis Russell Davis is the Brno Philharmonic's music director and chief conductor.  He's American and earned his doctorate at Juilliard.

He's been the chief conductor in Brno since the 2018-2019 season.

There's a cool thing that the philharmonic is doing this season to help get children interested in music.  Na půlku za půlku (Half for Half) is geared for children form 7 to 12 years old, who can manage the first half of a concert but aren't yet old enough to manage the second half.  So on three selected Friday evenings, kids and their parents enjoy the first half of the concert, and during the second half, there's a music workshop for the kids while the parents continue to enjoy the concert without them.  On these evenings, the children's discounted tickets receive a further 50% discount.

Mendel University

Mendel University, MENDELU, was founded in 1919, making it the country's oldest independent specialised university.

It was originally established as the University of Agriculture in Brno.  It 1994 it was renamed the Mendel Agricultural and Forestry University in Brno.  From 2010, it has been Mendel University, named after Johann Gregor Mendel - the father of modern genetics.

MENDLU is a public institution with more than 12.000 students studying for bachelors, masters, and doctorate degrees in five faculties and one university institute.

Faculty of Agronomy
Faculty of Forestry and Wood
Faculty of Business Administration and Economics
Faculty of Horticulture
Faculty of Regional Development and International Studies
Institute of Lifelong Education

It is a public university and degrees offered in Czech are free.  Some programmes are taught in English but students have to pay for this.  

In June 2020, for the first time, MENDELU made the QS World University Rankings top 1000.  It placed #701-750.  Here's a short English-language video I found on YouTube about the university.

©Mendelova univerzita v Brně

The university has just run into some trouble.  The National Accreditation Office for Higher Education (NAÚ), has withdrawn accreditation for the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics for doctoral studies in economics.  This only impacts doctoral studies in the one faculty.  Apparently there have been some discrepancies due to plagiarism and some foreign (paying) students have been able to complete doctorate degrees within 30 months.  Normally a doctorate degree should take around 48 months or more to complete.  It appears that the decision to withdraw accreditation isn't final and the university will be able to appeal.

Brno City Break in 2023

Last year, Time Out magazine published their list of the 16 best city breaks in Europe for 2022.  Brno came in second place.  

This year Brno made the list again but fell to seventh place.  A few spots lower but still in the top ten.

The write up for Brno was pretty much exactly the same as last year.  

Here are the top 18 places.  Several of these are still on my list of places to visit.

1. Marseille, France
2. Sheffield, UK
3. Buhać, Bosnia and Herzegovina
4. Milan, Italy
5. Bilbao, Spain
6. Arles, France
7. Brno, Czech Republic
8. Liverpool, UK
9. Kaunas, Lithuania
10. Oslo, Norway
11. Hamburg, Germany
12. Dublin, Ireland
13. Inverness, UK
14. Trikala, Greece
15. Rotterdam, Netherlands
16. Freiburg, Germany
17. Turku, Finland
18. Valencia, Spain

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