Cultural Seminar

For my classes here, we occasionally have excursions to various cultural hubs in the city. These little events are known as cultural seminars.

Today we went to the museum of Communism, which yes, is as awesome as it sounds. I bought my Dad a Stalin candle. Afterwards we started walking across town to see the memorial to the victims of communism. Today is a Labor Day so most of the streets were pretty deserted. As we approached the bridge that crosses the Vltava we notice that it is completely blocked off by police and there is smoke rising on the other side. Our cultural leader Misa ran over to ask a police man what was going on. She later informed us that there was an anarchist protest over by the memorial.

After a while they allowed us to cross the bridge, but we were still far from the memorial. What was in our way? Two tanks and about 50 police officers dressed in full swat team uniforms with Darth Vaderish helmets. Misa found out that the protest was anti-war on terrorism and mostly anti-American democracy. My friend Alex and I started practicing Scottish accents on the spot.

The tanks cleared, and Misa persisted to take us to the memorial. She calmed us saying that the anarchists were relatively peaceful and we should be thankful that we weren't near the Neo-Nazi rally which was taking place at Namesti Miru (peace square). Approaching the memorial was one of the most peculiar sites I've ever seen. The memorial itself is a series of large concrete stairs upon which were the Anarchists just hanging out with scarves tied around their faces. Facing them were about 20 Vader Cops, shields up and ready to go. But no one moved a muscle. It was a motherfucking staredown.

"But, they're so peaceful," I said quietly to myself. A nearby Czech overheard me and proceeded to explain to me that anarchists like to throw shit (literally) and would procede to do so once the police left. I didn't know whether this is true or not, but I decided to leave the memorial and get lunch at Bohemia Bagel nevertheless. About half an hour later all the police had left and the anarchists started walking home and my bagel was delicious.