PragueBuzz!

Brief History

In ancient and medieval times, the settlement Ostrava (Polish Ostrawa, German Ostrau) lied on a merchant path from south Balkan Peninsula to the north Baltic Sea. It was the easiest passable point because to the west from lowlands lies a continuous mountain range (Jeseniky, Krkonose, Jizerske Hory…) and to the east lies Carpathian. Despite that, Ostrava in the 13th century rose to the King’s City status.
Before, Ostrava wasn’t a large settlement until 1763 when high quality black coal was discovered in the region. The coal was used to produce heat energy to melt raw iron and soon became a commercial success. High quality cast iron and steel were the very backbone of a mighty army; thus the coal mines in Ostrava proved to be immense sources of wealth. This began the Rothschild steel empire and lasted for the next 150 years.

In the following one and a half century, an industrial city was formed, producing steel, weapons and machinery in additional to mining. During the First Republic, the city was nick-named “Steel Heart of The Republic” and changed later to “Methane City” because of gases exhausted from underground mines.

Surface extractions destroyed the surrounding nature while underground excavations destabilized s some parts of city. The 1989’s Velvet Revolution and the arrival of the merciless hand of capitalism market unveiled the fundamental of Ostrava: a rampant economy which produced noncompetitive goods and employed thousands of people just for the sake of employment. Mismanagement on many aspect life under 50-year of Communism had left a deep mark in Ostrava.

Today, black smog can be seen on every corner of the city along with corrupted buildings, slums stuffed with unemployed people, abandoned mines and closed factories. The condition can be seen in a Czech independent movie “Slunecni Stat.”

For those of you who are used to the magnificent sights in the historical centers of Prague and Cesky Krumlov, you will not see anything there in Ostrava. The rest of a city can be compared to Detroit’s ghetto.

The environment has improved somewhat as many heavy industries closed down due to the lack of funding.

Get to Ostrava
-The quickest way is to use Pendolino train which takes only 5 stops to Ostrava.
-A return ticket on the fast train should be around 700 Kc ($35) and around 400KC on a normal train.
-Bus ticket costs 350 Kc ($12.5).
-One way travel can last from 3 to 5 hours, depending on the means of transportation.

Living
Ostrava is cheap. You can rent a flat close to the center for 7000Kc per month ($350)

Ostrava’s dialect is characterized by syllabic shortness and the lack of stress on syllabus in the words, making the speech of Ostravans quite funny for Czechs. This deviation is probably caused by the mixed Polish population in the area. (Polish stress on some word is different from Czech.) Ostrava, the main gateway to Poland from the north, is the only place where Czechs meet and live side by side with Polish as other border areas are surrounded by mountains.

Around Ostrava
Famous nearby cities include Krakow and Oswiecim (Auschwitz) in Poland. Krakow is a historical and cultural center of the area, not destroyed by WWII. It is an awesome mixture of poetic Prague and noble Paris. And you must have heard of the concentration camp Auschwitz, the bloodiest killing field of German Nazi.

T.J.

PS: The annual Oneworld Documetary Film Festival will open at the end of Feburary in Prague. One of the featured films, Industrial Elegy (Industriální elegie), is about Ostrava

One hundred and fifty years ago, mining settlements started sprouting up around the Moravian city of Ostrava. The area began to be inhabited by people from various parts of Europe who came here looking for work. Director Daniela Gébová took a trip to these places where everything looks the way it did when the communities were first established. Today, these settlements are like an exhibition of industrial buildings where real people still live. These inhabitants still retain the original customs, values and memories of bygone eras. Thanks to the tales they tell, this film paints a vivid picture of an industrial landscape with a rich palette of personal stories and histories. At the same time it compares different times and regimes while presenting political changes and their impact on the inhabitants of a given region. This film is a colourful assortment of images comprising the bizarre recollections of a population where joy is mixed with sorrow and optimism is fused with desperation. This documentary provides a pulsating, multifaceted portrait of an isolated society, which has practically been forgotten in the midst of factory buildings, smokestacks and derricks.

View the film’s trailer.

Tags: Czech, Czech Republic, Ostrava, Film, Documentary, Industrial Elegy, Industriální elegie