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Artist Sonya Darrow spends her time in the Czech Republic and in Iowa, two places where she feels at home. Her interesting exhibition “Stezky/Pathways” recently opened at the American Center in Prague. I spoke to her about how she explores the questions of identity and cultural connections though her work and started off by asking her how she become involved in the Czech community.

The Czech Union for Nature Conservation’s local chapter in Vlašim, Central Bohemia, this week released four species of bats that had wintered at its shelter over the last four months. The release of the animals nursed back to health or saved by the civic association has become a tradition at the park at the Chateau Vlašim.

Former US ambassador to Czechoslovakia William Luers and his wife Wendy recently visited Prague and gave a talk at the American Centre about what it was like to be posted in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, how they were able to support dissidents such as Václav Havel and how they later helped the country on the road to democracy. I spoke to them after the debate and began by asking the former ambassador what it had been like to serve behind the Iron Curtain.

The Czech Republic’s famous travellers Miroslav Zikmund a Jiří Hanzelka lived a life that many dream of. They visited 83 countries with their famous Tatra 87, made over 150 documentary films and wrote over 20 books about their adventures. They brought a glimpse of the world to people living in communist Czechoslovakia and served as cultural ambassadors not only for their country but for its Tatra cars –until the communist regime clamped down on them. Now two young adventurers from Plseň want to follow in their footsteps as a tribute to their achievements

Prof. Josef Jančář and his team at CEITEC (Central European Institute of Technology) in Brno have developed a unique degradable hydrogel that should in due time make it easier to heal very serious burns and can be used to fill bone material in complicated fractures. It may even help with the gradual release of drugs or chemotherapeutics and thus influence the treatment of cancerous growth. After 10 years of development, the research centre has succeeded in obtaining a European patent, which guarantees the right to future production of this product

On August 25th, 1968, just four days after Russian tanks rolled through Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring reform movement, eight brave Russians staged a daring protest on Moscow’s Red Square, unfurling banners that read “Hands off Czechoslovakia!” and “Shame to the Invaders!”. They were quickly surrounded by communist police, beaten up and arrested. Most of them spent years locked up in prison, labour camps or in psychiatric institutions.

Many people don’t know that the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra is one of the oldest leading Czech orchestras. It was founded only three years after the creation of Czech Radio in 1923 and it is currently celebrating its 91st season. I talked to Jakub Čížek, the Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra about their ongoing season and began by asking him about the orchestra’s mission.

When Josef Vágner, head of the Dvůr Kralové Zoo, brought six Northern White Rhinos back from a trip to Sudan in the early 1970s he was criticized by the public for taking them from the wild. Now the zoo that he set up and the herd that was successfully bred there over the years may help to save the species that has been wiped off the face of the Earth by poachers. There are now three Northern White Rhinos left on the planet and all three belong to Dvůr Kralové Zoo and reside in a heavily guarded nature reserve in Kenya. Last week came the news that

There is a place in Moravia where you can see real mummies. They are not as old as those in Egypt, but old enough to generate genuine scientific interest among anthropologists at Masaryk University in Brno. Vít Pohanka made the trip to eastern Czechia and found out that quite soon one of the mummies might be brought back to (virtual) life.

Czech journalist and amateur photographer Petr Kubát bought his first professional camera in 2013 to take pictures of his new-born son. Within weeks he was hooked, moving from family pics to landscape and architecture photos. In 2016 The Guardian picked one his photos for its Best Photographs of the Day collection. Now Kubát has a photo exhibition in his home town České Budějovice.