Alternatives

Communism Tour

The theme of the Communism tour is not only the Communist period from 1948-1989. We must start decades before. The independent Czechoslovak state of 1918 and the years of Nazism (1940-45) form the background. You will hear and about Czechoslovakia, the division of 1993 and the Czech Republic today.

Communism Tour Description:

Your tour begins by the Old parliament building from the Communist era; today it houses the National Museum that communists may have thought proper to build exactly on the old stock exchange. Next to it we find the National museum and under the stairs, a cross in the pavement marking the actual place where student Jan Palach set himself on fire as the most notable act of disapproval against the Soviet invasion of 1968.

Beneath the National Museum unfolds the Wenzel’s Square – Prague’s hub and commercial centre. A number of major demonstrations took place here during November 1989, the Velvet Revolution as well as following the Soviet-led invasion by Warsaw-pact countries in 1968.

At the bottom of Wenzel’s Square we turn left to Narodni trida where students were brutally beaten on November 17th 1989. A small monument commemorates the event that sparked the Velvet Revolution.

The tour will end at the Old Town Square where the first Communist leader, Klement Gottwald, held a rally to proclaim the communist state and denounce all of the 12 ministers leaving government on February 25, 1948.

We will touch upon the role of media, education, sports and economics and the whole sphere of everyday life. Students participating in physical work, dissidents disappearing in Uranium mines, trials and executions of the 50’s, the Plastic people of the Universe and Charta 77, the State Police (STB) and the normalization of the 70’s as well as the Prague spring of 1968 and the Samizdat underground press and other opposition. During the trip there will be a number of possibilities to visit pubs and cafes related to dissidents and important events.

Sights included:
Old parliament/Radio Free Europe, National Museum, Monument to victims of Communism, Wenceslas Square, Political Prisoners street, Narodni street, Konviktska street, Old Town Square and the Old Town City Hall.

Did you know that…

• the headquarters of the Communist party lies on Political Prisoners street
• the communist elites had their shops where western goods were on sale though it was hard to get hold of foreign currency.
• between 1948 and1987, more than 170 thousand people escaped and fled the country.