Prague Memories

Prague. The heart of Europe. The center of Bohemia. To me Prague presents itself as a distinct city from the depressed and wounded city of Berlin. The sun reflects boldly upon rows and rows of Gothic and Baroque decorated rooftops of Old Town Square, lighting up the busy plaza and crowded streets. Despite being so tiny with 1.6 million people, Prague certainly doesn’t feel quiet. Its iconic red trams can take you anywhere, and the microsized but impressingly deep metro system can be compared to Berlin during rush hours.

What sets Prague apart from Berlin is its history. Unlike the German capital which had been through three different eras of devastation and oppression, Praha takes a different turn. A tourist arriving in Prague would most certainly have believed they had travelled back in time. The stone brick streets with rusty street lamps hanging from the sides of each building creates the illusion of a small town stuck in time, a town in the 17th century. Spiked spires of towers spiraling out from a sea of red slanted rooftops are scattered all around the skyline. No socialist blocks or modern skyscrapers, this is where Prague draws a clear line from Berlin.

Prague survived the entirety of World War II completely intact, with the inland city tucked out of range of Allied bomber planes. Other cities, like Dresden, which was only a hundred kilometers to the north, weren't so lucky. Many historical buildings were preserved, and the city was finally liberated by the Red Soviet Army on May 9, 1945.

However, things only take a turn for the worse. Before the outbreak of war in 1939 one of the first communist parties ever, the Czechoslovak Communist Party, won large percentages of the vote, not enough to gain power, but enough to be recognized by the Soviet Union. Historical context shows how the industrial revolution had altered the nation into an industrial superpower, with its economy booming and income per capita rising above established countries like France and the U.K. Czechoslovakia had an extremely powerful working class. Then the Great Depression hit, and soon enough wages, living standards, working conditions all deteriorated. The Czechoslovak Communist Party was therefore able to gain massive support from the struggling working class and rise to power. Therefore, now after the war with the support of the USSR, the communist party was able to forcefully take power and remove all opposition.

Czechoslovakia was the Soviet Union’s communist experiment. Unsurprisingly it failed. They used the Comecon to exploit Czechoslovak mines. They introduced regional 5-year plans without actually calculating the total output and providing efficient tools. Prague and the rest of Czechoslovakia, was the pinnacle of Soviet brutalism architecture. Tens of thousands of Soviet building blocks were constructed.

The country turned from a mainly self-sustainable economy to a communist run-down nation that had everything from agriculture to power supply dependent on Soviet imports and a backwards heavy industry that still used primitive iron production methods a century ago. When the Soviets left in 1991, it marked the end of a dark era, and the beginning of a new one. Prague removed basically all traces of communism, but there are still remains of a Soviet legacy that could be found subtly in the city’s architecture.

There is nothing much to say about my admiration for the Czech people. The Prague Spring of 1968. The people resisted as Red Army tanks rolled into Wenceslas Square, the very heart of Prague and the Czech people. The people resisted as the Soviet Army forcefully occupied Czechoslovakia all the way until 1991. Wenceslas Square was the soul of Czech independence, Alois Jirasek read the Czechoslovak declaration of independence in front of Saint Wenceslas Statue in 1918, and yet Russian, Polish, Hungarian, and Bulgarian troops were stationed in Wenceslas Square onlooking the resentful Czech population. On 16 January 1969, student Jan Palach set himself on fire in Wenceslas Square to protest the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. His memorial still stands proudly under the sun on the riverbank of the Vltava River.

The Vltava River. The vein and blood of Prague that flows around Old Town Square like a bundle. Multiple stone bridges span the width of this river, including Charles Bridge. While serving as the mother river of Czechia, the Vltava River is also notorious for its floods. With floods recorded all the way back in 1784 to most recently in 2002, this river is not a force to be reckoned with.

Charles Bridge. Named after Charles IV of the Holy Roman Empire and Charles I of Bohemia, this bridge has a history of over 600 years, with construction beginning in 1357 and ending in 1402. Despite taking 45 years to build, Charles Bridge has stood for quite a while. It has endured multiple rounds of Vltava river flooding as well as three wars. Czechs always say that there is only one king to remember in Czech history, and that is King Charles. He was also involved in the construction of St. Vitus Cathedral, and is regarded as the father of the country.

On the sides of the bridge stand multiple Baroque statues, many of which were damaged over time and had to be replaced. I’m not religious, but these statues portrayed saints and patron saints that were well respected during that time. Being one of the only pedestrian bridges in Prague, the beauty of this bridge when viewed during sunset cannot be comprehended nor described using words. The reflection of the fading blue sky captures the shadows and dims the statues situated on the bridge. The Vltava river bank and Romanesque slanted rooftops create the illusion of a dormant, sleepy village somewhere unknown in the plains of Europe.

Perseverance. Prague in one word. Everything seems to be stuck in a time bubble, and the most notable evidence I have here is St. Vitus Cathedral, located within Prague Castle atop the hill overlooking the rest of the Romanesque shaped city. It is one of the largest and oldest structures I’ve ever seen and will ever see. Its traditional Gothic architecture, with the mere sight of its dark imperious towers reaching towards the heavens, sends literal chills down one’s spine. The cathedral’s longlasting history, however, is what grabs the attention of not just me but thousands of tourists visiting the monument every month. The entire structure we see now is a third installation originating from an already large church building dedicated to Wenceslas I, Duke of Bohemia in 930. The bishopric of Prague was founded in 1060 and the structure was expanded on to incorporate increased numbers of the Christian community. Construction on the actual cathedral that we see today started in 1344, almost a millenia ago, spearheaded by none other than the father of Bohemia, Holy Roman emperor, Charles IV. After generations and generations, centuries and centuries of construction, as well as a great fire in 1541, which gave the original side of the cathedral a dark gray skin tone, the structure was finally topped in 1929. Five hundred and eighty five years. And yet it is still standing firm and strong today, with momentous double towers spiraling into the air hiding the scorched Eastern facade that really give off Gothic vibes. The interior is just as magnificent. There are multiple rows of colorful stained glass windows that lay within the cathedral, with beautiful patterns and stylistic details that one would have to go see themselves for them to notice. If you ask me, this would be the best tomb I’ll ever ask for.

If you turn away from the modern history of Prague, religion comes into play every single time. Religious architecture and art is just so embedded in this small time-stuck town, that at every turn and at every building there is holiness and centuries of history attached to it. Truly an amazing place.