[Czech Republic] Europe 2009 - Tuesday 28 April

On Tuesday, April 28, my friend Libor was to pick me up for a photo field trip. You’ll remember Libor: he’s the same one who visited me in Florida with his wife Edita in March. He’s also the selfsame person who, with Edita, tried to kill me on the mountainbike the previous week in Bohemian Paradise. Or at least induce suicide! See my previous posting for the whole story.

Before Libor showed up, however, I had time to raid Jana’s movie stash. I love Czech films and try to see as many as I can when I’m there. It’s very difficult to find them stateside, and there is practically no way to rent them when I’m home. Admittedly, I am a newbie to the genre, but I know I like what I see. My friends tell me that it’s typically Czech to have very dark humor and a fatalistic quality, and they do it so well in their films. My favorite Czech film up to this time was “Bored in Brno” (Nuda v BrnÄ›), which was made in 2003 and filmed in black and white.

Now I have a new favorite, “Closely Watched Trains” (Ostre Sledované Vlaky), which was made in 1966. The story is set in the 1940’s in the era of the Nazi occupation and is about a young man whose first job is at the train station. This film won the Oscar for best foreign film in 1968 and was nominated for four more. I can definitely see why.

Interestingly, in researching this information, I discovered that the 1968 Oscar ceremony was postponed two days because of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Now you, too, can be on Jeopardy.

Anyway, after watching the film, I answered Libor’s ring and we set off on foot toward the old, closed-down textile mill in Liberec. I’d had my eye on this since 2005 as a photo subject, and I had asked Libor to take me there this year. I was not disappointed.

First let me remind you that it has only been about 20 years since this country switched from Communism to a free-market economy. In 1989, the Czech citizens effected a peaceful overthrow of the Soviet government. This event is referred to as the Velvet Revolution. It left the people to scramble to establish a new democratic government and a new economy after more than 40 years of Communism. Can you imagine that?

My understanding is that the Soviets used what was then Czechoslovakia as a natural resource, operating huge textile mills, coal mines, farms, and other industries to employ the people and supply their land holdings. After the collapse of their government, many if not most of the factories and cooperatives simply closed their doors. This is the situation with the old textile mill.

Traditionally, fabric-making in this country has had a good reputation and enjoyed a fair market share. Their fiber products were sought after and considered among the best in the world. Sadly, the influx of cheaper goods from China has almost killed the textile trade in the Czech Republic. My understanding is that all of the major mills have closed and what’s left are a few cottage-industry sites making limited quantities of handmade fabric. I’ve seen samples of this fabric and it is excellent! Some day I will own some.

I’ve been told that the Liberec textile mill had consisted of a huge compound with several large buildings. After it closed, some investors had plans to tear it all down and build a mall. All but one of the buildings was torn down as part of this plan, but then there were problems among the investors and the plan came to a screeching halt. What’s left now is a very large lot with several large holes where buildings used to be and one lone building left standing.


Libor clowning in front of the textile mill

This building has been added to a list of protected historic structures so it can’t be torn down. I wonder what’s to become of it; there doesn’t seem to be anyone willing or able to restore it. Can’t you imagine there are many, many more priorities to tend to before they get around to this? I’m surprised they’ve done what they’ve done as regards the restoration of historic landmarks.

Anyway, as we entered, I was so happy because the place was exactly what I wanted to photograph: dark, sooty (there had been a fire), crumbling, with bright light coming through the broken-out windows. Here is the photo I imagined and now have:



That photo was taken on the ground floor. I also got this one there, which is my other favorite of the whole outing:


Can you imagine how old that yarn is?

We two combed through that building, photographing each corner and almost every inch of every wall. It was easy to imagine the open floors, mostly empty now, filled with looms and other machinery, loudly chugging along with lots of people at work there. Now, though, the tall windows had fallen inward and seemingly smashed where they landed; most of the floor space was carpeted with glass shards in addition to metal fragments and other odds and ends.

In the corner of each large floor were small, enclosed areas that would have been the foremen’s offices. Now, though, they had been converted into bedrooms of a sort for homeless people who obviously lived there. No one was actually in the building with us at the time, however. It was during this excursion that I realized that homeless people I’ve seen with huge quantities of plastic drink bottles intended to use them for urination, not recycling, as I had assumed. Sometimes I’m so naïve!



It was interesting to me that every floor had a distinct character, though the infrastructure was essentially the same from one to another. And each floor got progressively brighter the farther up I went. The top floor was the scariest, mostly because there was lots of graffiti and also a lot of defecation, probably human. It had an angry feel. I was skeeved out so I didn’t spend a lot of time there. I shot this photo, though:



There are so many more photos, each one more interesting than the last. The outing was exactly what I wanted and I’m forever grateful to Libor for indulging my wish to photograph such a place. It is VERY interesting that I ended up visiting two more such places before my trip was over: a farm cooperative and an old uranium mine.

At the end, we were tired and dusty and very happy, so we topped it off with a few beers. We made our way to a new pub called, appropriately enough, The Pub. This place was great: it was located in the basement of a building and had exposed brickwork, new A/C ducts, new paint job and shiny taps. Each table was outfitted with a computerized beer tap where you could assign yourself a number and dispense your own beer. You could also turn your glass upside down and press it into the washer mechanism. SO much fun when you’re drinking!





The computer kept track of what you’d consumed so you could get charged for it at the end. I don’t need to tell you that friends try to press each other’s numbers to get someone else to pay when there’s a crowd! With the touch-screen you can also call the waiter and order food in Czech, English, French or German. In addition, all the tables were numbered and the volume of beer consumed at each table was projected on the many TV screens throughout, ranked in order of most to least. What an effective way to make people want to drink more!



Libor and I had lunch there, and then our whole group of friends met there later in the evening as well. Libor’s kids were trying to get us to drink more beer because they wanted us to move to the top of the list on the TV screens. However, the best we could muster was moving from seventh to fifth place. That Table 2 had us all beat!

My friend Kurt Lee's moral of this story:
Visiting sites allows us to grasp a glimpse of the past…and at times, only a glimpse of the present.

So that’s my excursion to the old mill and subsequent refreshments. Hope you enjoyed it. Stay tuned for rocks shaped like elephants (not hills, for you Hemingway fans), a castle, and an old dairy farm.

Posted by Tutik W