Praha - the Metamorphosis

A trip to Prague for me was like a trip down the memory lane, or more precisely, what could have been the memory lane. A charming town reflecting centuries of tradition, medieval conquest, and at the same time eastern European flare. Having shed communism on an as-soon-as-possible basis, Prague has witnessed an incredible re-birth, and some of the locals that actually fled the city have even come back, confessed to me one elderly inhabitant in all his bristling eagerness to practice his french. The city now rivals many of the jewels of Europe, with its red roofs and colourfully repainted façades, its symbiotic co-existence of modern art deco and medieval style architecture reminicent of Vienna.

It boasts an unusual combination of mediterranean style colourful facades and brick trottoirs, amidst romantic sculptures. In places, and thankfully not too often, it features these massive Stalin era buildings which are meant to reduce humans to ants, or at least make them feel like it. The architectural adaptation of it all is rather hilarious if looked at closer glace: during one of my city escapades, I managed to stumble on a macdo (I think it must have been already there as the berlin wall was being dismantled) featuring the all-familiar arch right under a band of Soviet-era architectural remnants: workers with axes, women in the fields. Basically, all that was missing was a picture of Lenin, Marx or Engels. I wonder how they would have looked 'down' (no pun intended) on his whole fast food enterprise which this building is how harbouring. If I remember my political science 101 correctly, they would have said that this whole capitalist phase is a transition.

No such thing. At least from the 'outsider' point of view, the czech economy seems to be doing rather well, and frankly, the standard of living here puts many french cities to shame. Interestingly, none of the current economic woes seem to be affecting the Czech - there is no vicious cycle of food prices, despite the fact that they are importing the same petrol as we are in france and other european countries. Ironically, price levels in Prague can be compared to a much more third-worldy (yes, I know Stiglitz would not approve my terminology!) Egypt, which is witnessing some serious political upheaval as I write this over the same food prices. Other than that, and despite some insignificant echos of soviet control such as the old trams which hurry the passengers to all corners of the city, communism is certainly a thing of the past. The only other still present but disappearing charasteric is are the old-school grandmas who wear their housedresses while they are riding the same trams clutching interestingly...a range of conspicuously too-chic bags. I wonder what the local 'burberry' sells them but don't dare to ask, since Russian is clearly not on the top list of well-liked languages in Czech Republic and english/french/anything else I can manage to produce two words in does not seem to be in vogue either.

Which brigs me to my next point. Communism might be over but the mentality is there to stay, at least a little longer. From the point of view of service this, I have to admit, was slightly irritating, even when bechmarked by the given the general lack of service in france. It is not that I was craving the 'how are you today?' accompanied by a huge and equally fake smile, but just a little a little more consistency between 'new Prague' and the 'old attitude'. I would say that even in the '5 star world' of michelin guide restaurants (nota bene: if you do not know what is a michelin star, you need to come to france urgently), the service is indifferent at best. Not disdainful as in france, but indifferent. The key message was rather uniform: yes, I can get you what you want, but why are you bothering me to begin with? Same reaction when i was not speaking russian, in response to which I would always get chech under the false assumption that russian speakers understand czech.

The epitomy of the soviet mentality applied to non-soviet context was my visit to the one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful synagogue of europe, the spanish synagogue in prague which is ironically guarded by a sort of a nazi organisation of old ladies who literally attack if you dare to take a picture. Funnily enough, the neo-nazi in the synagogue almost made me forget the preceding tour of the old jewish getto, which as I overheard was originally built in the neighbourhood of bordels, which was the only area that would get allocated to the prague jewish community. I really wish that was the only thing I overheard on the tour of the getto, but not surprisingly that was far from it. There were the cemetery stones used to build factories in the period of deficit of materials. Most importantly, there was the quasi-totality of the jewish population which was shipped to a transit camp at Terezin which the nazi portrayed at the 'model' jewish getto, where the children were 'allowed' to receive education. Needless to say, almost no one made it out and today the so-called 'jewish neighbourhood' is jewish only from same point of view as is Yad Vashem. It is a museum of jewish life as it used to be and how it is no longer.

All that to say, there are ideologies like communism that seem to have easy-come easy-go effect on the local populations and some like nazism, that have forever coloured the past and the future. I would guess that is not how most of the locals see it, I can't help thinking that some history can be shed like old fur, and some of it is really like Kafka's metamorphosis.