Czechmatediary

The world famous Czech model Martina Nemcova from Karvina, has her own TV show now. It’s called “A model life”, uncovering the backstage of the world of professional modeling and NY fashion, and it will be showing for about 8 weeks on the TLC channel. Among the modeling contestants is this year also a model from Slovakia (!!). The show premiered last night from Nemcova’s own apartment in New York. Every model’s homework was to bring her favorite meal representing her own country of origin. And no, it wasn’t all just salads without dressing;the Slovakian girl,for example,brought Palacinky (Crepes, Czech style) - good for her!! (more…)

A $1.3 million lawsuit was filed yesterday against the tuberculosis-infected traveler Andrew Speaker. The suing party consists of 9 people who were on the same Prague-to-Montreal flight, of which two of them are Czech. In case you are interested, the ninth person in the suing party is a roommate of one of the passengers (pretty soon cousin’s neighbor of the wife of one of the passengers will be suing Speaker too…). The sources say that Mr. Speaker was diagnosed with a treatable kind of tuberculosis already in the US. According to him, however, he was told to “swing by the New York City hospital for further testing after his European vacation was over”. While on his honeymoon he went to get tested in Europe (why??) and the results showed that he actually suffered with the extremely dangerous, drug-resistant strain of TB and was advised not to get on another international flight again. Despite this advise Andrew hopped on a Czech Airlines jetliner heading for Montreal and later started his treatment at home, in a Denver hospital. (more…)

The new “Good beer guide: Prague and the Czech Republic” uncovers also the highly unknown beer kinds such as the author’s favorite, the - for now - nameless beer from the remote Czech village Hukvaldy ( found in the even more remote pub called “Na zastavce”). The author of this book is an American writer Evan Rail who in 2006 traveled through all kinds of Czech pubs and breweries to research the beauty and uniqueness of Czech beer. When the Radio Praha reporter asked him during his interview if he himself thought that Czech beer was indeed that awesome as they say, Evan replied: “I would have to say Czech beer is phenomenal. I was not a partisan before I moved here; I did not know that much about Czech beer. I knew a little bit about beer in a global context. But having lived here for a long time and having researched all these beers, and having recently done a lot of research in Germany, I can tell you that Czech beer standards are the best in the world. There’s simply nothing to compare, in terms of lagers.” (more…)

Summer in Czech is at its full speed and even though the weather forecast is predicting rain, Prague is alive with its new cultural event, the Bohemia Jazz Fest. The musicians hit it off today on the Old Town Square, and on Thursday the whole performing squad will move to Pilsen, then Prachatice and finishes off in Ceske Budejovice. The organizer of this festival is a famous jazz guitar player, Czech American Rudy Linka. Rudy left Czechoslovakia in 1980, starting his jazz career first in Sweden and five years later in the USA where he came out with more than ten jazz albums, including his last one called ” Beyond the New York City Limits“. (more…)

During the 1850’s most Czech immigrants felt the strongest connection with the American Democratic party. Since the majority of political positions were already taken by other immigrant groups (especially the Irish), the Czechs usually had to start their political careers in small towns of Midwest and Texas, which is where most Czech Americans lived. The first famous Czech American politician became Augustin Haidusek, who was elected in 1875 as the mayor of La Grande, Texas. The next Czech star in American politics was Adolf Sabath. Born in Pisek, this Czech fellow became the longest serving U.S. congressman in history (Adolf was re-elected into the US Congress 23 times!! And then he died..). And the list goes on: Otto Kerner became the governor of Illionis in 1960’s who became known for his “Kerner’s report” in which he warned America about the increasing division between the whites and the blacks. (more…)

Film festival in Karlovy Vary is over and this is the re-cap:

• It showed the total of 250 movies
• It brought in 12,071 visitors in 9 days which is about 500 more people than last year
• It almost brought Danny De Vito to tears when while receiving his Chrystal Globe prize the whole audience got up and applauded him
• The Chrystal Globe prize for the best movie of the year was given to an Icelandic movie called “Northern mud” (Severni Blata)

The closing ceremony was attended not only by the former president Vaclav Havel himself (accompanied by his wife) but also cardinal Miroslav Vlk and vice president Mirek Topolanek. While receiving his prize, Danny De Vito was also remembering out loud his late-night talks with his good friend Milos Forman and how he would try to teach him some Czech words. The one that Danny chose to proudly share with the audience was “hovno” (=shit)…

• The next year’s festival: July 4th - July 12th, 2008

CZ: Karlovarsky festival filmu tento rok: (more…)

The number of people that moved to Prague this year increased to 45, 061. The majority of them are young males between the ages of 20 and 39 years old who have not yet started their own family and are also the most economically active. Once these super-active “Go-getters” become economically stable they start their families and move to the Prague suburbs where they build themselves a family house (and also start the American trend of “bedroom communities”??!!). Why are they moving to Prague? The city’s monthly average wages are about 25,881 Kc which is about 5, 5000 Kc more than the country’s average. It also has one of the lowest unemployment rates. The May 2007 report shows a count of 1,328 unfilled job positions more than the actual number of unemployed people. Still, many people also move out of Prague, most of which tend to be - once again - young males no older than 40 years old. The overall net influx of incomers is still 6, 260 (# of persons) higher than the number of people that are actually leaving Prague.

CZ: Pocet pristehovalcu do Prahy vzrostl tento rok na 45 061. Vetsina “novacku” jsou mladi lide ve veku 20 az 39 let, kteri jeste nemaji svoji vlastni rodinu, a jsou ekonomicky nejaktivnejsi. Praha ma dnes nejvyssi prumernou mzdu ( 25.881Kc/mesic, coz je of 5,5 tisice Kc vice nez je celostatni prumer) a take ma jednu z nejnizsich nezamestnanosti (v kvetnu bylo napocitano 1328 volnych mist vic nez lidi bez prace). Tito mladi lide se pak staji ekonomicky silnejsimi, zakladaji rodiny a postavi si dum za Prahou. Mnoho lidi take ale z Prahy odchazi, z nichz vestsina jsou muzi do 40ti let. Praha presto ale zaznamenava celkovy prirustek 6 260 pristehovalych.

Source: http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/domov/praha/index_view.php?id=260851

A former beauty of a Czech descent is getting married for the fourth time! The 58-year old, today already a grandma, Ivana Trump (Zelnickova is her maiden name), is tying the knot with a 36-year old Italian model Rossan Rubicondi. Ivana was born and raised in Zlin, Czech Republic. She became known all over the United States when she married an American millionaire and a businessman Donald Trump. Together they had three children: Ivanka, Donald and Eric. The Cesky a Slovensky Svet magazine (Czech and Slovak World) calls her the second most famous Czech American of all times after Martina Navratilova (I am not sure if I agree with that…). Ivana Zelnickova was born in Zlin in 1949. Ever since she was a young girl she loved to do sports, especially skying and swimming, which led her to enter the Charles University of Physical Education in Prague. There she also met her first husband, an Austrian skier Alfred Qinklmayer. Ivana doesn’t make secret of the fact that she married him just to get out of the country. She filed for a divorce after two years of marriage and moved to Montreal, where she continued in her modeling career. And it was one of those modeling jobs that took her to New York in 1976 where she also met her “prince on a white horse” (also her future sugar-daddy) - Donald Trump. After 9 months of dating the two of them got married and after 13 years of marriage the two of them got also divorced. Ivana didn’t walk away quite empty-handed from that marriage though: she got $10 million in cash, a $12 million house in Connecticut, $4 million housing allowance and a $100,000-a-year child support. (more…)

I found 2 additional Czech events that are happening in the month of July (written in bold):

1. NEW: Chicago, Illinois (Restaurant KLAS)

(http://www.klasrestaurant.com/)

* July 30th – play “ Dobyti Severniho Polu” (by Jara Cimmerman)

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2. NEW: Montgomery,Minnesota

(http://www.montgomerymn.org/kdaysche.html)

* July 27th - 29th : Czech Festival Kolacky Days

(more…)

Part of the Prague Days in Chicago celebration is also an interesting exhibition entitled “Man hanging out“. You may ask:”What the heck does that mean?”? It’s a seven-foot, bronze-colored fiberglass sculpture of a psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, which is hanging from a crane on the top of a 15-story building at the Columbia College in the South Loop. The Chicago Sun-Times also says that the local police has been receiving numerous phone calls from concerned pedestrians thinking that the statue is actually a live body. What does Freud have to do with the Prague Days in Chicago? He was born in Pribor (Freiberg), Moravia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. The unusual sculpture of Freud was made by a 39-year old Czech sculptor David Cerny who is also known for painting a Soviet tank pink in 1991 as a war memorial in downtown Prague. If you would like to see this Freud guy he is planning on hanging out (literally) until August 31st. (more…)