What's in a Prague street name

Originally published on X on 2 December 2023.

Time for a quick language lesson: a řeka is a river.

If you want to use ‘river’ as an adjective, though, then říční is your friend – as in říční přístav (river port), říční síť (river system) or říční koryto (river bed).

And that map at the start of the thread is probably a bit of a giveaway that we’re next to the Vltava here. In the days when Prague was generally lacking in bridges, the river sloped down to a ferry (approximately here, I guess).

Říční includes one of the oldest churches in Prague – The Church of John the Baptist Na Prádle, built around 1240.

It was one of many churches closed down in 1784, after which the building was used as the premises of a laundry and a carpet-cleaning service (prádlo is laundry).

In the mid-1930s, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church took over the building, and is still using it.

The church was mentioned briefly two threads ago, as local resident Viktorin Kornel ze Všehrd was buried there (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/12/prague-1-day-83-vsehrdova/).

Number 11, meanwhile, is not only an excellent colour, but hosts the oldest lithography workshop in the country: https://martinfryc.eu/galerie/litograficka-dilna-ricni/

A creative building often has creative inhabitants – and, from 1907 to 1925, Karel and Josef Čapek (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/01/30/prague-2-day-24-sady-bratri-capku/) lived in the flat (there’s a plaque commemorating them above the door in the previous picture).

Anyone wanting another river-based street name may wish to pop across the Vltava and back to this thread from the Prague 2 series: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/31/prague-2-day-141-na-poricnim-pravu/.