Letter from Prague | All stories

You may not be familiar with the name Josef Koudelka, but there is a very good chance you will know his work. And we’re all sure to see a lot more of it as the August anniversary of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia draws nearer. Koudelka’s striking black-and-white shots of tanks in the centre of Prague and other images from that turbulent period are regarded as some of the most important works of photojournalism of the 20th century.

Until not long ago, Czechs used to ride only two or three types of bikes: either the Czechoslovak-made Favorit or Eska, or the legendary “Ukraina” bike, produced, as the title suggests, by our eastern neighbour. With the establishment of the free market, however, Czechs have gone wild about bikes and cycling has become a big business…

One of the odder things I have found myself doing in recent weeks is an auction on a boat, halfway up the river Vltava, in the assembled company of government employees, policemen, sex workers and feminists. A delegation of anti human-trafficking campaigners came to the Czech Republic from the Netherlands, and yours truly was drafted in to translate. Not into Dutch – I’m afraid my linguistic skills don’t stretch quite that far – but into English… or at least so I thought.

Anyone who has visited the Czech Republic before and after the Velvet Revolution will have noticed how much the country has changed. Although it was always hauntingly beautiful, Prague has now become a fast-paced, Western-style metropolis that offers both the locals and visitors everything they could possibly want. But more interesting are the changes within, which require a deeper knowledge of the Czech mentality and a discerning eye.

I sit and write this letter from Prague on my balcony, hoping that that grey cloud looming large at the end of the street comes no closer for fear of my laptop's survival, and indeed so that I avoid an electric shock. My view from up here consists of a tram lurking at the end of the road, waiting to wind its way back across this city along route number four to Kotlářka, if I'm not very much mistaken. And of course there are the neighbours, who I try to pretend that I can't see in their flats at all, and in return I hope they do the same to

The Colorado potato beetle is a pernicious and resilient crop pest. Also known by the colourful name of ten-striped spearman, it has an interesting history in this part of the world. In fact, the beetle was one of the most visible elements of communist propaganda in Czechoslovakia in the dark days of the 1950s.

Recently on the internet I came across the comment that Prague’s days as a consumer black hole were over, making clear, once and for all that mall culture had arrived. That statement couldn’t be more accurate. In the last decade the capital has seen the arrival of shiny new shopping centres at a magnificent rate, changing lifestyles and Czechs’ leisure time like never before. Going out with friends, usually meant just “grabbing one or two at the pub”, but now there are dozens of glossy options to choose from, often under one roof: hanging out at

During the week, Prague is increasingly a city clogged full of cars. Certain roads in the centre, such as the horrendous multi-laned artery known as Legerová near Prague’s Muzeum have become little more than noisy, polluted, car-choked hellholes in which pedestrians – that’s human beings not in cars to you and me - are pretty secondary to the endless tooting, speeding and often screaming motorists. There’s been talk of doing something about these traffic levels – perhaps tolls for drivers entering the centre – but before the usual “isn’t that a

Unfortunate circumstance have forced me to spend more time in hospitals in recent weeks than I would like to, although I was lucky to be only a visitor, not a patient. Still, going to hospitals is usually not a cheerful experience, unless you are visiting a friend who has just had a baby. The dimly lit corridors and smell of germicide make me feel uneasy as soon as I open the door. However, in spite of this grim atmosphere there is something rather nice about old hospital buildings in Prague.

The other day Prague saw the beginning of a six-month programme of “deratizace”, meaning rat extermination, and to my ears an amusing word. The Czech name for somebody who works in the field is “deratizátor”, which I guess could be loosely translated as rat terminator.