Panorama | All stories

In Prague’s Old Town, on the corner of Celetná Street and Ovocný trh, you will find the House of the Black Madonna, one of the most distinctive structures in a city known for its unparalleled mix of architectural styles. It was the first building in the rare Cubist style of architecture strongly associated with the city, and today houses a Cubist museum.

Prague’s Troya zoo is rated as one of the best zoological gardens in Europe with huge open spaces for animals and exciting trails for visitors. The zoo celebrated its 80th birthday last weekend – opening its doors to thousands of visitors and launching a campaign that filled the streets of the Czech capital with exotic animals.

Prague’s famous astronomical clock this year celebrates its 600 birthday. To mark the occasion Prague City Hall is hosting an exhibition on the art of watch making. I took a turn around the exhibition and its curator Jan Lidmansky showed me some of the treasures on loan.

How did communist propaganda brainwash people? What were the most frequent words used in the communist press? And was it at all possible to learn any real news from the censored newspapers? These are some of the questions a team of Czech linguists is trying to answer in their Dictionary of Communist Totalitarianism.

It would be hard to find a country where the saying “a dog is man’s best friend” is more apt than in the Czech Republic. According to available statistics close to 40 percent of Czechs own dogs – little dogs, big dogs, fury dogs, lapdogs, assistant dogs, guard dogs and status dogs – very often dogs that markedly resemble their owners. So what is the life of a dog like in the Czech Republic?

When Harry Pollak left Czechoslovakia for France in the autumn of 1938, he had no idea what the future would hold for him. As a teenager, he joined the exile Czechoslovak army fought the Nazis who murdered his family, before fleeing his country again after the communist coup of 1948, and build a career in England from scratch. Mr Pollak gives an account of his extraordinary life in his recently published memoirs. In this edition of Panorama, we talk to Harry Pollak about how a boy from a south Bohemian village ended up saving the famous British

Petr Hlaváček is a man with a passion for shoes. The dean of Zlín’s Bata University knows the technology of shoe-making inside out. He has reconstructed shoes worn by Oetzi the Ice Man 5,000 years ago and is working on the latest technologies for shoes intended to help diabetic patients, among many other projects. So when Czech experts studied the contents of the St Maurus reliquary said to contain the remains of John the Baptist –among them a small piece of a leather sandal which may have been his – it was only natural that they should turn to

In this week’s edition of Panorama: it wasn’t only chocolates and roses for couples in love on Valentine’s Day – some opted for a spiritual celebration of the lovers’ holiday, getting fresh produce from the farm to people’s doorsteps, and using fish to protect the public against a terrorist attack.

It’s official: the yellowhammer has been voted Bird of the Year by the Czech Ornithological Society. The sparrow sized bunting is with us all year round –but its numbers are dwindling. With a bright yellow head and belly it is hard to miss –and moreover makes itself heard with a song that is known as “a little bit of bread and no cheese” in English and “jak to sluníčko pěkně svítí” in Czech meaning “see how brightly the sun shines”. Ornithologists also claim they discern two dialects in the yellowhammer’s call. To find out more about the bird of

In this week’s edition of Panorama: a taste of country life in Prague – city hall organizes a pig slaughtering feast on Náměstí Míru. The Czech capital boasts a unique and costly enterprise -a bridge leading from nowhere to nowhere, and the European Yo Yo Championship raises the roof at Prague’s Archa Theatre.