And The Power Of The Power Before And After The Communism
Haresh Shah
‘So what are some of the Czech specialties?’
‘We only have three.’
‘And they are?’
‘Pork, dumplings and cabbage. Dumplings, pork and cabbage and cabbage, dumplings and pork.’ Answers Ivan (Chocholouš) and breaks out in a big laugh.
‘And of course there is Svíčková…’ he continues. Which is not as common to come by.
Every time I return to Prague, my dilemma remains the same. What to eat? There are other things on the menu – klobasa? Breaded and fried chicken breasts? Fried cheese? Fruit dumplings? But time and time again, Ivan will make me take the U turn and order Vepřo, Knedlo, Zelo. By now he knows my taste. More like my sensitivity to the fat contents and the toughness of the meat normally served by most of the local restaurants. Pork, dumplings and cabbage being the national dish, the chances are that in a good restaurant the cut they serve would be tender compared to the neighborhood hospodas.
This is the late spring of 1990. Mere seven months since the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Most of the restaurants are still owned and operated by the State, where the quality level of the ingredients is far below the accepted standards of even the cheapest places across the border, say in Austria and Germany. I am having hard time with the fat-filled meat tough as leather. For someone who grew up in a staunch vegetarian family, in early days in the West, I would find even the tender most filet mignon a bit hard to swallow. What they served up in the Czech restaurants during those early days at the end of the communism, was not something I looked forward to.
I have similar problem in Hungary every time I visit Budapest. And would in Warsaw, Poland a couple of years later. Even though the Berlin wall didn’t fall until November of 1989, the Hungarians had already began to disregard the constraints of the communism almost a year before when the first inquiry from the couple of Hungarian born and now living in the States venture capitalist landed on my desk, expressing desire to launch a Hungarian edition of Playboy. John and Eva Bryer had somehow managed to escape to Austria and onto the United States following the Hungarian revolution of 1956, in the fashion of the cold war breath taking suspense story, making it good across the ocean. Now in their middle age, they brought us young and ambitious independent Hungarian publisher, Deszo Futasz, who had already been publishing the Hungarian edition of IMG’s Computer World magazine, which lead to Playboy licensing its first edition behind what was still considered to be the iron curtain.
On my first trip to Budapest in the spring of 1989, I was very much looking forward to the authentic Hungarian Goulash – a spicy paprika doused meat stew served on the bed of spätzle.Something I had loved when I lived and worked in Offenburg in Germany and something I frequently ordered at the Bahnhof Restaurant and at Engel where I would meet my Hungarian friend Sinaida for lunch. But when I ordered it in Budapest, it was nothing like what I remembered it to be. First of all, it wasn’t spicy at all. A bit watered down even and bland. The meat tough with rinds of fat around it. Something I just couldn’t stomach. Wiener Schnitzel contained pork instead of traditional tender veal. Even in better hotels and restaurants, it was tough going. As good a wine as Hungary makes, not up until later did I get to taste them. The saving grace in Czechoslovakia were their excellent beers like Pilsner Urquell, original Budweiser and the local Staropramen.
In the neighborhood restaurants, you’re greeted with small flimsy squares of disintegrating tissues that passed for napkins. Even McDonalds had better napkins, but unlike in the States, they were rationed to one with each order. Once I commented on them to Kirke’s Mirek Drozda, who along with his wife Mirka, runs a graphic arts studio-come stock photo agency.
‘Compared to what we used to have, this is luxury.’ Mirek says to me and then picking up his napkin proceeds to tear it at the folded creases and piles on the table the resulting four pieces.
‘This is what we got before the revolution!’ What could one say?
When I launched the first edition behind the former Iron Curtain country Hungary, as was my tradition, I had invited all European editors to attend the inauguration. We were all staying at Hilton up the hill on the Buda side of the Danube. Once it must have been a luxurious hotel and it still boasted five stars, but at a closer look you realize that the place has long been neglected and is in dire need of repair with peeling wall paints and battered and old cheap looking furniture. Sad remnants of the glory long past of the Austro-Hungarian empire of fin-de-siècle. When I get out of the shower and am getting ready, I realize that I have run out of my hand and body lotion and hope to buy some from the lobby shop downstairs.
Just then I hear a knock on my door. Standing outside in his pajamas is our German editor-in-chief Andreas Odenwald. He is holding in his hands a mangled and squeezed-out of-it-the-last-drop, a blue tube of Nivea moisturizing cream.
‘I need some cream.’ He says.
‘I do too, I’m afraid.’ I grab the empty plastic bottle from the bathroom, turn it upside down and squeeze it to the hollow sound. Not a drip. We break out laughing.
Having checked out the hotel kiosk and not finding any, Andreas and I venture out in search of Nivea. I still remember looks on our faces as we stood in the middle of the empty shelves of a drogerie. Forget about the imported Nivea, there wasn’t anything there that even came closer to a hand cream. Such an unnecessary bourgeois waste!
Little over a year later, I am in Prague. I split my stay between Forum ( now Hotel Corinthia) which is five star modern, prim an proper like any other international chain and then at U tři Pstrosu, a small boutique hotel on the Mala Strana. It is certainty a charming little place. Followed by even a smaller and cozier jewel box of seven room B & B, U raka, near the Prague castle. It is owned by a husband and a wife team. He is a photographer and his wife, an artist. The main floor, which is also a large open hall, showcases both of their works. Quite impressive. The place is a walled enclave with well groomed small Japanese garden and even smaller detached structure by the huge main gate that serves as the reception, the breakfast room, the lounge and the kitchen. It’s a true B & B where they take your breakfast orders the night before. The husband gets in his car every morning, drives to the closest German border and picks up fresh supply – mainly fresh fruits and other produce. My friend Susi from Munich has joined me, who’s crazy about fresh fruits, yogurts.
But in-between, probably at Ivan’s recommendation, I want to try out one of the communist era’s landmarks, Hotel Praha. When Ivan tells me that prior to the party bosses having decided to build themselves a concrete monument, the property was a vast and a beautiful park called Petschkova zahrada, loved and enjoyed by everyone. He remembers the park fondly and with a certain sense of sadness – the place he used to visit during his childhood. There were of course many protests against them razing their beloved park. But to no avail. As my good old Mom would have said: prudence doesn’t work against the power. Or as Joni Mitchell so aptly sums up in her song: They paved paradise, to put up a parking lot.
Built at the total cost of 800 million Czech crown, all of its 136 rooms have a view of the Prague Castle. Opened in 1981, at the height of the communist regime’s glory days, it was not opened to the public but was exclusively meant to accommodate the high ranking party officials as well as the foreign dignitaries and was the home to the Communist Chapter of Czechoslovakia. The Velvet Revolution of of 1989, caused the hotel to be taken over by the city administration and they ran the place up until the year 2000. Beyond that it would be taken over by the corporate giants Falcon Capital and turn it into a luxury hotel in an attempt to recapture the country’s most recent history and possibly the nostalgia.
So here I am, in January of 1991, residing in an impressive, albeit totally run down building. It has the reception area vast as an arena, looking dark and desolate because of the lack of anything to fill the space. Elsewhere it would have been a bustling lobby bar. The high ceilings make the space look even emptier. And the rounded palatial stairs leading down to the ballrooms and other conference halls, devoid of any human traffic are engulfed in the gloomy dimness. And then there is a swimming pool, with the vast body of water looking like a sinister black hole.
Ivan tells me that those stairs used to hold fashion shows, with the audience looking up and the models descending those stairs in their dainty little steps, stopping and taking their bows. Definitely the pride and joy of the communist regime, where they entertained foreign and local dignitaries and accommodated them in one of their rooms. I could certainly imagine the grandeur of the days past. Fortunately, I could see for myself, how awesome the place could have been, when years later in my post-Playboy days, working with Ivan at Mona, he would hold one of the company Christmas parties there with about a thousand guests and cornucopia of food and booze, music and dance. And what I remember the most is how elegant all the women looked in their long and glittery outfits. And how absolutely breathtaking it was to watch them descend one step at a time with their long dresses billowing so seductively. Especially, my co-creator in making of Esmeralda special, Alice Sedliská wrapped up in her floating green dress in the image of Leticia Calderon in the title role.
But let me take you back in time and in to my room. Having ridden into a sluggish ascending elevator and walk through dimly lit corridor, the room reminds me of my room at the Indian Student Hostel on Fitzroy Square in London. A single bunk like bed flush with the corner, a desk and a chair stacked against the right wall. I am not sure if there is an armchair of sorts. Fortunately, there is a full size window overlooking the garden and the Prague Castle, of which the hotel is so proud. My London room had a sink, but we had to use communal toilets and showers. My room at Praha is equipped with a bathroom of its own. Their breakfast buffet is meager even by the eastern European standards. It’s crying out for tender loving care and some well invested hard cash. Though it stands in the prestigious residential quarter of Prague 6, when you put it in perspective, it is tucked away in the remote corner, far away from the glitter and the glory of the city that calls itself Zlata Praha – the Golden Prague.
The irony of it all is: Thanks to the privatization of the place, up until a year ago, it had become one of the Prague’s alternative luxury hotels at $300+ a night rooms. Even Tom Cruise stayed there during the filming of Mission Impossible 4, and loved it. And just as the people of the country had began to accept it as a monument to its recent communist history, in early 2013, the hotel was abruptly closed down without explanation, leaving guests with reservations stranded and scrambling for rooms elsewhere. The new owner, Petr Kellner, of PPF, said to be the richest man of the country plans to demolish the hotel and put up in its place an upscale school to be named Open Gate. There has been protests against it, but once again – this time around, not only the power but also talking is the clanging cash.
© Haresh Shah 2014
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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