Source: Wikimedia Commons

As usualy, first bottles of this year’s wine come to market on St. Martin’s Day – Wednesday, November 11.

Although the tradition of tasting the young wine on this day begun in the 18th century, it had been almost forgotten before Moravian winemakers decided to use it as a smart marketing event in the 2000s.

This year, 211 wines were good enough to receive the exclusive mark “Svatomartinské víno”.

Where to get the wine

If you want to taste St. Martin’s Wine, come to the Náměstí Svobody sq. on Wednesday afternoon. Bottles can be bought in wine shops in the whole country (a list of sure-fire shops to go to at southern Moravia) as well as in many cafés and some supermarkets.

I recommend to combine the young wine with roasted goose, cabbage and dumplings.

I vote for tree #3.

The rules are “so 1990s” but simple: look at the four trees (1, 2, 3, 4) and then send an e-mail to strom@ticbrno.cz with the number of your favorite tree. I recommend using a Czech subject line “hlasuji pro vanocni strom cislo…”. The deadline is set to November 15.

Attention, hikers! The pages include GPS locations of the trees, so you can find them in forrests around Brno.

Jan Skácel smoking a cigarette near main train station. Photo by V. Reichmann, scanned from the second volume of Skácel's anthology.

Jan Skácel, in my opinion the greatest poet that Brno and Moravia have ever had, died 20 years ago – on November 7, 1989.

Skácel’s work was influenced by south Moravian traditions and nature as well as by minimalist Chinese poetry. He was the editor-in-chief of art magazine “Host do domu” in the 1960s; after the Soviet occupation he was prohibited from publishing in the 1970s. Skácel’s poems were distributed in “samizdat” editions at that time, copied by typewriters.

This is my amateur translation of Skácel’s poem about the burial of the only Nobel Prize winning Czech writer:

The burial of Jaroslav Seifert

Folks still had not finished
throwing handfuls of soil to the grave
to make his homeland press him some more.

Drivers were starting their engines beneath a wall
and it seemed it was raining a little bit.

The cemetery got empty
and it was silent
as if somebody
had set a dog free in his courtyard.

And when the dark falls,
the beautiful crazy Victoria will come here from a weir
having a water-lily in her hair.

The legendary jazz guitarist Rudy Linka will perform with his trio in Alterna club on Sunday, November 8, from 8:00 p.m.

Rudy Linka was born in Prague 49 years ago but he has been living and recording in the USA since 1986. He’s bringing two renowed american musicians with him to Brno:

Rich Huntley on drums is a New York City based percussionist . A partial list of the musicians he has played and or recorded with include: John Blake, Seamus Blake, Luis Bonilla, Cameron Brown, Billy Drewes,Richard Kimball, Frank London, Donny McCaslin, Mulgrew Miller, Shunzo Ono, Ralph Peterson, Jack Wilkins and Willie Williams.Rich has studied at Manhattan school of Music.

Dan Fabricatore on bass – based in New York working with musicians as John Abercrombie, Nora Jones, dave Liebman among many others. Recorded with Rudy Linka and Kenny Wolleson Cds Lucky Southern and Simple Pleasures.

Source: alterna.cz

Tickets cost only CZK 160 (€6.18) in pre-sale and CZK 190 (€7.35) at the place, so if you are a jazz afficianado, don’t miss it!

A typical street of Husovice - with low village-like houses built in the 19th century.

Once described by Nobel prize laureate Jaroslav Seifert as a “workers’ republic”, Husovice is a poetic mix of a former village with an industrial zone at the western bank of Svitava river. It’s a part of Brno-sever district but it is very different from nearby neighborhoods Černá Pole and Lesná, both belonging to Brno-sever as well.

Pros

• Low rents.
• Cheap pubs.
• Romantic industrial quarter.

Cons

• Higher levels of criminality, esp. burglary and pocket-picking.
• Older houses.

Do you like reading Kerouac or Ginsberg and smoking cigarettes at rusty old balconies? Move to Husovice today.

You’ll love Husovice, if:

• …you are a poor student and live on a budget.
• …you are a free-spirited person, willing to live in a hipster neighborhood.

Don’t move to Husovice, if:

• you are looking for a “nice district”, period.

Best restaurant

I have studied a high school in Husovice for 7 years and never found anything which could be called a really great restaurant. However, there is an old pub with great atmosphere, called Mikulášek and located at the cross of Elgartova st. and Nováčkova st.

If live in Husovice and want to have a nice dinner, why don’t you walk 5 minutes to district Černá Pole?

Zvětšit mapu

Links

Husovice has a nice Facebook group with a gallery of old photos. You can learn something about the history of Husovice on a machine-translated Wikipedia page.

Charity shop in shopping mall Dům pánů z Lipé, 17 Náměstí svobody sq. Source: veronica.cz

Non-profit Veronica is running a great service: if you want to get rid of things you don’t need anymore but think someone else could still use them, bring the stuff to Charity shops at 38 Pekařská st. or 17 Svobody sq.

Your clothes, books, toys or dishes will be sold to new owners and the money will support welfare services in Brno. The charity shops have made almost CZK 1,000,000 already and helped to fine-tune public parks or improve the quality of life of handicapped citizens of Brno.

Via: Brnopolis

Poster of Be Free! shows the good soldier Švejk killing Hitler-like Germans.

The premiere of drama “Be Free!” may be the most interesting event of whole season, as it shows one of the most controversial moments in the history of the town – the Brno death march.

Three weeks after the end of World War II, 20,000 Germans living in Brno (including old people and children) were expelled to Austria. They marched to the border, but due to bureaucratic problems they had to return back to a concentration camp in Pohořelice.

The death tolls span from 3 people (some Czech sources) to 8,000 (some German sources). English Wikipedia claims that there were about 700 confirmed deaths which included natural causes, diseases (shigellosis) and violent crimes.

Play “Be Free!”, directed by Jiří Honzírek (Feste theatre) premieres in Reduta theatre on November 2 (in Czech language the drama is silent). Its creators claim that they don’t want to judge the event, only show it as it was.

However, Czech news sites are filled with readers’ comments á la “How much did these Germans pay you?” and “Why don’t you rather show what the beasts did to Czechs?” It may take several more generations until we finally understand that we’re capable of purges and genocide just as any other nation.

A male gelada (theropithecus gelada). Source: Wikimedia Commons

The management of ZOO planned to hand gelada baboon male Heiko over to some other ZOO but it seems that the freewheeling monkey is actually a kind of advertisment for the zoological garden, attracting many new fans.

Heiko has run away from ZOO twice in last two years. In 2007, he was captured after several days while he was begging golf players in Jinačovice for cookies. In October 2009, he spent several nights hidden in woods around quarters Bystrc and Kohoutovice.

Martin Hovorka, director of the ZOO, anounced yesterday that Heiko would stay in Brno, relocated to a safer pavilion.

Source: Brněnský deník Rovnost

According to Wikipedia, there were 17,462 Czech citizens with Vietnamese nationality and 60,258 Vietnamese expats living in the Czech republic in 2001.

Most of them had come to Europe between the 1970s and 1990s, as socialist Czechoslovakia tried to help socialist Vietnam, damaged by war.

A Vietnamese bistro at the marketplace in quarter Slatina

There is an impressive jump that a large part of the community members has made: from unksilled factory workers to business & estate owners in only one generation. However, that’s not the case of all Vietnamese families and even some of the Vietnamese who got rich in the 1990s are now facing problems due to the economic crisis.

Vietnamese in Brno

Most members of the community are known as stallkeepers, usually selling clothes, accessories and electronics. Some big marketplaces are located around the main train station and in quarter Slatina.

However, many Vietnamese quit selling cheap clothes and started to do more prestigious businesses. For example, the restaurant offering the most affordable sushi in Brno is owned by Vietnamese.

The community is very isolated. Its members have problems with integration and joining the majority, as many Czechs laugh at their accent and distinctive looks. However, there is a generation of Vietnamese born in the Czech republic growing up and almost every high school class has a Vietnamese kid. These students have an advantage of being born into the families of underdogs, so – generally speaking – they are used to working hard. I bet many of them will get “visible” positions of politicians and managers in 10 or 20 years.

Where to taste Vietnamese food

Spring rolls - increase your cholesterol level for only CZK 10! :)

Definitely in some of the restaurants and bistros at market in Slatina. You can have beef soup, fried pork and even a delicous snail soup for decent money (CZK 80, €3-4).

Exact location of a bistro where I ate twice last week and enjoyed it very much:

Zvětšit mapu

Andre Beurskens (34)

My reader Andre Beurskens asked me to visit the office and kitchen of his “expat-friendly” food delivery company Giraffy. For an hour or so, we talked about both business and Brno — I believe Andre’s opinions and tips can be useful to some of us.

Andre came to Brno from Holland as an employee of a foreign investor. He found out that it was hard to order a food that would fit into business meetings. “Pizza and burek are hard to eat in a suit,” he says. Having an experience with selling food at various events in his home country, he decided to start a similar business in the Czech republic — but focused on preparing tasty foods with people working in office on mind.

Owners of “startups” and even working companis face specific problems in the Czech republic. Standard parole agreements don’t work. “Everyone wants everything written down on a paper and certified by a stamp,” Andre complains.

Salads being prepared in the kitchen of Giraffy at Lidická st.

There was another interesting observation of Czech culture — women become more and more independent and they make still more orders. They are an important source of income, as it is hard to impress a stereotypical Czech male with pasta or salads.

Approx. one quarter of the customers are expats, thanks to menus in English and other factors.

Clever trick: make your brand look like a franchise

One thing was particulary interesting: Andre has invested above-average amount of money and time into the brand of Giraffy, so some customers think that they order they meals from an international franchise.

Ironically, Giraffy is maybe going to become a new franchise. “We showed our brochures to people working in Prague and they told us there was nothing like that in the capital city.” Expanding to other cities is one of the possible future plans.

A dinner for two

Andre’s “best of Brno”

Restaurants

For business occasions Rialto, for with friends rather Déjà vu on Srbska or Avia. Hacienda Mexicana is good for any occasion, they have the best steaks in town imo.

Leisure activities

With friends to the pub or to the cinema for a movie, or I go out with my dog (Timmy) in the nice surrounding nature around Brno (mainly the woods at the north of the city).

“Expat success stories” at Brno Now

If you have a business in Brno (not necessarily a successful one, it may be a startup) and you want to share a bit of your experiences with the readers of Brno Now, contact me.

German movie Mein Freund aus Faro won Mezipatra 2008

A festival of queer (ie gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgender) culture “Mezipatra” begins today. It’s topic is “the third world war of gender”, whatever that means.

As usual, the most important part of Mezipatra is a film festival, taking place in cinemas Scala and Art. You can check out the screening schedule at the website of Mezipatra.

Mezipatra will move from Brno to Prague after October 30.

Mezipatra 2009 is somehow harmed this year, as the town council, influenced by conservative KDU-ČSL party, suprisingly refused to donate the event with CZK 50,000 (€1,900). What’s more, the mayor refused to symbolically “protect” Mezipatra. A funny thing about that is that mayor’s son has been acting in gay porn.

Sono centrum. Source: brnensky.denik.cz

Brno may be decorated (or spoiled, according to some people) by a futurist hotel “Sono centrum” that is going to be located in quarter Žabovřesky.

The most interesting thing about the project is a sphere embedded to the facade. The ball would serve as a conference room for 300+ people.

Sono centrum still needs some more permits, as it is located close to the historical centre. I hope it will finally be built in the projected form.