What's in a Prague street name

Klánova was built in 1925.

Václav Klán was born in Černošice (nowadays in Prague-West) in 1839. He was working as a clerk in Zbraslav when an aunt left him some rocky land in Radotín (nowadays in Prague 16).

He later sold this to a mining company (Radotín is famed for its limestone), making a nice little profit as a result. He used this to buy a farm in Modřany, which he then sold to a noble family, the Schwarzenbergs. Cue another nice little profit.

Taking advantage of an economic crisis and an ensuing buyer’s market, he purchased forests in Šestajovice (1873) and Vidrholec (1874). In 1878, he was granted permission to have a train station built on his lands.

In the same year, he founded a settlement here, logically called Klánovice (go if you haven’t before – it has some seriously nice villas and, when I went a few years back, a particularly great Vietnamese restaurant).

Klánovice may have thrived, but, ultimately, Klán didn’t – various investments, including a land purchase in Dalmatia, failed, and he died of a heart condition, and with very little money to his name, in České Budějovice in 1903.

Klán also owned a villa, called Klánovka, round here in Prague 4.