📰 WEEKEND NEWS RECAP
- High temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius are in the forecast early this week, with thunderstorms expected from Wednesday.
- A week ahead of the US Open, Czech tennis star Karolína Muchová advanced to Western & Southern Open final in Cincinnati.
- The gap between average male and female pensions in the Czech Republic has fallen from 20 percent last year to 13 percent in 2023.
- Pedestrians in Prague 3 will get extra room at the narrow Biskupcova tram stop, with renovation work now underway.
- According to the latest Eurostat data, inflation in the Czech Republic was fourth-highest in the EU in July, trailing only Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
- An intense storm wreaked havoc across the Czech capital on Wednesday, and damaged the landmark Holy Trinity Column underneath Prague Castle.
PARTNER ARTICLE
✔️TO DO THIS WEEK
- Monday, August 21|The 55th anniversary of the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia will be commemorated during NeverMore 68, with a free concert and other events at Výstaviště Holešovice.
- Tuesday, August 22|The Search, the 1948 movie that earned Czech actor Ivan Jandl an Oscar, screens outdoors at the garden of the Czech Foreign Ministry.
- Wednesday, August 23|The second edition of Sourfest, celebrating sour ales and other beers from around the world, comes to Pragovka in Vysočany.
- Thursday, August 24|Stars at Noon, a drama-romance starring Joe Alwyn and Margaret Qualley, premieres in Prague at Edison Filmhub.
- Friday, August 25|A modern staging of Bedřich Smetana’s The Bartered Bride with English surtitles kicks off the fall season at the National Theatre.
- Saturday, August 26|Sound Open Air brings electronic music to the lakeside, with deep house, tech house, and techno on the shores of Džbán in Divoká Šárka.
❓ POLL OF THE WEEK
Last week, we asked you which of the world's top food fast food brands without a presence in the Czech Republic you'd most like to see on the local market. Tex-mex was the big winner, with 30 percent voting for Taco Bell and 22 percent for Chipolte.
This week, we're wondering: as local companies condense space with people continuing to regularly work from home, do you mind sharing your desk at work?
Do you like to share your desk at work?
📻 LISTEN ON YOUR MORNING COMMUTE
August 21 marks the 55th anniversary of the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia, when Soviet tanks rolled into the country to suppress the flourishing Prague Spring.
This episode of the Cold War Conversations podcast with journalist Lani Seelinger of Socialism Realised charts the history of Prague Spring leading up to the invasion, one of the iconic moments of the Cold War.
📺 WHAT TO STREAM THIS WEEK
Documentary filmmaker Rudolf Krejčík's Seven Days to Remember, largely comprised of footage shot on the streets of Prague in late August, 1968, is one of the definitive portraits of the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovkia.
Krejčík's footage was smuggled to Canada following the invasion, where actor and Czech émigré Jiří Voskovec gave it an English-language narration that would describe the events to the world. The documentary is available in full on YouTube:
☕ YOUR MORNING CUP
Following the 1968 Warsaw Pact invasion, key figures in the underground opposition movement, including future Czech president Václav Havel, would secretly convene at Prague's Café Slavia. Five decades later, the location remains a local landmark.