PhilPaine.com

I was met at the air­port by Isaac and Lour­des, who is Fil­ip’s part­ner. We then picked up Fil­ip from his work (he works in the film indus­try). We head­ed direct­ly to the heart of the Old City (Jose­fov / Pra­ha 1). Fil­ip was eager to feed us a very tra­di­tion­al Bohemi­an meal, and we were equal­ly eager to eat one. For me, this was a Bohemi­an-style goulash, quite dif­fer­ent from the Hun­gar­i­an, and for Isaac it was a cut­let in sweet pep­per­corn sauce. Both were accom­pa­nied by won­drous dumplings, which Fil­ip instruct­ed us not to eat “like and Amer­i­can”, i.e., as if they were pieces of bread. They are prop­er­ly to be cut and eat­en with a fork, like potatoes.

Lour­des, I think, has been very good for Fil­ip. He is a strong-willed man, who occa­sion­al­ly gets stub­born or crab­by. Lour­des brooks no non­sense, but she is obvi­ous­ly easy-going in tem­pera­ment. Throw in beau­ty, intel­li­gence, and spon­ta­neous­ly gra­cious man­ners, and you can see that he has hit the jack­pot. Fil­ip has often writ­ten or talked to me about her, and I can see that she has made him hap­pi­er. She is from Madrid, so they began by com­mu­ni­cat­ing in Eng­lish, but now Fil­ip is flu­ent in Span­ish, and she in Czech. Most­ly, they speak Span­ish togeth­er, though through the next few days, they spoke Eng­lish for our benefit.

And those five days were very good ones, indeed. They cul­mi­nat­ed in an evening when we went through three bot­tles of red wine, and the con­ver­sa­tion cov­ered every­thing from Cer­vantes to dead baby jokes, and was repeat­ed­ly punc­tu­at­ed with laugh­ter. A very, very fine evening. But we had many con­ver­sa­tions before that, in many places, over din­ner in a strange place dec­o­rat­ed like the Flint­stones and offer­ing pre­his­toric fare, walk­ing along the shore of the Vlta­va (Moldau), or in the dark streets of dis­tricts sel­dom seen by tourists. We were giv­en the roy­al treat­ment. Some­times we were being shown around spe­cif­ic sites, as when Fil­ip walked us, late at night, to the Vyšehrad, a part of Prague old­er than the Cas­tle or the Jose­fov. It was built in the 10th cen­tu­ry, and was said to be the first habi­ta­tion in Prague. When the Pře­mys­lid dynasty set­tled on the cur­rent site of Prague Cas­tle, the two cas­tles main­tained oppos­ing spheres of influ­ence for two hun­dred years, until the Emper­or Charles IV moved the seat of the Bohemi­an king­dom to Prague Cas­tle. The for­ti­fi­ca­tions com­mand a splen­did view over the riv­er, along steep cliffs, but they don’t seem to attract tourists. When Holy Roman Emper­or Charles IV began to build the Prague Cas­tle in its cur­rent dimen­sions (in the ear­ly 14th cen­tu­ry), Vyšehrad was aban­doned as a roy­al home. But it saw action as the site of bat­tles between Hus­sites and Catholic cru­saders. There is a mas­sive church crown­ing the hill, but near­by, Fil­ip showed us a much more inter­est­ing, but tiny Romanesque struc­ture of the 11th cen­tu­ry, the Rotun­da of St. Martin.

Ear­li­er that same night, we expe­ri­enced one of those divine aes­thet­ic moments that I asso­ciate with walk­ing in Prague. The four of us had been exam­in­ing the poor­est dis­trict in the city, an area of run-down blocks of flats inhab­it­ed most­ly by Roma. Only a few blocks from it is a small 18th cen­tu­ry house, tucked into a cub­by­hole along a hill­side. It’s there that Mozart com­posed Don Gio­van­ni. We walked up to the house. The air was evening air, per­fect­ly bal­anced between warm and cool. There were lights in the win­dows, and from them, we could hear a pianist and singer per­form­ing one of Mozart’s com­ic arias, those lit­tle bits of fluff that he com­posed now and then, which drift on the night air like a cham­pagne bubble.

Fil­ip even arranged for us to cross the Vlta­va in a small boat, pok­ing into some side canals, and under the sin­gle arch that remains, well hid­den, of the orig­i­nal stone bridge that pre­ced­ed the Charles Bridge [Kar­lův most]. But at oth­er times, Isaac and I walked the city togeth­er, and we looked through Prague Cas­tle and the Nation­al Gallery with­out our hosts. Those who are curi­ous can eas­i­ly look it up. The Cas­tle is too well known to need any descrip­tion. We entered St. Vitus’ Cathe­dral, and the cat­a­combs below it. But we also took time for cas­tle por­tion of the Nation­al Gallery [Národ­ní galerie v Praze]. Much of it demon­strat­ed that, when the old Bohemi­an roy­al­ty went shop­ping for pic­tures in Italy, they could only pick up works by sec­ond-string mas­ters that had not already been snapped up by more pow­er­ful patrons of the arts. But the gallery con­tains first-rate Bohemi­an art from sev­er­al peri­ods, and some fine Ger­man and Flem­ish works, includ­ing some good ones by Dür­er and some amaz­ing Brueghels.

Pieter Bruegel’s “Storm At Sea”, per­haps prophet­ic of Prague’s strug­gles with the Tourist Plague

Isaac, luck­i­ly got to see his first view of the Charles Bridge at the per­fect time, at twi­light, when it still pre­serves some of the atmos­phere that has gained its place in poet­ry and fic­tion. When we crossed it again in day­light, it was jammed with the usu­al throng of tourists and hawkers.

This brings me to a sub­ject that Fil­ip has often men­tioned to me with dis­tinct resent­ment: the plague of tourists in Prague. Now, tourists are expect­ed in any his­toric city, and in the right cir­cum­stances and pro­por­tions, they are a good thing. But in the present sit­u­a­tion, they are def­i­nite­ly not a good thing.

Prague is a trea­sure house of archi­tec­ture. It suf­fered only one acci­den­tal bomb­ing raid dur­ing World War Two, so its his­toric build­ings are not, as in most Euro­pean cities, most­ly recon­struct­ed. The city con­tains won­der­ful his­toric church­es, mon­u­ments, bridges, and build­ings dat­ing from the 14th cen­tu­ry onwards. But they are only the tip of the ice­berg. The ordi­nary domes­tic build­ings, from the time of the late Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an Empire, and the time of the Czechoslo­vak Repub­lic of 1919–1939, main­tained an extra­or­di­nar­i­ly high aes­thet­ic stan­dard. There are superb exam­ples of Art-Nou­veau and Art Deco every­where. The pover­ty and neglect of the Com­mu­nist era left many of them in a wretched state of dis­re­pair, but it is mere­ly a mat­ter of new plas­ter, paint, plumb­ing and wiring to restore them to their orig­i­nal splen­dour. When I was last here, five years ago, only about a tenth of the build­ings had been restored. Now it looks more like half. Some new build­ings have been added, but I did not see many cas­es where these clashed or seemed wrong. The old build­ings that remain in bad con­di­tion tend to be owned by absen­tee land­lords. After the rev­o­lu­tion, many prop­er­ties were restored to their orig­i­nal own­ers, in many cas­es elder­ly peo­ple who live in oth­er coun­tries, or their heirs. Many of these dis­tant own­ers have no idea what to do with such prop­er­ties. This prob­lem will sort itself out with time, but it leaves some embar­rass­ing blots on almost every street.

Because of its visu­al charm, lit­er­ary and musi­cal asso­ci­a­tions, and low­er con­sumer prices than in most of West­ern Europe, eas­i­ly acces­si­ble Prague began to be “dis­cov­ered” by tourists in the ear­ly 1990’s. The romance of the “vel­vet rev­o­lu­tion” also spread its fame. Five years ago, the trick­le of tourists had become a flood. Now, I can see, it is a del­uge. The cham­ber-of-com­merce boos­t­er­ism of the city’s admin­is­tra­tion has respond­ed with a spec­ta­cle of taste­less exploita­tion that would embar­rass any­one with com­mon sense. The ancient, wind­ing streets are now noth­ing but a labyrinth of tacky tourist shops. Noth­ing remains func­tion­ing in the old city cen­ter that resem­bles the nor­mal activ­i­ties of a city. There are only sou­venir shops, bars and restau­rants cater­ing specif­i­cal­ly to for­eign­ers, and high-fash­ion stores for inter­na­tion­al shop­pers. Czechs avoid the place. The big names of Prague’s cul­ture — Mozart, Kaf­ka, Mucha — are shout­ed out from blar­ing speak­ers and blink­ing signs (though, curi­ous­ly, Dvořák does­n’t seem to fig­ure very promi­nent­ly). Every effort is made to shake as much cash out of pock­ets as possible.

The most embar­rass­ing exploita­tion sur­rounds the medieval Jew­ish quar­ter. It con­tains syn­a­gogues and a ceme­tery of great his­tor­i­cal impor­tance. Most of Prague’s sophis­ti­cat­ed Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion either fled or per­ished in the Holo­caust. The leg­end of the Golem orig­i­nat­ed in Prague’s medieval ghet­to. When I was last there, these things were point­ed out, but not yet exces­sive­ly bal­ly­hooed. Now they are treat­ed some kind of creepy Dis­ney­land, and even the poor Golem is thrown at you more or less like Spiderman.

With tourism, the ques­tion is “how much is enough”. A city has to func­tion as a city for its cit­i­zens first, not mere­ly exist to attract vis­i­tors. Hordes of British foot­ball fans descend­ing on the city to get drunk and layed at bar­gain prices does not con­sti­tute a trib­ute ot its his­to­ry and cul­ture. And soon­er or lat­er, ris­ing prices will lead to the col­lapse of such an arti­fi­cial “indus­try”. Tourists are already “dis­cov­er­ing” Bucharest and oth­er cheap, atmos­pher­ic places. The boost­ers will have to redou­ble the vul­gar­i­ty in a futile attempt to retain them. By then, the city will be so renowned for its taste­less­ness, that “mag­ic Prague” will be a sour joke.

I hope that some­one with good sense comes into pow­er in this city, and leads it away from that dis­as­trous path, because there real­ly is a “mag­ic Prague” for those with the eyes to see it.