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When Daniel and Marta Kolský opened their first cafe in Prague’s Londýnská street they shared a passion for coffee and a determination to fulfil their dream. Today they are respected professionals in the coffee business and own seven cafes and a bakery, operating with a certified fair-trade label. Their chain of Mamacafes is known for its excellent coffee, mouth-watering pastries and quality service. I asked Daniel Kolský to tell me how they established the business and why they chose to work with coffee.

If your experience with marmalade is limited to the traditional breakfast staples then you are missing out on an exciting culinary experience. Today marmalade makers from around the world are creating sophisticated recipes that have elevated the once-simple preserve from your grandma’s pantry to a new level – to be used on roast meat or fish.

The coronavirus pandemic is already changing our lives. Many everyday activities have moved into the virtual world. This applies especially to our social life but increasingly work and learning as well. Psychologists underline that the key to getting over this difficult time is to stay in touch and not to get into isolation. Vít Pohanka describes how he deals with the problem with his foreign students at the University of Pardubice.

The national flag of the Czech Republic, which is the same as the flag of former Czechoslovakia, will celebrate its centenary on March 30th. While the celebrations of the centenary of Czechoslovakia were grandiose, the flag’s golden anniversary is likely to pass largely unnoticed, overshadowed by the coronavirus crisis and other concerns. I spoke to the country’s leading vexillologist Aleš Brožek about how the flag was selected, why Czechs only bring it out in turbulent times and how to prevent hoisting it the wrong way round. I began by asking

There are more than half a million foreigners living in the Czech Republic, according to data from the Ministry of Interior. With the COVID-19 epidemic in full swing across Europe they have found themselves in a strange situation in recent weeks, living in a country tightly restricted by quarantine and often unable to travel home to visit and support their families. Radio Prague International spoke to some of them to find out more about how they have been impacted by the situation and what they think of the measures that have been taken.

Women in this part of the world have had the right to vote since the first Czechoslovak Constitution was approved a century ago. However, Czechs have never had a female prime minister or president and the vast majority of the country’s politicians are still men. Why is that? And how likely is change in this regard?

In the previous episodes of the Czechs in Brexit Britain series, we explored what worries the local Czech community about Brexit and the new business ties the country is trying to establish with Britain. In our closing feature we will look closer at the Czech community itself and some of the clubs and institutions that they have built in the United Kingdom.

Eva Spekhorstova has a passion for languages. At the age of 15 she already speaks 17 languages and has an insatiable thirst to learn more as different cultures open up to her. When she visited Radio Prague’s studio we spoke about what attracts her to foreign languages, how she goes about learning them and how different languages relate to her emotions. I began by asking her at what age she first started learning foreign languages.

In addition to the Czech Republic financing developing aid projects around the world, the network of Czech embassies provides aid in small-scale local projects. The Czech Embassy in Cambodia recently joined forces with the Japanese Embassy and the French Development Agency to fund a local project in which two community kindergartens were built in the villages of Trapeing Chrab and Beung Preah. The kindergartens, with complementary infrastructure, were handed over to the locals late last year and are now attended by close to 70 children under the

Karel Čapek was a leading Czech interwar novelist, playwright and journalist and is perhaps most remembered for works of science fiction such as The War with the Newts and R.U.R., which gave the world the word “robot”. But did you know that Čapek was also a travel writer? His pieces from around Europe are the focus of the book In Search of a Shared Expression by Mirna Solic, a lecturer at the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Glasgow. I spoke to her on the phone from Scotland.