Its been a minute since I've posted. Edited to add: Its been a looong minute. I've come back to this travelogue 3.5 years later, at what I hope will be the END of the Covid pandemic. Yes, i've dithered for years over this post and the one about Terezin. More on that later.
As a child of the 80's, the Cold War was real to me. I listened to my Mom's stories of Khrushchev banging on the tables at the UN, declaring "We will bury you!" Sidebar - I'll spare the discussion that this was a mis-translation of what he really said, b/c at the time, the result was a direct threat toward the west.
I grew up hearing about Nuke drills in schools and bomb shelters in the backyard.
I grew up with movies showcasing Soviet threat and intrigue and I was suitably frightened.
As a ten year old, the thought that one day, I might be able to just skip right through the Iron Curtain with nothing more than a passport and a travel journal, would have been just as far fetched as the idea that one day my children may travel to the amazing whatever-they-have-in-North-Korea. I do hear its lovely though.
I was on a mission to learn and educate myself on the differences of then versus now. And this was a tough mission. For the most part, anyone we encountered over the age of 30 did not speak English. Now this makes sense, because until the fall of the Soviet Union, the populace of these countries were not allowed to learn English. And anyone under the age of thirty would have no memories of then v now. I had a discussion with a tour guide in our hotel. His grandma had mentioned that things were easier then, everyone knew their place and there was a deal of security in that. "But, he clarified, I think conditions are mostly better these days."
What?! That's it? In my sheltered worldview, growing up in the Mighty US of A, I expected folks to be over the moon thankful to have been able to throw off the yoke of "Big Brother". All about perspective, I suppose.
Jeff and I toured the Museum of Communism in Prague. I had to go, had to see and learn. We learned of the Czech's battle to repel the Nazi's, and the latter's occupation. Then we learned about the Soviet seizure of power and takeover of the Czech government.
In the intervening years, there were several peaceful protests against the totalitarianism of the Communist state, typically greeted with tanks and machine guns. The museum plays a video on a continuous loop, of all of these attempts. You learn about university students of the 50's and 60's, so frustrated at their failure to affect changes to the regime, that they set themselves afire, after having consumed acid to keep them from screaming. This was the only way they could keep the fight alive.
Then came the Velvet Revolution of 1989. I love that term, it sounds like a Glam Rock band from the late 70's. This was a peaceful transfer of power signed over by the old Communist government, to the new Anti-Communist party. It was sparked by the toppling of the Berlin Wall, which had taken place nine days prior. The protests took place all over Czechoslovakia, but culminated in Wenceslas Square.