lively Prague

One more Prague photo. This was Monday, as I was touristing on my own while Casey was in the conference. I wandered over to the Old Town square and got to the Astronomical Clock just at the new hour, as the apostles were doing their rotating thing in the windows above the clock face. Then I ambled over toward the Huss (religious reformer) statute, and I heard some noise--pipes, bells, etc. A bunch of stilt walkers were running around with some musicians and dancers waving banners and so forth. One of the dancers started rolling around on the ground and was IMMEDIATELY surrounded by people taking her picture. (What is WITH the tourists who stand directly under someone ON STILTS to take his picture?!) Anyway, they were shouting stuff in Czech, so I have no idea what it was all about, but eventually another group, in black and yellow and beating tribal drum-type things came in, and they danced together, then a red group did the same, and then some Brazilian-themed group came in and danced with all of them. Then there was a little parade around the square, with vehicles.

I found this scene especially cool, because the only other time anyone in my immediate family went to Prague was when my parents went there in ~1972 (for a physics conference, complete with KGB), while Czechoslovakia was under communist rule and presumably less of a lively tourist destination. In fact, not only was it communist at the time, but 1969 saw the Russian appointment of a Czech head of state whose purpose was to return Czechoslovakia to hard-line communism. During the 60s there had been some anti-communist music groups, protests, etc., and in 1968 Russia moved tanks into Prague, to save the Czech people from... themselves. So by the time my parents visited, it was again a punishable offense to dislike the communist ruling. It was even a punishable offense to know that someone else wanted to escape and not report their plan.

The architecture may have been the same, but the throngs of brazen tourists were not there before.