Praguer as a log – the fourth quiz about Prague 8
photo: Petr Kouba, PrahaIN.cz (like others)/Gate to the institutional cemetery of Bohnice
This address is often understood rather derogatorily, but let’s make it a priority at PrahaIN.cz. A true Pražák knows his forest like a log, where it grows and literally knows something about every tree stump he stumbles upon. So can you also boldly declare that you are a Praguer like a log?
So let’s test your knowledge of the metropolis. This time the administrative part of Prague 8. It is the cadastral territory of Karlín, Kobylis, Ďáblic, Březiněvsi, Dolní Chaber, Čimice, Bohnice, the vast majority of Libně, roughly half of Troja, half of Strížkov and miniature pieces of Karlín and Nové Město. The administrative part of Prague 8 occupies an area of almost 22 km2, which is more than 4 and a half percent of the total area of the metropolis. However, 105,000 inhabitants live here, which is 8.5 percent of the total population of the capital.
We have prepared ten questions for you, which will confirm your right to boast the title of Praguer as a log. Have you gathered enough courage? Try to find the answers to the following questions. Let the fact that the test concerns the eighth administrative district of the city be a small hint.
Questions:
1. Do you know which assassin is buried at the constitutional Bohnice cemetery?
2. Do you know what precious metal was mined in the 19th century in Dolní Chabry?
3. Do you know who was the patron of the construction of the Invalid House?
4. Do you know when the Bohnice psychiatric clinic, which is the largest facility of its kind in our country, was completed?
5. Do you know who expelled the Jews from Libno?
6. Do you know where we can find the longest Czech bridge over the Vltava River?
7. Do you know the name of the Vltava island that was located in the cadastre of Karlín?
8. Do you know where we can find the Black Rock in Prague?
9. Do you know which of the world politicians of the 20th century was interested in the Bohnice constitutional cemetery?
10. Do you know which is the first panel housing estate in Prague?
Correct answers:
1. Do you know which assassin is buried at the constitutional Bohnice cemetery?
Gavrilo Princip. This man unleashed the horrors of World War I by assassinating the heir to the throne in Sarajevo. Surprisingly, he was not sentenced to death, but he got to the front, was captured, but the typhus epidemic cannot be stopped here. However, his grave is unmarked and cannot be identified today. 4,200 people were buried at the Bohnice institutional cemetery. Burials stopped here in 1951. The remains of Otília Vranská, who was found dismembered in a suitcase, ended up in one of the graves. He used the backdrop of the cemetery to shoot the film Amadeus and Miloš Forman.
2. Do you know what precious metal was mined in the 19th century in Dolní Chabry?
Gold. The prosperous people of that time evaluated the landscape here as gold-bearing and even found a small vein of the precious metal. However, the whole event can rather be evaluated only as an effort that definitely did not bring the desired result.
The Invalidovna National Cultural Monument is only one-ninth built, yet it is a huge building
3. Do you know who was the patron of the construction of the Invalid House?
Count Petr Strozzi. His plans were bold – almost 5,000 old or disabled military veterans were to find a home here. But the nobleman thinks and changes fate. Suddenly, the count’s treasury found itself bankrupt, so the Invalid House was built with only one ninth. Nevertheless, this is an exceptional and beautiful and architecturally very valuable project. We can see his monument in front of the Invalid House.
4. Do you know when the Bohnice psychiatric clinic, which is the largest facility of its kind in our country, was completed?
In 1911. The actual construction and construction of the pavilions took five whole years. Construction began in 1906.
5. Do you know who brought the Jews to Libno?
Surprisingly, Empress Maria Theresa. She first drove them out of central Prague and then out of the whole of Bohemia. It happened after the lost Prussian War in 1744. In her eyes, the Jews helped the victory of the Prussians, so they had to leave Prague and, a year later, the Czech lands. But the empress did not understand the fact that after the Jewish exodus the financial system simply collapsed, because the Jews control most of the financial institutions in Prague. Under pressure from various economic groups, but also from the Pope himself, Maria Theresa had to give way and allow the return of Jews to the metropolis. However, a number of them had already stayed outside the city limits. The Jews thus established the most important ghetto right outside the gates of Prague – in Libni. The original ghetto and synagogue grew up in the location of today’s modern Park Palmovka buildings, but the location was often flooded by the Vltava floods. The turnaround happened in the middle of the 19th century, when a new synagogue was built a few meters away. The synagogue served its purpose until the beginning of II. world war. After that, it was turned into, for example, a fruit warehouse or a scenery warehouse for the nearby Divadlo pod Palmovkou. Today, it is slowly returning to its original meaning, despite the fact that the Jewish community in Libni practically no longer exists.
6. Do you know where we can find the longest Czech bridge over the Vltava River?
This is the Libeň bridge. And to be precise, it is rather a complex of individual bridges, i.e. a mixture. It was ceremoniously opened in 1928 and has become the longest Czech concrete bridge over the Vltava River, still unsurpassed. The Libeň bridge is 780 meters long and belongs to the unique rondocubist Czech bridges.
7. Do you know the name of the Vltava island that was located in the cadastre of Karlín?
Rohansky. It disappeared when Karlín joined Greater Prague in 1922. At that time, the Vltava had a number of small and larger islands and bays. It was necessary to straighten the flow of the river and allow the settlement of the banks of the Vltava. That is why one of the most important interwar decisions of the Prague municipality was the backfilling of the Karlín harbor. One large Prague island – Rohanský – has disappeared from the map, which becomes part of the Prague mainland. Today, only Rohanské nábřeží reminds us of its name.
The Žižkov television transmitter is not hidden even from the lookout point on Černá skála
8. Do you know where we can find the Black Rock in Prague?
It is a rocky ridge that rises to a height of 225 meters above sea level in places in front of the Bulovka Faculty Hospital. The place offers very interesting views of the Vltava river bed itself, but also of the city center. Sometimes we can meet instead of the name Černá skála with the name skála Koráb.
9. Do you know which of the world politicians of the 20th century was interested in the Bohnice constitutional cemetery?
British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. When she came on a state visit to what was then Czechoslovakia in the 1990s, she requested permission to exhume one of the local graves. The remains of one of her husband Denis’s ancestors were located in the Bohnice cemetery. The prime minister was granted permission and the prime minister could return to London with the skeletal remains.
The Invalidovna housing estate is the oldest Prague housing estate, it was created as an Olympic village for the Olympics, which never took place
10. Do you know which is the first panel housing estate in Prague?
Invalid facility. In the 60s of the 20th century, the idea that Prague could host the Olympic Games in 1980 became stronger in Czechoslovak society, politics and sports. That is why the first trial panel housing estate in the metropolis is being built on Invalidovna, which has very good civic amenities. This housing estate is built with the intention that it will later serve as an Olympic village. For this reason, a hotel with the characteristic name Olympic is also growing near the village. Of course, no one knows yet that the comrades in Moscow and Prague will check off this idea, because the first Olympic Games in the Eastern Bloc will be held in Moscow after all.