Compact archive May 2, 2007

International Television Festival Golden Prague is one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious festival of various music and dance programmes on TV. It was first held in 1964. It’s organized by the Czech Television (Ceska televize). Last year it presented 453 guests from 29 countries of the world.

Visitors can vote for the world’s best programme or watch, in the Living Catalogue, commented shows of the best music and dance programmes on world’s TVs. Fans of rock, pop and world music can visit the Rock Club in Manes.

The festival will take place in Palac Zofin and in Manes on Slovansky Island in Prague from 16th to 20 June 2007. More about the festival and its programme can be found on its official web pages here.

Are you thinking of a suitable name for your baby? You can get some inspiration in the most popular names given now to babies born in Prague. The latest list of popular names was published by the Czech Statistical Office.

The most popular names in Prague are now Anna, Eliska and Tereza for girls and Jan, Jakub and Vojta for boys. In the list of the 10 most populars names are also female names Marie, Lucie, Ema or Adelka and male names Filip or Matej.

In the Czech Republic in general, the most popular female names are Tereza, Karolina and Natalie and male names Jan, Jakub and Tomas. Czech parents also chose some more exotic names, such as Nela, Vanesa, Adriana, Sofie or Flora, and Denis, Oliver, Sebastian, Tobias, Enrico or Nathan. Click here to see the calender with the classical Czech names. Read also about the Name Day in the Czech Republic.

According to the latest study of Jones Lang LaSalle monitoring the Middle Europe markets, Prague is the sixth most popular European tourist destination.

More than 90% of visitors accommodated in Prague come from abroad. The large number of hotels offering accommodation in the Czech capital will be increased by three more this year, the most significant will be, according to Jones Lang LaSalle, Rocco Forte (5*) with 101 hotel rooms.

Even though Prague is the most popular Czech destination, more and more tourists visit other destinations in the Czech Republic. The second most popular is the famous spa town Karlovy Vary, then the South Moravia region. The Czech Republic was visited by more than 6,4 million foreigners in 2006.

Association of Czech Film Clubs (ACFK) together with Instituto de Cervantes Praha organize a film presentation of Spanish culture in the Czech Republic.

The main stars of the show will be the most significant movies awarded Spanish Film Award Goya accompanied by three classical movies of Spanish cinematography: Carmen, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie and An Andalusian Dog.

The show will take place in the Small Screening Hall of Svetozor cinema in Prague from 3rd to 5th May 2007. All movies will be in original (Spanish) version with English subtitles. For the programme of the show, click here.

Prague was full of events on 1st May. Besides couples heading to Petrin Hill to kiss in front of the Macha statue, there were several meetings of political parties and their supporters, and conflicts of political radicals.

Supporters of the Communist party met in the morning in Prague’s Exhibition Ground. The representatives talked about their disagreement with the possible U.S. anti-missile base in the Czech Republic, finaly they sang The Internationale. The anti-communists met in Letna, together with the Prime minister Mirek Topolanek. Supporters of Social Democrats met in Prague’s Exhibiton Ground in the afternoon.

The city transportation near Most Legii, Strelecky Island or Ujezd was restricted by the conflicts of nationalist and anarchists. The anarchists wanted to prevent the nationalist from going to the American Embassy. The police had to act. Several people were detained, one policeman was injured. The situation was monitored by a helicopter and hundreds of policemen.