FEATURE-Cradle Of Czech Coup Still Rocks 10 Years On
With the Berlin Wall unexpectedly falling just a week earlier, there was already a real sense of change in the air.
Michael Zantovsky, who would become spokesman of the Civic Forum citizen's movement led by dissident playwright Vaclav Havel, became a central figure in the events which ousted the Communists in the days after that Friday, November 17.
"It was clear there was a confrontation brewing, but we still didn't know how big it was going to be," said Zantovsky, who at that time was a local journalist working for Reuters. Reports of police beatings on November 17 - including speculation, later dispelled, that one beaten student had died - made it to banned Western radio broadcasts and helped trigger the popular putsch later dubbed the "Velvet Revolution".
"I remember, by Monday, we counted about 200,000 people on (Prague's) Wenceslas Square, I remember thinking, 'This is it, there is no turning back,'" said Zantovsky. "I told Reuters I was quitting 10 days later. There was no time before that."
A week after that night on Narodni, Communist General Secretary Milos Jakes quit. Havel became president by the year's end. The first free elections in four decades came in June.
The students of Narodni have mixed feelings about what has happened since, but they still remember that night with pride. Hana Blahova, studying agro-economics at the time, was among those dodging truncheons while soon-to-be husband Vladimir, then an army conscript, was on alert at barracks minutes away for an armed attack against the students, if the call came. It didn't.
The two have since set up a thriving family furniture factory near the southern city of Tabor, fighting the still-massive bureaucracy to get loans and licences while huge Communist-era firms lose billions and corruption runs rampant. "The freedom is great, but I would like to have a fair administrative system and laws that work," Hana said.
AN OFTEN ROUGH ROAD
The road to capitalism and democracy has been a rocky one for many individuals and institutions moving away from the certainties of cradle-to-grave Communist care toward the prospect of previously unimaginable wealth.
Frequent political turmoil and nine percent unemployment, after a poor record of denationalising industries, have caused approval ratings of pro-Western democrats, even the once widely embraced Havel, to slide in recent years. Meanwhile the Communists have again become one of the most popular parties.
Zantovsky, who was later Czech ambassador to Washington and chairman of a small right-wing party before winning his current Senate seat, said the last decade proved that the altruistic themes of the Velvet Revolution were not enough. "The fundamental ideal of the revolution - the slogan - was 'Love and Truth Must Prevail over Lies and Hatred'. The problem with this phrase is 'must,'" Zantovsky said. "We found there's no necessity these must prevail. It just takes a lot of work. I guess we haven't worked hard enough yet."
Few Czechs expect the old days to return - NATO membership has already been secured and a seat in the European Union is expected sooner or later - but a recent opinion poll showed only 44 percent think the new system is better.
"Of course I'll remember the revolution, it was a big change," said a middle-aged shop assistant at the Paukert Delicatessen on Narodni, who came to Prague looking for work after being made redundant at a troubled firm in a small town. "Actually for me, the change was rather to the worse. Before, when you were working properly, you had security. Now a boss can fire you at any moment he wants to," she said.
A DECADE ON NARODNI STREET
The changes on Narodni Trida, this three block-long cradle of the revolution, speak volumes about what has happened since. Status symbols like BMW cars, Sony and Gucci, fashion boutiques and high-tech shops have replaced a grey row of Communist-made Skoda and Trabant cars and thinly stocked shops. Much of what is sold on this street now is out of the range of most Czechs.
Each year, Narodni sees more of what was rare before 1990 - including beggars, prostitutes, and the homeless.
The ex-East German Culture Centre in the building across the street from Reuters now houses a travel agency whose owner, Vaclav Fischer, became one of the first mega-wealthy. He won a self-financed Senate campaign this year by a landslide. Down the street, a baroque palace which used to house the Cuban Culture Centre and the Castro Grill became a shining branch of Komercni Banka, the largest Czech bank. Across from that, the once dour Communist-era Maj department store, which police used as a staging post for their attack on students, has become a British Tesco. Prague's only storefront plastic surgeon and liposuction specialist recently gave way on the ground floor to the trendy boutique "Shoe and Me". It sells a wide variety of one-colour footwear - black - against blinding white display cases.
Across at Narodni 22, visiting President Bill Clinton played saxophone at the Reduta Jazz Club in 1994.
In the middle of the block, a small plaque of open hands and peace signs is in the corner of a dark arcade, the only official monument to the night that sparked the Velvet Revolution.
Michael Zantovsky, who would become spokesman of the Civic Forum citizen's movement led by dissident playwright Vaclav Havel, became a central figure in the events which ousted the Communists in the days after that Friday, November 17.
"It was clear there was a confrontation brewing, but we still didn't know how big it was going to be," said Zantovsky, who at that time was a local journalist working for Reuters. Reports of police beatings on November 17 - including speculation, later dispelled, that one beaten student had died - made it to banned Western radio broadcasts and helped trigger the popular putsch later dubbed the "Velvet Revolution".
"I remember, by Monday, we counted about 200,000 people on (Prague's) Wenceslas Square, I remember thinking, 'This is it, there is no turning back,'" said Zantovsky. "I told Reuters I was quitting 10 days later. There was no time before that."
A week after that night on Narodni, Communist General Secretary Milos Jakes quit. Havel became president by the year's end. The first free elections in four decades came in June.
The students of Narodni have mixed feelings about what has happened since, but they still remember that night with pride. Hana Blahova, studying agro-economics at the time, was among those dodging truncheons while soon-to-be husband Vladimir, then an army conscript, was on alert at barracks minutes away for an armed attack against the students, if the call came. It didn't.
The two have since set up a thriving family furniture factory near the southern city of Tabor, fighting the still-massive bureaucracy to get loans and licences while huge Communist-era firms lose billions and corruption runs rampant. "The freedom is great, but I would like to have a fair administrative system and laws that work," Hana said.
AN OFTEN ROUGH ROAD
The road to capitalism and democracy has been a rocky one for many individuals and institutions moving away from the certainties of cradle-to-grave Communist care toward the prospect of previously unimaginable wealth.
Frequent political turmoil and nine percent unemployment, after a poor record of denationalising industries, have caused approval ratings of pro-Western democrats, even the once widely embraced Havel, to slide in recent years. Meanwhile the Communists have again become one of the most popular parties.
Zantovsky, who was later Czech ambassador to Washington and chairman of a small right-wing party before winning his current Senate seat, said the last decade proved that the altruistic themes of the Velvet Revolution were not enough. "The fundamental ideal of the revolution - the slogan - was 'Love and Truth Must Prevail over Lies and Hatred'. The problem with this phrase is 'must,'" Zantovsky said. "We found there's no necessity these must prevail. It just takes a lot of work. I guess we haven't worked hard enough yet."
Few Czechs expect the old days to return - NATO membership has already been secured and a seat in the European Union is expected sooner or later - but a recent opinion poll showed only 44 percent think the new system is better.
"Of course I'll remember the revolution, it was a big change," said a middle-aged shop assistant at the Paukert Delicatessen on Narodni, who came to Prague looking for work after being made redundant at a troubled firm in a small town. "Actually for me, the change was rather to the worse. Before, when you were working properly, you had security. Now a boss can fire you at any moment he wants to," she said.
A DECADE ON NARODNI STREET
The changes on Narodni Trida, this three block-long cradle of the revolution, speak volumes about what has happened since. Status symbols like BMW cars, Sony and Gucci, fashion boutiques and high-tech shops have replaced a grey row of Communist-made Skoda and Trabant cars and thinly stocked shops. Much of what is sold on this street now is out of the range of most Czechs.
Each year, Narodni sees more of what was rare before 1990 - including beggars, prostitutes, and the homeless.
The ex-East German Culture Centre in the building across the street from Reuters now houses a travel agency whose owner, Vaclav Fischer, became one of the first mega-wealthy. He won a self-financed Senate campaign this year by a landslide. Down the street, a baroque palace which used to house the Cuban Culture Centre and the Castro Grill became a shining branch of Komercni Banka, the largest Czech bank. Across from that, the once dour Communist-era Maj department store, which police used as a staging post for their attack on students, has become a British Tesco. Prague's only storefront plastic surgeon and liposuction specialist recently gave way on the ground floor to the trendy boutique "Shoe and Me". It sells a wide variety of one-colour footwear - black - against blinding white display cases.
Across at Narodni 22, visiting President Bill Clinton played saxophone at the Reduta Jazz Club in 1994.
In the middle of the block, a small plaque of open hands and peace signs is in the corner of a dark arcade, the only official monument to the night that sparked the Velvet Revolution.
