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Introduction

Prague is a city that simultaneously presents the color, life and beauty of a vibrant, baroque city, and the cold, poor and quiet life of a 50-year-old communist artifact. On my bus travel from the Prague airport to my hotel in the southeast part of the city, I was stunned by the crumbling, lackluster buildings and simply-dressed and quiet Czech people. Expecting sights equaling Prague's praise as "the jewel in Europe's crown" and "the golden city," I was remarkably disappointed at the blocks of communist-style apartments lining the ride into the city. Around my hotel, the much older baroque buildings were dark with soot and age, leaving me only a specter of the city's original beauty.

Yet, my guidebook was aglow with smiling faces, bright summer pictures of Prague castles, and freshly decorated 300-year-old buildings. Friends had described the city's vibrancy, beauty and energy--a citywide museum of art it had been called. On this first day of travel, I had begun to discover one of the many dichotomies within the city. The city strangely divided itself into two worlds. The more familiar part, which I was soon to discover, was a beautifully restored historic portion of the city, overrun by tourists and western European workers. This part, dubbed the "Old City," was bubbling with the riches of western investment and its own thousand-year-old heritage. Here I saw the jewel in Europe's crown--yet it was seemingly the product of capitalism and open borders that made this beauty possible, to be enjoyed more by its visitors than by its people. It was the second, much larger part of the city that I had become familiar with on my first day of travel. Outside of the restored "Old City" was where most of the 1.2 million inhabitants of Prague resided. Here I saw a place totally different from the sights and sounds of the guidebook Prague. The rest of Prague simmered with a palatable quiet reminiscent of communist oppression, and a characteristic unfriendliness of the Czech people. Outside of the capitalism of the Old City, I was a foreigner; I was not liked; I was not talked to.

The dichotomy between the run-down and restored parts of the city reflect, in many ways, other dichotomies within Prague. Part of the city seems manifestly linked to its 15th-19th century beauties through perfectly restored architecture, bustling pedestrian walkways, and intricate classical statues. The effects of Prague's 50-year experiment with communism are reflected in most of the rest of the city--an unfriendly and poorer environment with a sinking feeling of oppression ten years after the velvet revolution that freed Czechlasovakia from its Soviet ties.

This photoessay takes the pictures and experiences of my two-week travel to Prague in January 2001 as a presentation of how Prague has at its core multiple faces that define its character. From Prague's beauty, to its dismal quiet, from the McDonald's that line the Old City, to the fruit stands that have served Prague's inhabitants for hundreds of years, Prague is a changing and dynamic place shaped by its communist past, and its historical prescence.