Until 1952, the street was part of V Zátiší (coming up), but then it was separated and became its own street. A further portion of V Zátiší was given to V lučinách in 1979.
A ‘lučina’ is a synonym for ‘louka’, i.e. a meadow.
While I let it sink in that I’ve almost written a thousand of these now, it’s a safe bet that, however nice your home is, it doesn’t have as spectacular statues outside it as number 9, V lučinách does.
This reminds me of the first time I lived in Prague; I was an English teacher, and, in the practice lessons, I learned that Czechs learning English may get very confused if you ask what they did ‘last night’ – because, when we say ‘last night’, what we really mean is ‘yesterday evening’.
In other words, those Czechs are not at all wrong.
The adjective from ‘večer’ is ‘večerní’; a ‘večerní škola’ would be a night school – proving my point above very effectively – although, when it comes to ‘večerní šaty’, we are quite consistent, and say ‘evening dress’.
‘Jitro’ means ‘morning’, and I now have to sheepishly admit that I’ve been spelling it as ‘jítro’ until today. Ah well, we live and learn.
Czechs will often look surprised when you tell them you can say ‘good morning’ until 11:59 – ‘jitro’ (and its synonym ráno) both mean *early* morning.
On the other hand, I still struggle to get used to people saying ‘dobrý den’ when it’s the evening, so, swings and roundabouts.
The adjective from ‘jitro’ is ‘jitřní’, which I guess you could translate as ‘matutinal’, although I can’t imagine choosing that over ‘morning’ is a way to win people over.
Of course, there’s a false friend of sorts, what with ‘jutro’ meaning ‘tomorrow’ in Polish and Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian (but ‘morning’ in Slovenian).
A ‘stavbář’ is a builder, or a construction worker. They would typically work on a stavba or a staveniště (a construction / building site).
Without such people, these streets would either not exist or just be a bunch of paths, so fair play to whoever decided they deserved to have a road named after them.
Or, in Czech, ‘nad lesem’. The forest is on the border between Hodkovičky and Braník.
I mean, this is based on what I’ve looked up; it’s been a very icy January, and everything round here looked much nearer to being barren than forest last weekend.
When talking about humans and their heads, a ‘lysina’ is a bald spot.
When talking about landscapes, a ‘lysina’ is a forest area without vegetation, and so the area around here was once known as such.
Based on my walk around the area last weekend (and a new record for ‘time walked before finding a single damn street sign’), I’d agree, while conceding that this particularly long January is not the best time to judge an area’s greenery or lack thereof.
Until 1947, the street was called U kapličky (By the chapel), after the Chapel of St. Bartholomew on Modřanská (note to self to take a photo when I’m next there).
‘Náklí’ is young willow growth by a river, cut down annually so that it can be used to weave baskets and the like.
In Czech, a ‘ship’ is a ‘loď’. For those wondering, yes, ‘łódź’ is also Polish for ‘ship’, but there’s no consensus that that’s the reason why Łódź has its name. But it gives me a nice excuse to share some pictures of my 2013 trip to Łódź all the same.
Of course, Prague used to have a large number of German speakers, and German words would find their way into colloquial Czech. Such as ‘Schiff’ turning into ‘šíf’, an alternative to ‘loď’.
It then follows that somebody working in ship-related tasks would be called a ‘šífař’ (or a ‘lodník’).
In 1920, the Prague Railway Commission received a proposal for a railway bridge for freight transport. Construction began, somewhat abruptly, in 1949, before the design of the bridge had even been agreed on (this doesn’t sound like a great idea).
It’s thought that part of the reason for the sudden decision to get on with making the bridge was because, since the February Revolution, many educated people had been forced to take up blue-collar jobs, and new jobs needed to be created.
Despite successful tests in 1955 (well, partially successful – one of the two tracks was removed, and presumably didn’t pass the tests), it wasn’t until 1964 that the bridge was opened to rail traffic. There is a walkway for pedestrians.
However, because of the former professions of those who helped build it, it was long called ‘Most Inteligence’ – Intelligentsia Bridge by the locals. There were even attempts in 2014 to make this its official name.
Barrandovský most (Barrandov Bridge) was built between 1978 and 1988.
In the 1700s already, there was a pontoon bridge here – a pontoon bridge being a bridge that uses floats, or shallow draft-boats to continuously support traffic.
For those of you wanting to see an example and also dream of warmer weather, here’s a picture of the Puente de Barcas in Seville, taken in 1851 (a year before it was demolished).
After World War II, it was decided to build a single bridge itself. For anyone who gets a little bit impatient at the smallest delay, the design for the bridge was agreed upon in the not-particularly-immediately-postwar month of August 1976.
Work on the (decidedly brutalist) bridge started in 1983, with one part being opened in 1983, and the other in 1988. In those still-communist times, it was called Most Antonína Zápotockého, Zápotocký having been PM from 1948 to 1953, and president from 1953 until his death in 1957.
Far be it from me to tempt fate in multiple locations around the globe right now, but I feel the desire to point out that he died in office.
In 1990, the bridge was renamed after Barrandov, an area of Prague 5 that I’ll say little about for now, but am seriously looking forward to getting onto.
On the eastern bank – the one we’re on for now – there’s a hard-to-miss sculpture by Josef Klimeš called ‘Rovnováha’ (Balance), nicknamed ‘Červ dobyvatel’ (the Conqueror Worm); see https://sochyamesta.cz/zaznam/20827.
It’s not in the greatest condition (fittingly, it doesn’t seem to have lost its balance, though), and there is talk in Prague City Hall about replacing it with a copy.
In 1871, an association was formed in Podskalí (https://whatsinapraguestreetname.com/2024/08/26/prague-2-day-122-podskalska/). Its full name was ‘Vzájemně se podporující spolek plavců, rybářů a pobřežných Vltavan’, translating loosely as ‘The Mutually Supportive Association of Swimmers, Fishermen and Coastal Guards: Vltavan’.
The association provided material support to those who worked on the Vltava: people involved in processing and transporting timber, lifeguards, and those involved in cross-river transport, as well as to their families.
The idea caught on; by 1902, there were four Vltavan associations, even if, by this time, much of Podskalí had been destroyed in the name of ‘sanitation’.
Na dlouhé mezi was built in 1900 and, despite the pic, is partially in Braník.
Until 1941, the street was called V Zátiší, which we’ll discuss in a few days.
A ‘mez’ is a ‘limit’ or a ‘boundary’; it can also be translated as ‘balk’ or ‘baulk’ (a ‘narrow strip of uncultivated land between cultivated fields’). A ‘dlouhá mez’ is a long boundary.
At the time of naming, this wasn’t just a boundary between city districts – Hodkovičky was one of the many districts assimilated into Prague in 1922, but Modřany remained a separate town until 1968. Meaning that this was a border between Prague and Not Prague.
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.
In the mid-1800s, Dobruška was an important regional centre of the Czech National Revival, mainly because it had been the birthplace of František Vladislav Hek, who was a key contributor to the Revival’s early stages (he died in 1847).
‘U nás’ is a simple phrase that can be translated in multiple ways in English, because we don’t have an equivalent of ‘u’ / ‘chez’ / ‘bei’ / ‘hos’, and so on. You could say ‘at our place’, ‘where we live’, ’round ours’, etc.
The whole Jirásek district thing is an excellent and fascinating idea, but, if there were a street called ‘Round ours’ simply because somebody thought that would sound all homely and wholesome, I think that would have been my favourite street name ever.
You know what philosophy is. You know what a philosopher is. But we’re not here because of Socrates, Plato, and whichever person on your feed has declared that he (it’s always a he) too is a philosopher and should therefore be listened to.
What's in a Prague street name 
