What's in a Prague street name

Every street in Prague, one by one.

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I could talk about myself for ages, or I could point out that https://english.radio.cz/ed-ley-englishman-recording-stories-pragues-streets-one-one-8806941 is over two years old but still largely stands (other than the Twitter links).

  • Prague 4, day 350: Herálecká II

    Herálecká was built in the 1960s.

    Herálecká II follows on from Herálecká I, which we discussed yesterday (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/04/03/prague-4-day-349-heralecka-i/). Cue me thinking what to write about instead, but actually working that out almost at once.

    Krč suffered a lot during the Prague Uprising. It is right next to a street named after both the Uprising’s first day (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/02/05/prague-4-day-25-5-kvetna-5-may/), and, as we saw on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/04/02/prague-4-day-348-obeti-6-kvetna/, has a street named after its second day.

    So this seems like a good opportunity to talk about the days that followed. Today, we start with 7 May, the Uprising’s third day.

    Before we start, we should briefly mention the Russian Liberation Army (ROA). Primarily formed of Soviet defectors, it fought under German command from 1943 onwards (although this wasn’t made official until November 1944).

    It was led by Andrey Vlasov, a former Red Army general; for this reason, they are often known as the Vlasovci. On 5 May, Vlasov had agreed that his men could support the Czech insurgents, not the Nazis, in Prague (hoping they could surrender to the Allies on ‘favourable’ terms which wouldn’t involve being sent back to Stalin’s USSR).

    Back to 7 May: at 02:41 in Reims, France, at President Eisenhower’s headquarters, German general Jodl (executed in Nuremberg in 1946) and admiral von Friedeburg (who would take his own life before May was out) signed unconditional surrender documents.

    Field Marshal Schöner, who was in charge of the Nazi forces in Prague, declared that the truce wasn’t relevant, as it didn’t concern the fight against the Red Army, or Czech insurgents.

    Therefore, on this day when Germany technically had a 48-hour grace period to stop its aggression, it upped the ante in Prague, using tanks to push through the barricades.

    Prague’s Old Town Hall (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/10/12/prague-1-day-190-staromestske-namesti-old-town-square/), which had been captured by insurgents, suffered greatly; the Nazis did huge damage to it, and its Neo-Gothic extension had to be destroyed.

    The ROA – aiming for a good deal for itself, not for the Czechs, and noticing how many Communists there were in the new Czech council – left Prague in the afternoon in order to surrender to the US army.

    The Western Allies didn’t want to annoy Stalin, and the vlasovci would end up being send back the Soviet Union, where many of them, including Vlasov, would be hanged in 1946.

    Back to 7 May: the ROA’s departure meant that most of the Czechs were unarmed, undefended and unable to hold onto what they had gained in the last few days. By midnight, all that remained in their hands on the east bank of the Vltava was an area in Vinohrady-Strašnice.

    A few of the sources I’ve been using to write about the uprising are slightly contradictory – not jumbled on their own, but put them together and you end up with something quite jumbled instead. I just hope I’ve left a reasonably faithful account.

    8 May tomorrow.

  • Prague 4, day 349: Herálecká I

    Herálecká I (which was lacking the Roman numeral at that time) was built in 1941.

    Herálec is a village of about 1,200 people in the Vysočina Region, about 12 kilometres southwest of Havlíčkův Brod (see https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2022/12/26/prague-3-day-122-havlickovo-namesti/ to learn about the Havlíček part).

    The earliest written mention that we know of is from a Papal document dated 1226. It had fortresses – probably three – and one of these was used by Teutonic Knights.

    Somebody involved with the village – possibly a Teutonic knight, given the name – was called Herhart, and Herhálec is therefore his place.

    People born in Herálec include the realist painter Adolf Kosárek (1830-1859; see https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/08/prague-1-day-54-kosarkovo-nabrezi/) and the writer and translator Jan Zábrana (1931-1984).

    Also, in 1882, one Antonín Bláha was born here. A violinist, he emigrated to the US and joined the Philadelphia Orchestra, and later the San Francisco Symphony. His grandson, John E. Blaha, would become a NASA astronaut who took part in five space missions.

    The ‘I’ in the street name indicates the news I/you might have been dreading: we also have Herálecká II, III and IV round here. I’ve thought of a way of getting round this, and which also solves a question I’d been asking myself about these posts for about a year. More on that tomorrow.

  • Prague 4, day 348: Obětí 6. května

    Obětí 6. května was built in 1941.

    The Prague Uprising, an attempt by the Czech resistance to liberate Prague from six years of occupation, broke out on 5 May 1945. You can read about its first day on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/02/05/prague-4-day-25-5-kvetna-5-may/.

    On the night of the 5th and 6th of May, almost 1,600 barricades were erected in Prague after a radio broadcast by the Czech National Council warned that a German attack was imminent.

    On the 6th, German aircraft started to bomb Prague; however, the fact that they were also fighting the Russian Liberation Army (who had largely blocked the Germans from entering Prague West) meant that planned carpet bombing couldn’t take place.

    It was also on 6 May that General George S. Patton’s Third American Army liberated Plzeň, leading to rumours that they would soon do the same for Prague.

    Patton wanted it to happen; Churchill (who has his own square on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/01/13/prague-3-day-126-namesti-winstona-churchilla/) did too, but President Eisenhower, for political reasons, said the liberation of Prague should be left to the Red Army.

    Those ‘political reasons’ being the fact that the Americans needed the Russians’ help in the ongoing war against Japan in the Pacific.

    The Red Army set out for Prague on the 6th, but met with heavy German resistance around Dresden and the Ore Mountains (Krušné hory). The First Battalion entered Prague around midday.

    Meanwhile, the Germans committed atrocities in the neighbourhoods that they occupied – including Krč, and including indiscriminate attacks against people who weren’t even involved in the uprising or at the barricades.

    In the evening, a group of drunk German soldiers went to a residential building in Úsobská street; its residents hid in the basement, thinking this would keep them safe. However, the Germans found them and shot 35 of them dead.

    Those killed included a heavily pregnant German mother of two. 12 people played dead, but survived and would later provide eyewitness accounts of the killings.

    Then, the Germans went through the cellars, finding the residents of the neighbouring building, and murdered a further 16 of them. Six of them were children; one of them was three years old. Five were women, one of whom was also heavily pregnant.

    Úsobská was renamed to ‘Obětí 6. května’ (Victims of 6 May) in 1948. Nobody was ever caught or convicted for the killing of 51 innocent people.

    This shouldn’t really need saying, but: if we could get rid of everyone who commits war crimes, get rid of everyone who is OK with war crimes taking place, and then wipe the rest of our minds so we had no recollection of any of those people every having existed, it would solve so much.

  • Prague 4, day 347: Pacovská

    Pacovská was built in 1941.

    Pacov is a town of about 4,700 inhabitants in Vysočina Region, 17 kilometres northwest of Pelhřimov.

    It flourished during the 1400s and the 1500s, gaining a coat of arms in 1519 and being designated a manor town in 1597.

    It eventually became the property of the Discalced Carmelites (find out about them on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/08/prague-1-day-39-karmelitska/), until they were forcibly disbanded as part of the Josephine reforms of 1784.

    The town got a fresh lease of life in the mid-1800s, thanks to its food and leather industries, as well as the development of the railways.

    After World War I, the town did well out of the development of carpentry, and also became known as the birthplace (and ultimate resting place) of Antonín Sova (1864-1928), a poet and the founder of Prague Municipal Library.

    Pacov had a relatively large Jewish population, although most of its Jewish inhabitants did not survive WW2. They are commemorated through a Jewish cemetery and the former synagogue.

    Noteable locals include Jiří Němec, who made a combined total of 84 appearances for the Czechoslovak and Czech football teams.

    Pacov is also the home of Lukáš Vlček, first chairman of STAN and, from 2024 to 2025, Minister of Industry and Trade: https://www.starostove.cz/persons/lukas-vlcek.

  • Prague 4, day 346: Olbrachtova

    Olbrachtova was built in 1962. Welcome to the Krč era!

    Karel Zeman (bear with me) was born in Semily, near Liberec, in 1882. His father, Antonín, was a lawyer who also wrote novels under the name of Antal Stašek (this will be relevant in a future post).

    Even while studying at the gymasium in Dvůr Králové (he finished in 1900), Karel started to write, already using the pseudonym Ivan Olbracht. Ivan was his confirmation name; Olbracht was a variant on his middle name, Albrecht.

    After his school years, Zeman (who I’ll call Olbracht for the remainder of this post) studied law in Berlin and Prague, and then transferred to the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Prague, studying geography and history.

    He left, without completing the state exams, in 1909. He had also done military service in 1903, but was demoted in 1906 because of his participation in social democratic activities.

    Olbracht decided to become a journalist; he initially worked for Dělnické listy (‘The Worker’s Sheets’), a Czech-language newspaper which, at that time, was published in Vienna. While at this job, he met Helena Malířová, who would be his partner until 1935.

    From 1916, Olbracht worked for the Prague-based Právo lidu; he joined the Social Democratic party and, in 1920, spent several months in Soviet Russia.

    Perhaps predictably, he left the Social Democrats in 1921, joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, and became editor of Rudé právo.

    After serving two prison stints for his views (one in 1926, one in Pankrác in 1928), the Manifesto of the Seven was published on his initiative in 1929 (Helena was one of the Seven). It condemned the Bolshevization of the Communist Party – and also got Olbracht expelled.

    Taking a break from politics, Olbracht spent a large part of the years from 1931 to 1936 in Transcarpathia (then in Czechoslovakia, now in Ukraine), campaigning for the rights of local workers and setting up a school.

    These stays also inspired multiple novels, including Nikola Šuhaj loupežník (1933).

    Olbracht broke up with Helena Malířová in the mid-1930s and married Jaroslava Kellerová, with whom he had a daughter, Ivana, in 1938.

    During World War II, Olbracht moved to Stříbřec, a village in the Třeboň Region, to avoid being harrassed by the Nazis. He rejoined the (now-underground) Communist Party in 1943.

    Once the war was over, he became a member of the Central Committee and, after the 1946 elections, an MP. Until he retired from politics in 1949, he was heavily involved in the Ministry of Information (i.e. the Ministry of Censorship and Banning Books).

    Olbracht died in 1952, and his urn was buried at the Vítkov Memorial (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2022/12/04/prague-3-day-106-u-pamatniku/). After 1989, this didn’t really feel tenable anymore, and the urn was moved to Strašnice.

    One of his novels, Anna Proletářka (Anna the Proletarian), was made into a film in 1953.

    I mainly mention this because, if you’re ever taking the 9 or the 11 up or down Jana Želivského in Žižkov, and you see a statue, it’s of her: https://www.drobnepamatky.cz/node/25158.

    Kolochava, an ethically Rusyn village where Olbracht spent a lot of time, has a museum dedicated to him: https://kolochava.info/cs/muzea/muzea-ivana-olbrachta/.

    Finally, you may have heard of at least one more of the Seven: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/01/13/prague-3-day-125-seifertova/.

  • Prague 4, day 345: Mirotická

    Mirotická was built in 1988.

    Mirotice is a town of 1,200 people which, like yesterday’s Čimelice (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/03/28/prague-4-day-344-cimelicka/), is in Písek District in South Bohemia.

    The earliest known written mention is from 1254, by which time it was already a royal town.

    Also in common with Čimelice, Mirotice was marked by events occurring in the final days of (the European part of) World War II.

    On 28 April 1945, a German military contingent, along with some civilian refugees, arrived here. On the next day, American fighter planes discovered them.

    Air raids, shelling and bombing ensued; eleven local residents were killed in the crossfire.

    Mirotice is also known as the birthplace, in 1852, of the artist Mikoláš Aleš (whose name you may recognise if you’ve been by the Vltava in Prague 1: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/10/22/prague-1-day-210-alsovo-nabrezi-ales-embankment/).

    The family’s 19th century residence was one of the buildings destroyed by the fighting in April 1945.

    Going back a bit, the leading Czech puppeteer, Matěj Kopecký, was not born in Mirotice (in 1775), but did get married there in 1795.

    Rounding this post off perfectly, here is Kopecký as drawn by Aleš.

    And that’s us done with Lhotka! Our walk around Krč – which will probably take us through to late August, even if I don’t miss a day in that time – starts tomorrow.

  • Prague 4, day 344: Čimelická

    Čimelická was built in 1988.

    Čimelice is a village of about 1,000 inhabitants in Písek District, about 25 kilometres south-east of Písek (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/03/19/prague-3-day-175-pisecka/) and about 87 km south of Prague.

    The earliest written mention we have is from the 1400s; it is literally the village of Čmel’s people, although we’re not sure who this Čmel was. The area is proven to have been settled by 10,000 BC, so he could be very ancient indeed (and very mythological).

    Jumping a long way forward to May 1945 – actually, to 11 May, so, three days after the Germans officially surrendered and WW2 officially ended in Europe – some German units had refused to lay down their arms.

    SS General Carl von Pückler-Burghauss, who had commanded SS units during the PRague Uprising a week before (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/02/05/prague-4-day-25-5-kvetna-5-may/), moved his forces west to avoid both the Soviets and the Americans.

    He and 6,000 men withdrew to a spot between Čimelice and Slivice, about 20 km to the north. They treated the local population with about as much respect as the last six years had suggested they would.

    However, they were ultimately surounded by the Red Army, American troops and Czechoslovak resistance units. On May 12, von Pückler apparently signed a surrender document at a mill in Čimelice. He shot himself, and some of his staff, later that day.

    Fifty years and one day later on 13 May 1995, Václav Havel unveiled a memorial in Čimelice to this last surrender: https://pisecky.denik.cz/volny-cas/dokumenty-o-dvou-piseckych-navstevach-vaclava-havla-20161004.html.

    Čimelice is also the home of a Baroque castle of the same name with English gardens, belonging to the Schwarzenbergs:

  • Prague 4, day 343: Chýnovská

    Chýnovská was built in 1972.

    Chýnov is a town of 2,600 people in South Bohemia, eleven kilometres to the east of Tábor (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/02/06/prague-4-day-26-taborska/).

    Before the town existed, there was a hillfort of the same name, associated with the Slavník dynasty (circa 981) if we believe Kosmas and his Chroncicle (circa over 120 years later).

    It was an important administrative centre until 1250, when King Wenceslas I sold it to Mikuláš z Újezda, the 23rd Bishop of Prague.

    By 1289, Chýnov the town existed; however, after 1413, the Bishops of Prague rented it out and never paid a great deal of attention to it.

    Chýnov’s most famous sons include the Art Nouveau and Symbolist sculptor, František Bílek (1872-1941); his brother, Antonín (1881-1936), was also a sculptor (and painter).

    As well as actor František Němec, born in 1943, a member of the National Theatre’s drama company, winner of a Thalia award in 1988, and star of several classics of Czech cinema: Ucho, Adéla ještě nevečeřela, Samotáři and Rebelové.

  • Prague 4, day 342: Durychova

    Durychova was built in 1976.

    Until 1995, the street was called Dolejšího, after Vojtěch Dolejší (1903-1972), a Communist journalist who worked for Rudé právo, among other publications, and was chairman of the Czechoslovak Union of Journalists from 1957 to 1963.

    Jaroslav Durych was born in Hradec Králové (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/06/24/prague-3-day-176-hradecka/).

    He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Prague in 1913; having studied on a military scholarship, he ended up serving as a military doctor in Galicia during World War One.

    He started a private practice after the war, but soon returned to the army, serving as a military doctor in Uzhhorod (then in Czechoslovakia, now in Ukraine) before becoming head of the military hospital in Hradisko, near Olomouc, in 1923, where he stayed until 1930.

    Parallel to this military career (he ultimately reached the rank of colonel), Durych built on his career as a writer, although this was not new: he had had poems published in 1908, wrote his first play in 1915, and had his first prose piece published in 1916.

    Durych’s works were largely based around his Christianity, and he took a particular interest in the post-Bílá Hora (i.e. (post-1620) period of Czech history.

    His masterpiece was the trilogy called Bloudění (Wanderings; published in 1929), in which the main figure was Albrecht von Wallenstein (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/08/prague-1-day-46-valdstejnske-namesti/).

    A second Wallenstein trilogy – Rekviem – would follow in 1930.

    A year later, his short novel, Masopust came out, set in 1611, the year that a brutal attack on a monastery in Prague (specifically on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/15/prague-1-day-112-jungmannovo-namesti/) let 15 Franciscan monks dead.

    When the Nazis occupied the Czech Lands, Durych lived in isolation and his works were no longer published. The communist era would leave him in much the same situation.

    Durych died in 1962 and is buried in Bubeneč. Some more of his works would be published posthumously. These included Služebníci neužiteční, written between 1940 and 1961, but not published until 1969.

    That novel – translating as ‘Useless servants’ – concerned a Jesuit mission to Japan, culminating in the execution of 55 Christians in Nagasaki in September 1622.

  • Prague 4, day 341: Růženínská

    Růženínská was built in 1981.

    We start this story in Chocerady, a town of about 1,400 people, 27 kilometres southeast of Prague.

    Chocerady has five municipal parts; the second-largest of these is called Vlkovec (with 169 inhabitants, it’s a lot smaller than the largest, also called Chocerady, and which has 863 inhabitants).

    Vlkovec was once known for its glass industry, with the first known glassworks dating from 1855. This passed through several owners, until, in the early 20th century, it was purchased by one Arnošt Pryl.

    As the glassworks was dilapidated, Pryl renovated and expanded it. He also had it named ‘Rosahütte’, (or, in Czech, Růženín, also meaning for ‘rose quartz’) after his wife, Růžena, who would also be the co-owner.

    The renovations did the trick; Růženín made glass that was exported to Britain, France, Spain and the US. The number of employees peaked at almost 300 in 1929.

    The settlement – where employees of the glassworks lived – developed around it, and shared its name.

    After World War II, the glassworks was nationalised and merged with the Kavalier glassworks in Sázava (which gets a mention on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/02/18/prague-2-day-31-sazavska/).

    Glass production ceased in Růženín in 1993, but Kavalier still uses the buildings as warehouses (photo by Juan de Vojníkov): https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Glassworks_R%C5%AF%C5%BEen%C3%ADn#/media/File:Tov%C3%A1rna_Kavalier_v_R%C5%AF%C5%BEen%C3%ADn%C4%9B_(001).JPG/2.

  • Prague 4, day 340: U Nového dvora

    U Nového dvora was built in 1927.

    Repetition time: this one is by the ‘new court’ that a much longer road around the corner is also named after: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/01/11/prague-4-day-276-novodvorska/.

  • Prague 4, day 339: Na Borovém

    Na Borovém was built in 1930.

    A ‘bor’ is a pine; ‘borový’ is therefore the adjective, and a ‘borový les’ is a pine forest. There was once one round here, eventually replaced by the Krč housing estate.

    The forest was generally known as ‘Borový’ (no les), hence the street name.

    Obviously, that forest is long gone, meaning I don’t have photos of it, but I did have a work trip to eastern Serbia in 2018 which required a night staying by Bor Lake (Borsko jezero), and it was delightful:

  • Prague 4, day 338: U družstva Tempo

    U družstva Tempo was built in 1935.

    A ‘družstvo’ is a cooperative, or a housing cooperation.

    Those of you who’ve been following the series for a while may remember https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/03/28/prague-4-day-60-druzstevni-ochoz/, where I spoke about how the street was named after said cooperatives (who built its houses).

    There were then various streets named after specific cooperatives, such as https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2025/04/01/prague-4-day-64-u-druzstva-repo/. Or here, where (I am mansplaining now) the cooperative was called Tempo.

    This went on for a while. Posts became repetitive. Followers were lost. Thankfully, there are no other streets round here named after cooperatives, so that three-week phase of monotony shouldn’t be repeated.

  • Prague 4, day 337: Slepá II

    Slepá II was built in 1935.

    This is, predictably, the sequel to yesterday’s https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/03/18/prague-4-day-336-slepa-i/.

    So here’s some vocabulary to compensate.

    The ‘slepé střevo’ is the blind gut, or the caecum, which is joined to the appendix. If you can hear a sound right now, it’s me realising it’s taken me until 2026 to realise why ‘Blinddarmentzündung’ is German for ‘appendicitis’.

    ‘Slepá víra’ is exactly what it is in English – blind faith – and a ‘slepý náboj’, ‘slepá nábojnice’ or ‘slepá patrona’ would be a blank shell (or a ‘dummy’).

    To finish off, let’s listen to a Slovak classic.

  • Prague 4, day 336: Slepá I

    Slepá I was built in 1935.

    ‘Slepá’ most commonly translates as ‘blind’ (for those wondering, ‘slepá bába’ is ‘blind man’s buff’.

    Things that are not part of the animal kingdom that can be blind include, of course, alleys.

    Therefore, a ‘slepá ulice’, such as this one, is a ‘blind alley’, a ‘dead end’ or a ‘cul-de-sac’ (which translates as ‘bottom of the bag’).

    Interestingly, the French don’t really use cul-de-sac to mean this these days; they prefer ‘impasse’ or ‘rue sans issue’.

    As for the ‘I’ in the street name: let’s just say that I’m going to have to save some blindness-related vocabulary for tomorrow. And no, it’s not pronounced ‘eye’, perfect as that would be.

  • Prague 4, day 335: V zahradní čtvrti

    V zahradní čtvrti was built in 1935.

    This district (‘čtvrť) has a lot of nice houses. Although I wouldn’t particularly recommend performing internet searches to see if you can afford them.

    These nice houses are often accompanied by nice gardens (‘zahrady’). Hence this street being ‘in the garden district’.

    Looking for this info has led to me inadvertently seeing those house prices on Google, although, to be fair, I’m also looking and thinking ‘what the heck would I do with all that space?’. Guess I’m staying put in Žižkov, and happily.

    I’d be a terrible gardener too.

  • Prague 4, day 334: Toušeňská

    Toušeňská was built in 1980.

    Lázně Toušeň is a town in the current-day Prague East district, with a population of 1,500.

    The oldest gold object ever found in Central Europe – an earring from the Řivnáč culture, dating from about BCE 3,000 – was discovered here.

    Its name means ‘Toušen’s hillfort’, and it’s feminine – for a little bit on such names (and also an opportunity to find out why we don’t say Mladý Boleslav), take a look at https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/23/prague-3-day-180-boleslavska/.

    In the 13th century, Toušeň Castle was built to the west of the original settlement; the ‘new’ Toušeň was first mentioned in writing (that we know of) in 1293.

    In 1338, Toušeň was visited by the future Charles IV, and present Margrave of Moravia (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/10/15/prague-1-day-196-karlova/). He sketched out what would later become three chapters of his autobiography here.

    Charles clearly took a shine to Toušeň; in 1370, he bought it for his brother (and then Margrave of Moravia), Jan Jindřich, and freed it from the obligation to pay taxes or duties.

    Jan Jindřich’s son, Jošt Moravský, later inherited Toušeň, but, uninterested in any property that wasn’t in Moravia, sold it to two buyers: Jan Starší of Michalovice and Boček of Poděbrady, the latter the uncle of another future king of above-average importance: https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2023/12/23/prague-3-day-189-namesti-jiriho-z-podebrad/.

    George would end up purchasing Toušeň in 1468; in the early 1500s, it was purchased by an important politician, Jan Pašek, who rebuilt the Toušeň Castle into a Renaissance chateau.

    Eventually, Ferdinand I would confiscate Toušeň in 1547, and it gradually lost its importance. About a century later, it would be burnt down by the Swedes during the Thirty Years’ War.

    Jumping forward two hundred years from that, a spa (lázně) was built in Toušeň in 1868. The healing effects of the water, and the proximity to Prague, meant it soon gained popularity. Mud baths were added in 1899.

    Surviving both World Wars and the onset of communism, the spa was, from 1968, mainly used to treat Czechoslovakia’s top athletes. Those benefiting from its services included Ludvík Daněk, Jan Železný and Roman Šebrle.

    Emil Zátopek and Dana Zátopková, working with the local mayor, Miroslava Jirák, were instrumental in developing the spa’s role in this capacity; they were named honorary citizens of Toušeň as thanks for their work.

    Other famous visitors over the years include Archduke Charles (in August 1918, three months before he would no longer have an empire to rule over), Leoš Janáček and Bohumil Hrabal.

    Toušeň was renamed to Lázně Toušeň in 1991. The spa itself has been run by Prague’s Bulovka Hospital since 2006.

  • Prague 4, day 333: K Novému dvoru

    K Novému dvoru was built in 1925.

    K Novému dvoru is named after the former farmstead Nový dvůr (New Court), as is the nearby main road, Novodvorská (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/01/11/prague-4-day-276-novodvorska/).

    From 1925 to 1930, the street was called Mikoláše Aleše, after one of the greatest Czech painters; you can learn more about him on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/10/22/prague-1-day-210-alsovo-nabrezi-ales-embankment/ (which is a good place to get good views of Prague and avoid most of the tourists).

  • Prague 4, day 332: Na příčce

    Na příčce was built in 1938.

    A ‘příčka’ is… well, all kinds of things. Take your pick from ‘crossbar’, ‘rung’, spoke’, ‘dividing wall’, ‘partition’, or ‘crosspiece’, and feel free to add your own.

    In this case, the street was apparently meant to be a dividing line between Na Borovém (now called Štúrova; see on https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/03/05/prague-4-day-325-sturova/) and Sulická (then called Libušská; see https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2026/03/06/prague-4-day-326-sulicka/).

    However, the street stretches a good bit further west than that, so either this story is not entirely true, or someone involved in the construction decided to forget about the original meaning (see also: any country with the word ‘Democratic’ in its name).

    For a variation on the theme a little bit closer to the centre, see For a variation on the theme a little bit closer to the centre, see https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/09/15/prague-1-day-119-pricna/.

  • Prague 4, day 331: Vzdušná

    Vzdušná was built in 1941 (I think).

    There’s greenery around here, and there no doubt used to be a lot more of it, especially as none of these streets I’ve been covering lately seem to have sprung up earlier than Czechoslovakia did.

    This particular street was built on a plateau near the forest.

    One nice thing about forests and plateaus is that they have a decent amount of air – or ‘vzduch’, *or*, deriving an adjective from a noun, they are (making them all feminine to make this post flow a bit better) ‘vzdušná’.