It happened about 30 years ago or more. In the Moravian marshes lived Yozhin – a creature of unclear origin and mysterious appearance. Nothing is known about him anymore, except that he fed on Prague residents. Yes, he mainly ate inhabitants of the capital, although local villagers also suffered from Yozhin, they say. The monster could only be destroyed by a poisonous powder sprayed from above. One day, a man who was promised half a collective farm and the chairman's daughter as a reward, rose into the sky in an airplane and sprinkled chemicals on the place where Yozhin lived. The unfortunate creature instantly turned white and was forced to come out of the swamp. He was captured and taken away in an unknown direction. What happened next is not known for certain. In the song dedicated to these tragic events, it is said that the winner wanted to sell the victim to the zoo.
Since Yozhin disappeared, no one has eaten Prague residents. And there are now 1 million 188 thousand and a bit of them, according to data from December 2006. They are an unbearable burden for a tourist. No, surely, if not all, then very many of them are wonderful people, kind, smart, beautiful. But we are tourists. We don't need a million plus Prague residents at all. To satisfy all our tourist needs, a couple of thousand would be enough. Well, maximum five thousand, no more. Janitors, museum guards, waiters, cooks, tram drivers, gendarmes, and ambulance doctors, jazz musicians, theater and opera actors, bakers, brewers, prostitutes. That's it.
Brewers should have been taken off that list. But many foreign tourists think that Krušovice is good beer, and they go to the Czech Republic almost just for it. So let the brewers stay. After all, in an unfamiliar city, it's better to live with some beer than without it at all.
On the other hand, there should be fewer tourists in Prague too. When you see at three in the morning on Charles Bridge a crowd wanting to rub the dog on the relief, you feel like jumping off after Nepomuk. Which exact spots to rub: the dog's nose, the back of some woman, Nepomuk himself, the cross on the railing, or something else – no one really knows, so several lines form. "Were you standing here? – Yes, I was in line. – Nobody remembers you. – I was behind the man with the camera, and he was in front of these girls, and you were behind them. – Did you line up everywhere at once? Everyone stands properly, but he's the cleverest. Look at him! – Masha, are you stupid, why are you standing here? You need to rub not this, but over there. Nothing will come true here."
In the morning, hordes besiege shops and souvenir stores. The most inquisitive are led out in large groups for excursions. If the world were fair and everyone had a job not depending on life circumstances, but only by the calling of the heart and in accordance with natural talents, Prague guides would not walk the streets all day, but would stand calmly and with dignity on towers, wrapped in warm sheepskin coats. In the evening they would have tea in a separate trailer, simple card games, before bed - a book. And the next day all over again: wake-up, roll call, walk, information hour, lunch, free time, walk, dinner. And no one veers off to the side, lags behind, or runs ahead, everyone listens attentively, asks no questions, does not break the routine.
Once, walking by myself without a particular purpose, I stopped at the window of a shoe store, I think on Vodičkova Street, and at that very moment I heard a scream from the side: "Fyodor, don't stop!". Honestly, for the first half second I felt very, very bad. It turned out that my namesake was standing next to me and looking at the same pair of shoes as me. Two dozen other excursionists and a female guide were staring at him angrily, their necks twisted. "Catch up, you bastard, don't hold up the group."
An hour later, something similar happened not far from the Alphonse Mucha Museum. A hoarse male voice first yelled my name several times, then, receiving no answer, began to curse obscenely and threaten. I jumped off the sidewalk into a gap between buildings and started looking for who it could be. On the other side of the street, two men were pulling a young guy away from a stall with Chinese magnets. Apparently, that was Fyodor. He resisted the violence, but the men managed to drag him several meters and push him inside the group. Probably, all three were already drunk, although it was only eleven in the morning. After that, I forced myself not to react to the shouts and calls and walked around Prague more calmly.
Of course, screams and shouts are heard there in all languages of the world, not only in my native one, but that doesn't make it any easier. On the contrary, living in constant noise of the Babylonian pandemonium can give you a headache by the second day. And then you have to look for enclaves of silence and tranquility. These can be: the same Mucha Museum, if you visit it in the afternoon; the vicinity of the Old Synagogue early in the morning, before schoolchildren are brought there for a lecture on the Holocaust; the Museum of Medieval Art, which tourists for some reason often ignore; the Castle after one in the morning, when only drinking teenagers and couples remain; almost always the Kafka Museum – a place as educational as it is unpleasant and depressing.
About the latter, I once encountered a joint Ukrainian-Russian tourist group. It consisted of roughly equal numbers of men and women of all ages and several children. I was sitting on a bench and was about to enter the museum when they turned onto Cihelna Street. It immediately occurred to me to sit a little longer to let the group go ahead and not jostle in the cloakroom. But they were in no hurry to go inside. Instead, they gathered in a tight circle around the fountain in front of the entrance. This fountain consists of two mechanical figures, life-sized, of urinating men standing opposite each other. The figures rotate their hips from side to side, and their attributes rise and fall. As a result, the streams of water slowly trace uneven figure eights in the air. So, the women among them took turns stepping into the center and posing in various ways, playing up the urination scene, while their husbands or friends filmed the action with point-and-shoot cameras. When a full round had passed and the guide made sure that all who wanted to take photos had done so, she raised her umbrella, blew a whistle, and led the group back toward Charles Bridge. Obviously, they made a small detour on the way to the Castle for this photo session.
And more about that Babylon. Many of my acquaintances, when abroad, try to hide their origins. They are very pleased that, without recognizing Russian speech, they are often mistaken in America for Germans, in Western Europe for Slovenians, or at worst for Bulgarians. Returning from a trip abroad, such people boast about the collection of compliments received from the hotel service staff. 'Where are you from? – From Russia. – Oh, I would never have thought! You look like a Swede.'
In Prague, that trick won't work! Many Praguers know Russian very well, understand fluent speech, and themselves speak with correct intonation and hit all the cases. Their children and grandchildren know English better, but they hardly live in Prague. They wash dishes at southern resorts in France or pick strawberries on farms in Germany and Great Britain. This strawberry is later sold in stores of our capital. It, like Krušovice beer, has no taste at all, but the Czechs are not to blame for that.
Fedor ANTONOV.
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