Downtown Brno for sale. Nobody wants it

Some of the most valuable buildings in downtown Brno are for sale. Five historical houses in Dominikanska street can be yours for thirty-nine million. So far there have been three involuntary auctions but nobody has bought them yet. The auctions were proposed by the mortgagee, as the owners of these buildings failed to pay mortgage instalments. They must be heirs of some sort, because one of the owners is only 34 years old. (Better photos coming up…)

 It is interesting that these five buildings can cost less than one single luxurious house in the borough of Ivanovice that is for sale for fifty million (according to an ad in the Real City magazine). The truth is, however, that not everything about these buildings dates back to the 16^th century. The Brno Encyclopedia writes that only basements and outer walls do, the rest was rebuilt.

 The owners of the buildings owe sixty-four million to the bank, so even if the auction goes well the total proceeds of thirty-nine million will not be enough.

Plus, the complex is connected by corridors and passages (built in 1940’s), so the new owner will have to buy them all – i.e. it was not possible to divide the auction “item” into several separate items.

Brno Expat Life: a new category

As I am hoping to become involved (in part, that is) in, and to post regular information about, some activities around the new Brno Expat Centre, there will be a new page/post category entitled “Brno Expat Life” (see left column). Topics, recommendations, questions and other forms of communication are encouraged and welcome. 🙂 (Note: the link leads to a Czech-language article on Brnopolis.eu, informing that an English-language version of the center’s website is to be launched soon).

– Petr B

The Brno Christmas market starts today, and the mayor promised changes

The famous Brno Christmas market starts today. After years of bummer and bad reputation, the Mayor promised this year should be different.

For years the market was operated by a private company which could dictate the product categories to be sold in the wooden “huts” on the main square. People wanted traditions and the Christmas spirit, but many of the huts sold pyjamas, cheap underwear and other junk.

The city government argued that it had practically no control over the products. It became apparent that the municipality had concluded  a bad contract and there was no way to back out of it and almost all citizens of Brno had to wait for the contract to expire.

Christmas market photos coming up…

Brno tram driver publishes footage of pickpockets on YouTube

Brno is a relatively small town and it has three “key transfer points” where pickpockets like to get on and off trams and rob people as they enter the vehicles. All they have to do is “create a crowd” in which the victims have to stop or where they lose control over their luggage (purses, most often). And tram drivers know there characters really well: some of them use the PA to announce “dear passengers, please pay particular attention to your belongings”, and some of them publish footage of the pickpockets on YouTube… Like this guy…

Gotta say, he is really brave. His face can be seen and recognized in some videos (from the tram depot, for example), and so some friends of these Roma pickpockets can look him up and beat the hell out of him…

Late summer near Brno

The best place for a romantic walk in Brno. Three small lakes in a row, narrow asphalt roads on both sides, perfect for biking and walking. A baby-friendly place with a huge playgrounds and small goats that kids can feed.

The Brno Reservoir: almost no water and some ruins of a flooded village

The Brno Reservoir is a major “free time destination” of Brno citizens.  It offers hiking trails, beach volleyball courts, beaches … including a nude beach… biking paths, etc. However, its water quality is far from normal. In fact once it gets a little hotter, it is considered unusable due to cyanobacteria contents. In other words…it is green. Which is why it is going to look like this this summer:

The reservoir will be almost “empty” so that specialized treatment can take place and the most toxic mud will be excavated. There will be even less water than there is now…which is expected to reveal the ruins of the abandoned village that was flooded when the reservoir was built…

There are experts who say it should work – finally. And there are other experts who say it is useless because the water “quality” will worsen again because many upstream villages have old WWTP’s (or none at all) and their effluent water composition is what makes water green.

Either way: people still visit the beaches even though they can not jump in and swim. And now they take walks in the dry river bed…

Weekend photo-walk in Brno

A random selection of various parts of Brno during one 45-minute tram ride. Just point-and-shoot this time, with no real thought with respect to journalistic quality 🙂

Bystrc borough. A 20-minute tram ride to downtown Brno.

Bystrc borough. A 20-minute tram ride to downtown Brno.

Pekarska St.

Pekarska St.

Old houses on Mendel Sq. housing a tea room, a pub and an army store.

Ultra-modern skyscraper next to Vietnamese shacks

Trinity Tower

A very interesting skyscraper keeps growing in downtown Brno, next to the current main train station (it does not look all that interesting _now_ but it will be once it is finished ). The municipality favors this new development, especially since there will soon be a brand new subdivision with offices, stores, apartments, and a new train station.

Which is exactly why I do not understand the Brno City municipality does not intervene in the problem of the most ugliest thing in downtown Brno. Shacks of Vietnamese “market salesmen” that line the underpass underneath the tracks of the railway station that sell ultra-cheap clothing, shoes and Chinese-made toys. It should be noted that the Vietnamese minority living in the Czech Republic is not generally poor, or lower-class. Many of them make a LOT of money on the type of clothing they sell. Many of them sell counterfeit Adidas, Puma, Reebok, Tissot, Festina, etc. They even occupy the most prominent street in Brno, because they can afford the rent. Paradox, eh?

I have been to many railway stations all over Europe and all of them featured stores and businesses that primarily serve travellers. Or at least they are operated by normal-merchandise-selling people: delis, souvenirs, possibly digital photo processing minilabs, etc. Why the hell would anyone buy bras and panties at a railway station?

...this place is sometimes called Little Hanoi

Just to explain this, this has nothing to do with race or cultural aspects. This is about selling crap at inappropriate places. If these were Hanoi-esque restaurants, I would not say a word.

Sure, the City of Brno does not own the premises. But if it can regulate gambling machines in certain streets inside of houses it does not own either, something should be done about this. Tourists who arrive by EuroCity trains usually judge a city by the first impression they have. In terms of the above, Brno sucks…

Mosque in Brno damaged. Again

Brno Muslims who went to their mosque on Sunday were shocked to find a spray-painted sign that said “Stop, no to Islam”, the Brnensky denik daily reported. Unknown suspects damaged the facade on Saturday night, the police think.

It has been the four such “attack” on the mosque.

Muneeb Hassan al-Rawi (apologies if the transliteration is incorrect in English), who is a leading personality of the Muslim community in Brno and the Islamic Foundation, says “the mosque is attended by children who are half-Czech and who feel very uncomfortable (to say the least) about being unwelcome this way…”

UPDATE BY REQUEST:: there are approximately 600 Muslims in Brno, says al-Rawi in this May interview for the Brnensky denik daily. Plus there are around 50 people from the South Moravian Region who regularly travel to Brno to attend the regular “ceremonies” (sorry about the general term, I am not an expert on Islam, let alone English terminology, and I wouldn’t want to offend anyone). The mosque is quite small and it does not feature the traditional minaret and other well-known traditional architectural parts.

This year [July 10] the mosque “celebrated” its 10th anniversary. I must say it is almost “invisible”, meaning that you have to look for it to find it, and you definitely won’t see it during your regular sightseeing walk, as it is a 10-minute 4-stop tram ride from downtown.

The leaders of the Muslim community (especially the aforementioned Mr. Muneeb Hassan al-Rawi) meet with the Lord Mayor regularly, and al-Rawi himself often holds talks with noted personalities of other religions [like the Brno rabbi].

Brno Architecture: Old Things Go, New Things Come. And Some Return

There is an old viaduct near the Brno Main Station. I think this very bridge has been used since 1880’s. It is almost for sure that it will have to go once the new huge development project has been underway – the new main train station and some neighboring streets, residential and office areas, parks…basically a new borough. Almost.

There aren’t many tall buildings in Brno, and you can hardly call them skyscrapers. This building will probably be the tallest office building in Brno. And I can tell already that I am going to like it.

Good news: people of Brno are coffee nation. There are MANY, MANY stylish coffee places to go in Brno. There used to be one in 1930’s called The Savoy that could host 1,000 people at the same time. It was closed down and practically destroyed over the years of communism, when the rooms were used as a cloth and fabric wholesale place [to explain it easily].

The Savoy will reopen this Saturday and the interior is said to be 1930’s-esque. Possibly with some hints of functionalism. Photos to be posted if I get in.