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For nearly 20 years, the Multicultural Centre Prague has been involved in promoting human rights and respect for cultural diversity. Their activities and projects focus on the social and economic advancement of migrants in the Czech Republic or inclusion of socially disadvantaged minorities. I met with the centre’s director Zuzana Schreiberová to discuss some of their activities, including a project called Prague Shared and Divided or the recently published Prague-Warsaw newspaper:

An exhibition marking 200 years since the introduction of post boxes in the Czech lands is currently on display at Prague’s Postal Museum. On display are mailboxes from various periods of history as well as related objects. Among other thing, visitors can see the country’s oldest existing post box, dating back to the 1830s.

Where are the most unusual places to have a drink in Prague? What are the city’s five best small breweries? And which five river islands are worth discovering? A new book called ‘500 Hidden Secrets of Prague’ gives answers to all these questions and more and invites both tourists and locals to discover places off the beaten track.

Twenty-five years since the Czech and Slovak republics split in the Velvet Divorce, both continue to share remarkably close ties. Not surprisingly, tourism plays a key role, with Czech visitors, for example, making up for more than a third of foreign tourists in Slovakia a year. While the Czech Republic may have the edge in the number of castles and chateaux, sites such as the Tatra Mountains or Slovak Paradise remain major draws for Czechs.

Hundreds of vintage Czechoslovak posters will go on display this week in the new Czech Poster Museum in Prague. Located in a beautiful 15th century House at the Golden Grape at Malá Strana, the museum was established by Prague-based US businessman Glenn Spicker, a poster enthusiast who spent more than twenty years putting together his current collection. I visited the Czech Poster Museum a few days ahead of its official opening to talk to Glenn Spicker and I first asked him how he got the idea to establish the place:

Protesters this week braved freezing temperatures to protest the pending demolition of what they regard as one of the best examples of so-called Brutalist architecture from the 1970s in the then Czechoslovakia. They argue that the latest episode is one of many recent ones and epitomises the failure of local and national heritage authorities to properly protect a broad swathe of monuments in Prague and the rest of the country.

The Museum of Decorative Arts in the centre of Prague has finally reopened after a protracted renovation. The largest Czech museum dedicated to applied art and design, which boasts one of the most extensive glass collections in Europe, had been closed since January 2015. It opened to the public with a new exhibition called Director’s Choice, presenting an exclusive selection of items from its collections.

Martina Formanová, the wife of the famous Czech director Miloš Forman, was recently in Prague to launch an audio version of her novel, called Případ Pavlína, or Case Pavlína. The book, which was released a few years ago, tells the story of the Czech-born 1980’s super model Pavlína Pořízková and her family’s dramatic escape from Communist Czechoslovakia.

The prices of apartments in Prague have skyrocketed in recent years, making it almost impossible for many people to find affordable housing in the capital. A group of people united in a project called Sdílené domy or Shared Houses decided to buy a house in Prague, and administer it themselves: not as a traditional tenants’ association, but as a community. In the future, they would also like to create a co-housing network across the country.

According to EU statistics, Czechs are some of the best in Europe for separating communal waste, including paper, plastic and milk cartons. But when it comes to recycling and minimising the amount of waste we produce, there is still a long way to go, says Soňa Jonášová of the Institute of Circular Economy. For several years now, her institute has been helping Czech municipalities and businesses to move from linear to circular economy by adopting at least some of its key elements: