ROB CAMERON

“Could you,” I once asked a train-mad friend “travel right across the Czech Republic using only the slow, stopping trains?” The answer was yes, as I and another friend proved in 2007. We spent 19 days covering 2,000 kilometres, setting foot in over 80 towns and villages, and crossing the border into Germany, Poland, Slovakia and Austria. This is an audio diary of that journey.

Jezeří castle sits on the border between two worlds. Surrounded by lush forest, it’s a splendid example of Bohemian baroque – Beethoven’s Third Symphony was performed here for the very first time. But just a few hundred metres away is a barren, moon-crater landscape – site of the largest open cast lignite mine in the country. And local villages find themselves under threat.

A 16-year-old girl Scout pictured standing up to a far-right skinhead has told the BBC she was not afraid of neo-Nazis and wanted more young people to stand up to fascism. Lucie Myslikova, a film and animation student from the Czech city of Brno, was captured in her uniform confronting a shaven-headed demonstrator.

The Czech lower house is to begin debating a bill to introduce same-sex marriage. If successful, the Czech Republic would become the first country in the former eastern bloc to allow gay people to marry – similar legislation was introduced in Slovenia, but was later overturned in a referendum. However even some prominent gay politicians are against.

Czech scientists are offering people the chance to send a message from Mars to Earth. Eleven audio files will make the journey from Earth to Mars – and one of the recorded messages will then be beamed back here to Earth. The competition – which is open to anyone in the world – is part of the Exomars Rover project, which is due to land on the Red Planet in 2021.

For years, Polish women have been evading their country’s strict abortion laws by seeking medical help to terminate unwanted pregnancies abroad. One such country is the Czech Republic, where access to abortion is legal, safe and provided on demand. Thousands are believed to have had abortions that would have been denied to them in Poland.

Women in the Czech Republic may soon be able to take non-gendered versions of their surnames, after MPs backed a change in the law. In Czech, the ending ová is added automatically to almost all female surnames, even foreign ones, and they can only be dropped in very limited circumstances. It’s been that way for centuries … but could be about to change.

People in many areas of the Czech Republic have been advised by the fire brigade to keep their windows closed as they fight a big forest fire. Parts of the Bohemian Switzerland national park, which sits on the German border, have been burning since Sunday. Homes have been destroyed and the smell of smoke has reached the capital Prague 100km to the south.

A Czech village priest caused uproar when he stamped on pumpkins left by local children near his church. “Leaving the rectory on Sunday evening, I saw numerous symbols of the satanic feast of ‘Halloween’ placed in front of our sacred grounds,” he wrote in an apology. “But try to remember that my duty as a priest is to protect children and families from hidden evil.”

Czech MPs have approved an amendment tightening gun legislation, a month after the worst mass shooting in the country’s history. The amendment – which was proposed before the killings – must still pass through the Senate and be signed by the president, and will not come into force until 2026. It’s far from revolutionary, so would it even have made a difference?

Born Marie Jana Körbelová in Prague, Madeleine Albright (1937 – 2022) spent the war in London. After the Communist coup of 1948, her family emigrated to the U.S., where she later became the first female Secretary of State. “What I learnt as a result of being born here was that when the United States was not involved – as in Munich – terrible things happened.”

The anniversary of the Velvet Revolution on November 17th 1989 is now a national holiday. It’s an opportunity to look back on a defining moment and take the temperature of Czech (and Slovak) society. For the 20th anniversary, those who were at the heart of the revolution – including the shy playwright who became president – shared their memories and thoughts.

A Czech travel agency is offering package holidays for people nostalgic for the trade union perks of Communist Czechoslovakia, when factory workers were bussed off to recuperate from the daily grind. For a modest sum, guests can stay at a grim-looking hotel in Slovakia’s Tatra Mountains, to relive the sights, sounds, and smells of pre-1989 holidays.

The story of the late Nicholas Winton, the British stockbroker who helped save hundreds of mostly Jewish children from the Nazis, has been immortalised in books, documentaries and films – most recently One Life. In 2011, Sir Nicholas was in Prague to attend the premiere of the film Nicky’s Family, and to meet some of those he had helped to save.

Václav Havel died at his country home – Hrádeček – on the morning of Sunday, December 18th, 2011. He’d appeared a few months previously at the unveiling of a statue to Woodrow Wilson, looking frail and gaunt. However his death – at the age of 75 – still came as a great shock. Havel’s state funeral five days later was a momentous and immensely moving experience.

Holidays can expose the traveller to cultures, languages and adventures they would never have experienced at home. Trying to recreate them many years later however can be a bit of a challenge. In the summer of 2012, I returned to the idyllic town of Vimperk in South Bohemia – the place where twenty years previously I’d decided to start a new life.

The Czech Republic may be a landlocked country but its historical borders once stretched as far as the Adriatic. People still yearn for the sea – there were even plans in the 1970s to build a tunnel to Yugoslavia. Most have to content themselves with an annual trip to Greece or Croatia, but a pair of Czech adventurers are building a boat… out of plastic bottles.

The grandson of British wartime leader Winston Churchill has unveiled a statue in the Czech capital Prague dedicated to the 2,500 Czech and Slovak airmen who fought in Britain’s Royal Air Force. The monument, called the Winged Lion, is a gift from Prague’s British expatriate community in gratitude for the airmen’s contribution during World War Two.

Scotland went to the polls on September 18th, 2014 to decide whether to leave the United Kingdom and begin a new chapter as an independent state. The only country in Europe that has peacefully divided in recent decades is Czechoslovakia, which split into two on January 1st, 1993, without a drop of blood being spilt. So what advice would Czechs and Slovaks give the Scots?

Thousands of people have protested against Czech President Miloš Zeman on the 25th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, which ended communist rule. Demonstrators carried football-style red cards as a warning to Mr Zeman, while others threw eggs. One accidentally hit the German president. Many are angry with Mr Zeman, who they see as too sympathetic to Russia.

The Czech police force has come under fire for writing numbers on the arms of migrants at Breclav railway station. Some said the images were reminiscent of the Holocaust, when prisoners at Auschwitz were systematically tattooed with serial numbers. But the Czech authorities appeared unaware of the visual connotations, and said they were simply administrative.

The Czech town of Loděnice just to the south of Prague has become the global capital of vinyl, thanks to some canny business decisions made in the 1990s. Vinyl is back, and it’s big business – and there’s a good chance your limited edition Coldplay or U2 disc was made at the GZ media company. Last year made it made some 20 million records.

Tomáš Baťa built the world’s greatest shoe empire out of a tiny family workshop by using revolutionary methods that still find application today. From his high-rise, red-brick headquarters in Zlín, Baťa oversaw an empire of 1,825 outlets in Czechoslovakia and another 660 across the globe. Entire towns – in Europe, India and South America – are still named after him.

The government of the Czech Republic is making a new push to use ‘Czechia’ – the official short name of the country in English – pointing out that few people say ‘the Federal Republic of Germany’ instead of ‘Germany’, or ‘the Russian Federation’ for ‘Russia’. However, the short form is struggling to find recognition – both at home and abroad.

Events are being held in the Czech capital Prague to mark the 700th anniversary of the birth of Charles IV, who was King of Bohemia and then Holy Roman Emperor. The events – taking place at a number of famous landmarks in the city which bear his name – will be attended by a distant descendant, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

A Czech DNA expert is carrying out tests on clothes belonging to the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. The tests should provide a definitive answer to an explosive claim that has fascinated readers for almost a century. Was Masaryk – champion of Slav rights and father of the Czechoslovak state – the illegitimate son of the Austro-Hungarian emperor?

A new unit has been set up at the Czech interior ministry to counter the spread of fake news and disinformation. The Centre Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats will seek to alert people to stories and posts that are demonstrably false, much of it published on either Russian or pro-Russia websites. But not everyone is convinced it can succeed.

By the time Ai Weiwei unveiled his epic ‘Law Of The Journey’ at Prague’s National Gallery, Europe’s refugee crisis had largely disappeared from the front pages. But the flow of people continued, and with it opposition – especially in Central Europe – to providing shelter. The Czech government’s attitude, the artist said, was unacceptable, “because it’s morally wrong.”

When communism collapsed in Central and Eastern Europe, previously unobtainable goods flooded the market. Today, shops and supermarkets offer broadly the same food and drink as in the West – a tangible result of global capitalism. But something is dawning on Czechs, Slovaks, Poles and Hungarians: the labels are the same, but the contents might not be.

Plans to rehabilitate a pre-war Jewish cemetery in the Czech town of Prostějov have run into fierce local opposition, torpedoed by deliberate misinformation and anti-Semitism. Tombstones from the town’s old Jewish cemetery were looted and handed out to locals in 1943 – and many of them still pave people’s backyards and cellars.

Czech voters are likely to hand power to controversial billionaire Andrej Babiš, the country’s second-richest man who ran on an anti-corruption platform but is himself under investigation. The campaign has been dominated by big themes including euro adoption, immigration and the relationship with Russia, but also some more obscure ones, such as the price of butter.

Czechs go to the polls this weekend in the first round of a presidential election. The two-day vote is being seen as a referendum on the outspoken 73-year-old incumbent Milos Zeman, and the direction of the country. Zeman has angered many with his tilt towards Moscow and Beijing, and not everyone cares for his sarcastic – and politically incorrect – humour.

A class photo from a primary school in the northern city of Teplice led to a torrent of abuse and even death threats. The photo, of first graders at ZŠ Plynárenská primary school, showed rows of happy, smiling children with one difference – only a handful of them were white. Teplice is home to a large Roma minority, and also has many immigrants from Vietnam and Gulf states.

In 2018 allegations were made by a former Czechoslovak spy that the then opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had been a paid informer for the country’s communist era secret police, the StB. Mr Corbyn emphatically denied the claims, but a few sheaves of old paper still have the power to throw lives into turmoil.

Czechs are marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, when a 250,000-strong invasion force from five Warsaw Pact countries invaded the country from the north, east and south. They were sent by Moscow to crush the so-called Prague Spring – the liberalising reforms of Czechoslovak communist leader Alexander Dubcek.

Czech counter-intelligence has issued stark warnings of intensified espionage activity by Russia and China. Both countries are pursuing a long-term strategy of undermining the West, according to the Security Information Service (BIS). Moscow has continued its hybrid warfare strategy to gain influence over this EU and Nato member, it says.

For a quarter of a century tourists and locals passing through the bottom of Prague’s Wenceslas Square were stepping unaware on Jewish gravestones. They were looted from abandoned cemeteries in the 1980s and cut up to make cobbles. The truth about the stones came to light thanks to the head of Prague’s Jewish Museum – who slipped a few into his pocket as a young man.

Mobile operators say the number of people who attended a demonstration against Prime Minister Andrej Babiš on Sunday was just shy of 300,000, making it the largest mass protest since the Velvet Revolution in 1989. Protestors want the billionaire businessman to step down over a criminal investigation into allegations of EU subsidy fraud.

For decades, archaeologists have grappled with the identity of a 10th-Century skeleton discovered at Prague Castle. The remains were exploited by both the Nazis and Soviets for ideological purposes, claiming it as proof of a pre-existing Germanic – or Slavic – presence. But attempts to pin a clear ethnic label on a 1,000-year-old corpse perhaps reveal more about us than him.

The thirtieth anniversary of the Velvet Revolution against the Communist regime has been overshadowed by contemporary protests against the country’s prime minister, Andrej Babiš. An estimated 200,000 people packed Letná plain – scene of the largest protests in 1989 – while Mr Babiš was heckled as he lit a candle to students beaten by riot police on Národní street.

A random face in a documentary about the Prague Spring led to a wild goose chase to track down its owner. It belonged to Zdeněk ‘Sid’ Kučera, a jazz trumpeter and singer whose band was filmed performing Georgie Fame’s Bonnie and Clyde in a Prague club. Sid emigrated not long after the Soviet tanks arrived – but finally got in touch from his adopted home in Switzerland.

A Czech politician in hiding amid allegations of a Russian assassination plot says he believes the threat against him is credible and he fears for his life. Three Prague politicians are under 24-hour police guard because of the alleged plot to poison them – claims categorically denied by Moscow. The BBC spoke to him from an undisclosed location under police guard.

Life in the Czech Republic is slowly returning to normal after lockdowns introduced at the beginning of the pandemic. On Monday, many children were back in school classrooms and swimming pools, zoos and castles were reopened.But the major milestone for a nation of beer-drinkers is that from now on, restaurants, bars and pubs can once again serve people indoors.

Initially praised for its Covid response – including a cottage industry sewing hundreds of thousands of homemade face masks – by autumn 2020 the Czech Republic had some of the worst infection and mortality statistics in the world. In November, the Czech Army was called in to transform an exhibition grounds on the northern outskirts of Prague into a field hospital.

Governments everywhere are struggling to vaccinate their citizens against Covid, partly due to public resistance and disinformation. Czech anti-vaxxers made international headlines by wearing yellow Stars of David. The message was clear: those who refuse the Covid vaccine will be ostracised just as Jews were in the years leading up to the Holocaust.

Czech authorities have pleaded with people to respect Covid restrictions over Easter. The plan is for children to go back to school in a week’s time, but they say that could be jeopardised if people mingle now in big numbers. The infection numbers are now falling, albeit slowly. The country is no longer at the very apex of the European charts. But it’s not far behind.

150,000 Jews from across Europe were interned in the Terezín – or Theresienstadt – ghetto during WW2. It was a transit camp – where Jews were gathered before being sent eastwards to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other death camps. Conditions at Terezín were horrific, and some 35,000 died there. But eighty years on, the buildings themselves are falling into ruin.

Czech-Russian relations were already chilly before the invasion of Ukraine; today they are icy, verging on frozen. Revelations that Moscow’s notorious GRU spy agency had blown up a Czech arms dump in 2014 led to a spate of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions. The annual flashpoint is the anniversary of the Soviet liberation of Czechoslovakia – or rather the eastern two-thirds of it.

The people of the Czech Republic go to the polls this weekend, as billionaire-turned-politician Andrej Babiš seeks another four years in office. Mr Babiš, leader of the populist ANO party, faces a tough challenge from the centre-right opposition and also has the far right nipping at his heels. And his fate is intertwined with the health of ailing President Miloš Zeman.

One of the more bewildering aspects of the Covid crisis in the Czech Republic is the hostility and aggression directed at health workers. But it is a problem that existed before the pandemic, and is unlikely to end with it. “A year ago people were applauding health workers. Now they’re cursing them,” said Dr Milan Kubek, head of the Czech Medical Chamber.

Russian military equipment captured by the Ukrainian armed forces has gone on display in the Czech capital, Prague. “Russian propaganda likes to scare people that their tanks can reach Prague, Berlin or Paris. Ukrainians demonstrate – only in the form of scrap,” Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs Denys Monastyrsky told the BBC.

Demolition work is to start on a Czech pig farm built on the site of a Nazi-era concentration camp for Roma. It ends decades of often bitter dispute between the farm’s owners, the government and Roma rights groups. The camp was staffed by Czech guards, rather than the Nazi SS, and none of them were convicted after the war.

January 1st, 2023 marked the 30th anniversary of the break-up of Czechoslovakia; one of the few cases in history when a state has been divided up without a single life being lost. Today the Czech Republic and Slovakia enjoy a harmonious, friction-free friendship – tinged with a touch of regret perhaps for what was once a happy marriage.

Petr Pavel was an unlikely choice for president of a country which has shied away from militarism. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed everything. Pavel – once head of the Czech armed forces and number two at NATO – defeated former PM Andrej Babiš by a clear margin in January 2023, and gave his first international TV interview to the BBC.

Police in the Czech Republic are seeking information on a stolen racehorse allegedly belonging to Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov. Zazou, a thoroughbred worth some £17,000, disappeared between Friday evening and Saturday morning. The 16-year-old bay was reportedly one of two of Mr Kadyrov’s horses still stabled in the Czech Republic.

A Czech primary school teacher is due to face trial for spreading Russian disinformation about the war in Ukraine to her pupils. Martina Bednarova told children last April there was “no war” in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. On the contrary, she claimed, Ukrainian soldiers were murdering the Russian-speaking inhabitants of the Donbas.

Whooping cough is on the rise across Europe, and the Czech Republic is no exception. However, a week marked by confusion surrounding official guidance and a controversial public appearance by Prague’s mayor left some wondering if anything was learned from Covid-19. By the end of 2024, the number of infections had risen tenfold to 36,000.

Milena Fleischmann was nine when she boarded a train in Prague to begin a new life in England. She was clutching a card, showing she had been granted leave by His Majesty’s Government to enter the U.K. – one of only a handful of Jewish children allowed to do so. Only decades later did she learn that her escape from the Nazis had been organised by Sir Nicholas Winton.

Catastrophic floods have swept through Central Europe, leading to dozens of deaths and widespread destruction of houses and infrastructure. In the Czech Republic, the worst flooding has been in central and eastern parts of the country, especially North Moravia, where around a dozen people have lost their lives. Towns such as Krnov and Jeseník have been completely cut off.

Czech beavers made global headlines earlier this year when it emerged they’d saved taxpayers millions by building a series of dams that created an area of wetland – exactly what local authorities wanted to achieve with a project that had got bogged down in a legal dispute. The meadow – in the Brdy protected nature area – is now the perfect habitat for amphibians and rare crayfish.