Czechmatediary

I meet a bunch of very interesting people through this blog. Just the other day I was contacted by Jan Hanzal who lives in the Czech Republic. Does that name sound familiar? No? How about if I mention the names of some great Czech movies like “Tri veterani“, “Slavnosti snezenek“, or “Prazska petka“??? Do those ring the bell? Well, Jan Hanzal was one of the camera men who shot those movies! Isn’t that cool??

Anyhow, ever since 1991 Jan has been working on his own projects, one of which is also an exciting multimedia historical project called “The Dark Star Quest“. Please read this introduction and make sure that you send it to other people who you think would be interested in it!

‘ The preparations for multimedia project “The Dark Star Quest” begun in May 2008, following the steps of the historical messengers sent out by Czech king Jiri of Podebrady in 1465. Roughly forty quest members, lead by Sir Lev of Rozmital and of Blatna, had the task to visit and gain the approval of the European Christian monarchs and rulers to begin the creation of the European Community. The proposed concept of this remarkable and futuristic idea can be considered as the image model of our current European Union.

On November 25, 1465 the Quest began its journey from part of Prague and from part of Blatna castle, across Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, England, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Slovenia and Austria to return to Czech the spring of 1467. (more…)

Now that Thanksgiving is out of the way (still have a bellyache by the way) let’s talk CHRISTMAS!!! My Czech friend Martina agreed to some truly delicious guest post…

Ted kdyz je Dikuvzdani jiz za nami (porad mam z neho jeste precpane bricho), muzeme se zacit bavit o VANOCICH!! Moje kamaradka Martina (ceska) nam popisuje sve vanoce…plus vyborny recept.

CZECH COOKIE BAKING AND HOW CHRISTMAS IS THE TIME OF PEACE ;0)

- by Martina

When I think about a Christmas time back in Czech - when I was just a little girl - my mind pictures the classroom environment just before the winter break. The blackboard was written all over with notes for our teacher not to test us anymore since we had to be helping our moms with Christmas baking and had no time for studying. That’s right, we had to help with  baking of the cookies, gluing them together with filling and decorating them. The note would usually sound something like this: “Christmas is the time for peace and not for testing; if we get an ‘F’, your fish will not taste the same’ (it rhymes in Czech)”. And to our surprise, the teachers took the note to their hearts and left us alone. Probably they were really afraid that their carp will not taste that good. It worked every year. (more…)

Do you like history? Well, even if you don’t you will find this website not only entertaining but also kind of necessary to keep in the back of your mind for future readings and to show to your kids when they get older. What site am I talking about? It is called “Pateti naroda” (The memories of the nation) and it lists stories of more than 800 Czechoslovak war veterans, holocaust survivors, and political prisoners. Here is what Jiri, the co-creator of the websites says about it (more..):

CZ: Mate radi historii? I kdyz se vam historie moc nezamlouva, webovky zvane Pameti Naroda se vam libit budou. Nejen ze jsou velmi zajimave, ale je to zdroj informaci, na ktere by se jen tak nemelo zapomenout.  Tento digitalni pametnicky archiv shromazduje vzpominky a svedectvi pametniku nejen v podobe fotografii a textu, ale take pouzitim audio a video nahravek. Jiri, spolutvoritel tohoto projektu dale vysvetluje: (more…)