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In a remarkable work of oral history, four students with the help of former dissident and award winning author Aleš Palán have produced a 270 page history of the events that took place in Prague on November 17, 1989. One of them is Alžběta Ambrožová, a 26 year old graduate of English and American Studies. She says that around 300 testimonies were collected through a mix of interviews and online questionnaires. I began by asking her about how people felt going into that watershed event in Czech history.

One of the many undertakings commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution and the return of democracy to this country is a collection of interviews, quotes and photographs compiled by the award-winning Czech documentarist Barbora Baronová in cooperation with the Czech Centers.

On November 4, 2004 the Czech Senate approved legislation to end compulsory military service in the Czech Republic. It led to the full professionalization of the armed forces, but also marked the end of a tradition that stretched as far back as the times of Austria-Hungary. Although it has been 15 years since the country’s young men were freed from service, the debate about whether it should be reinstated seems very much alive.

Czech professional rock climber Adam Ondra is the only male athlete in the sport to have won World Championship titles in the “lead climbing” and “bouldering” categories in a single year. Along with the category of “speed” – for the first time ever – those disciplines will be a part of the Olympic Games as of 2020, under the catchall category of “sport climbing”.

Czech Immigrants first started settling in Chicago in the 1850s and continued in several waves in the 20th century. Today the city has the biggest number of Czech-Americans living in the US, with localities known as ”Prague” and “Pilsen”. I recently visited Chicago for the 80th Moravian Day celebrations and took the opportunity to stop by the University of Chicago, where the tradition of Slavic studies is almost as old as the university itself.

It may not sound as romantic as being struck by Cupid’s arrow, but feelings of love and lust are very much the result of chemical reactions within our body, says Dr. Michael Londesborough, a chemist at the Czech Academy of Sciences. He recently visited our studio to discuss some of humanity’s most powerful emotions from a scientific perspective. I began by asking him if there is any difference in how men and women perceive love.

In 2018 the company Photon Water Technology secured a grant from the Czech Development Agency for a project to install water-cleaning facilities in small and medium-sized towns and villages in Peru. I spoke to the company’s managing director, Petr Kvapil, about what the project entails and why they chose to take their know-how to Peru.

The Museum of Carriages in Čechy pod Kosířem is the only one of its kind in the Czech Republic, taking visitors back to the days when horse-drawn carriages were the main form of transport. The collection of historic carriages, coaches and sleighs was assembled over the last 25 years and counts 100 exhibits to date. The museum specializes in carriages made and used in the Czech lands and Moravia and includes a number of rare pieces used by the nobility in the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Bullying in Czech schools is on the rise. Although statistics indicate that more than half of Czech primary and secondary school students have either experienced or witnessed bullying, some schools remain in denial, claiming they don’t have a problem. Two years ago, three high school students took the matter into their own hands, setting up a web page where students or victims of bullying can report the abuse and get help.

Last October, having lived in the country for just over 25 years, I became a citizen of the Czech Republic.