What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on Twitter on 30 July 2022.

Nad Třebešínem III was named in 1938, although the road wasn’t properly built until the 1940s.

The only ‘full’ street sign on Nad Třebešínem III suggests it’s in Prague 10. Which it is, mainly.

But, while number 3 is in Prague 10, number 5 is in Prague 3 (proof attached, complete with ‘temperamental dog’ warning).

We’ve taken the Třebešín story as far as we can on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2022/11/26/day-96-na-trebesine/, so let’s talk about when Třebešín was the home of Karel Gott (information taken from https://prazsky.denik.cz/zpravy_region/karel-gott-vily-bungalov-strasnice-bertramka-kobylisy-pieta-pohreb-20191012.html…).

In 1969, Gott asked the architect (and former Olympic basketballer) Jiří Siegel to build him a house on Slunečná, in the style of an American bungalow.

It was pretty high-tech for the time – swimming pool, sliding windows, floor-mounted window convectors, and now I’m talking like an estate agent.

Gott sold the house to the future Czechoslovak Minister of Construction, Karel Polák, in 1974, and moved to Bertramka in Smíchov.

In one interview, he (Gott, obvs) stated that the humidity in the house wasn’t good for his vocal cords.

Here’s Karel in 1969, around his moving-in date, putting a rather spirited (and German-language) twist on the Stones’ Paint It Black.

And here he his around the time he left his allegedly humid house, giving the Rubettes’ Sugar Baby Love some welly in Czech and not looking very sad to be leaving Třebešín at all.