Written by Petr Bokuvka, journalist with experience in newspaper editing, radio and TV news.
During the dark times of communism Czechs had only a few genuine “free time” activities. They included gardening and spending weekends (and sometimes the whole summer months) at cottages. These two activities have survived. And since it is spring, most cottages have been “woken up”.
Basically, there are two basic types of said real estate property. One, a little garden: it is a piece of land usually surrounded by many many similarly sized pieces of land. On this piece of land stands a tool shed or maybe a small hut that offers the most basic features. People grow their own produce, mostly for their own consumption. Especially pensioners like to spend free time there, making nice flower beds and vegetable patches. These small gardens are usually located in the same town as the owner’s permanent residence address.
Cottages, on the other hand, are weekend getaway houses many Czechs head to on Fridays. Friday afternoon traffic jams are largely caused or created by weekend drivers (people who do not use their cars on weekdays). There are many levels of luxury when it comes to Czech cottages. Many of them do not even have permanent water supply and heating (they are not used in winter, as mentioned above – see photo), while some look like regular houses that people live in all year long. In fact, many people, having retired, move to their cottages (if they offer wintertime comfort) and leave their regulated-rent apartments in cities to their adult children (some cities have recently adopted regulations forbidding this practice).
People who live permanently in small villages often dislike their weekend neighbors. Mostly due to the fact that while they want to rest after a long week at work, the cottage-goers like to spend a day mowing their lawns or burning grass or leaves. They also excessively use the local infrastructure for which they do not pay (as they are not permanent residents). This is why a regulation exists that became known as the “lawnmower regulation” – it forbids the use of motor-operated mowers, saws and other machinery on Saturdays and Sundays.
We do not use checks to pay for purchases. Nope. We do not have the oblong diary-like checkbook in our bags and purses. We do not use the term bounce. Well, maybe when talking about breasts, but not checks. Czechs don’t use checks. We have our cash and credit cards, whereas “credit cards” refers to cards to an account where there actually IS money.
Czechs’ shopping habits are incompatible with this part-time profession. Many people have their permanent shopping bags (cloth-made), and there are people who like to have their groceries arranged because they often have to carry them home, usually on foot or on the bus. In the U.S. you would not expect a shopper to walk one mile with their grocery bags. In the Czech Republic many people stuff their plastic bags and walk home.
This used to be a huge surprise. Pagers were making their way onto the telecommunications market back in 1990’s. Telecom providers felt people would want to be reachable everywhere, just like doctors and FBI agents from then-favorite TV shows (I have my pager with me so if you need anything just page me…). Nope. Czechs skipped pagers and went straight to cell phones.
Newspaper delivery used to be a huge business and if I recall correctly there used to be a huge anti-monopoly dispute when some newspaper publishers established purpose-made company that would muscle out the already established ones. Either way, boys on bikes throwing rolled-up dailies on front lawns? Nope. There are news stands virtually everywhere and people like to purchase their paper on the way to work — and to read it while riding trams and buses. Subscribers get their paper in their mailbox as a part of mailing service they paid for…
The Czech Daily Word 