Prague as a popcorn city from Instagram. She suffered under the influx of tourists, now she suffers without them – HlídacíPes.org
As if there were only seven koruna coins left in every hundred hundred crowns in the wallet… This is exactly what happened in Prague with tourists in 2020. Not that all those Germans, Poles, Slovaks, Japanese, Italians, Americans, Chinese or Russians became so poor ; however, it is an illustration of what happened to tourism in the times of covid: it fell by 93% last spring compared to 2019…
The language of statistics: in the period of the second quarter of 2020, according to data from the Czech Statistical Office, 138,187 guests came to Prague automatically. Of course, it’s not better this year either. In the end of last year, a total of a few hundred thousand tourists piled up, but the eight or eight million people a year are a memory of the past. Maybe – when the virus allows – it will eventually return, which should lead in the meantime to thinking about what kind of Prague we want in the future in relation to tense tourism.
The text is also an accompanying word to the exhibition of photographs by Jan Rasch from the Prague Panopticon cycle. It is part of the traditional Czech Press Photo exhibition. Photographs can be seen in the Prague National Museum from 20.4. (from the beginning only online) until October 31, 2021.
In recent months, the empty city has seemed unusual, inappropriate, albeit mystical in photographs, and has also encouraged reflection on how dangerous all extremes are. For example, Charles Bridge, which can hardly be penetrated during the day, versus the simple Charles Bridge, which can be easily crossed on cross-country skis in winter…
See a selection of photos from the Prague Panopticon exhibitions. Author: Jan Rasch (Published with permission of the author)
“Before the covid, it was not possible to walk slowly through the Old Town Square due to the crowds of tourists and I think the spirit of the city has disappeared,” says British journalist Misha Glenny, who has lived in Prague for some time and has been coming here regularly since the 1980s.
Prague, the city of Instagram
We certainly do not care about the form of beaten gray Prague from the 1980s, we do not want Prague empty-handed, nor tourists who are no longer able to do so. Prague with chasing tourists alias umbrellas, with giant teddy pandas and polar bears, with soap bubbles, tireless bagpipers, overpriced beer, below-average quality and above-average priced food, with advertising smog and tram number 22, to the lower direction to Prague Castle he can’t even stuff it anymore.
Photographer Jan Rasch, the author of the exhibition, from which we offer you a selection of photographs above, decided to take pictures of Prague just at the time of the tourist, ancestor: with Italy for Easter, with buses full of Japanese, just here to jump, with Chinese and Russian shoppers in Parisian or drunk young people from Britain, still enjoying the favorable prices of beer and other city attractions and traps that lurk for them all.
“Walking through the city center today is a tourist massage, bigger than ever before. Years ago, I heard the sentence that a Parisian will not go to the Eiffel Tower, and today a Prague citizen would tell you a similar word not only about Charles Bridge, Old Town Square, but also about the Petrin Tower. The center itself becomes a panopticon of tourist attractions. The city is gradually losing its genius loci and may become a popcorn instagram city against the background of a Prague studio, which will soon be exchanged by tourists for another city, “Jan Rasch described the reality we planned to capture, document and at the same time point out the problem of faster immediate tourism. , when tourists gradually push the inhabitants out of the center on the outskirts of the city.
But he also wanted to look for and record the last remnants of the real center of Prague: artists or sellers who are interested in more than just handing over a commission from the earned daily sales.
When the covid leaves
But – they are the same tourists who are missing in Prague now. Restaurants are closed, services are lacking, shops in the city center have no one to live with and what to live on, tenants are leaving, shop windows are dusty and deserted. Thus, the original idea of the photographer was to capture a crowded city that can no longer handle the onslaught of foreign visitors and loses its face due to “overturism”, but the reality was suddenly different.
Tourists from abroad have disappeared, Czechs have become tourists to themselves, the city was and is empty, living in fear of what will happen, with veils and a paralyzed life. It is natural that the photographer works in his work, the original plan is forcibly changed, just as the face of Prague is forcibly changed – perhaps temporarily -.
“I didn’t want to make art, but rather a classic documentary. In fact, such ordinary photos, which over time I enjoy the most, “Jan Rasch describes his approach. So take a look at the two extreme forms of the city and look forward to the “ordinary normal” once again: without drapes, without covid, without fear, with a vibrant city and with a genius loci that does not destroy tourism in Prague, but co-creates it.
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