A train driver is in hot water after letting his girlfriend take the driver’s seat for fun. A colony of beavers cuts off three villages from their water supply and, Chinese lanterns are responsible for many forest fires this summer. Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarová.
Kateřina Klasnová, Vít Bárta, photo: CTK
The deputy chairwoman of the lower house of Parliament Kateřina Klasnová this week shocked many be giving the media intimate details about her wedding day –telling journalists that according to tradition friends of the groom –who just happens to be Transport Minister Vít Bárta –abducted him on her wedding night and she’d had to give up her garters to get him back. Czech Television’s political talk show host Václav Moravec commented on Facebook that he feared the lady had lost more than her garters – she’s most likely lost her mind.
Photo: TV Nova
A train driver is in hot water after letting his girlfriend drive a train full of passengers on the track from Ustí nad Labem to Prague. It is not clear how long the young woman spent at the controls but a video, made by someone in the cabin, shows her driving the train for quite some time while she posed and smiled for the camera. The video – clearly made to wow her friends – was leaked to the media and Czech Railways is having a lot of explaining to do; particularly since a train recently derailed along that stretch of the road – most likely due to human error.
Photo: Richard Bartz, Wikipedia
The wild boar population in Europe has been steadily increasing, but German scientists have now warned central Europeans their meat may not be safe. Laboratory tests on boar in Bavaria- conducted in areas bordering on the Czech Republic – show that their meat contains dangerously high levels of the radioactive substance cesium. The high incidence of this substance is being linked to the Chernobyl nuclear accident in 1986 – and scientists believe that animals such as wild boar absorb it through forest mushrooms and berries. Last year gamekeepers in neighbouring Germany received over 400 thousand euro in compensation for boar meat which could not be sold to restaurants because it contained excessive levels of cesium (anything over 600 Becquerel per kilo of meat is not considered safe for consumption). No such warning has come from the Czech authorities – but the news is in itself worrying –not only because game is popular in Czech restaurants but because so many Czechs consume large amounts of forest mushrooms and berries themselves. Now that the story has appeared on the internet news site novinky.cz Czechs may think twice about pursuing their favourite summer pastime –picking mushrooms in the forest.
Photo: D. Gordon E. Robertson, Creative Commons 3.0
A colony of beavers who built a dam across one of the smaller rivers in central Bohemia cut off three villages from their water supply last week. The dam was so well-made it forced the Bystřice river –two to three meters wide - out of its basin and across a meadow where livestock graze. The water returns to its basin murky with cow dung and has contaminated dozens of local wells in the region. The Czech Environmental Inspection is now looking into the matter and there is a heated debate underway as to whether the dam should be destroyed, the beavers captured and moved to a different location. The beaver is a protected species not just in the Czech Republic but in all of Europe and the country’s 1,000 strong beaver population occasionally gives people a headache.
If you find earthworms disgusting – there’s a place you should stay away from. An area in southern Moravia boasts the longest earthworms in the Czech Republic – giant earthworms that grow up to half a meter in length with a body the width of a pencil. Not that you are likely to run across one by accident. Their habitat is the Pouzdranská step - a strictly protected nature reserve allowing the giant earthworm to live and breed in peace. And they are not likely to stray far – moving around on home turf –on a few meters of protected ground. People who want to sight them can only do so on a few rare days of the year when they surface to breed. The outsize breed was first discovered in this area in 1935 and it is not clear how it comes to be here. Similar giant breeds are known to exist in Australia and South Africa where they grow to a length of four meters. Although ours are significantly smaller, it’s good to know they are not all over the place.
Chinese sky lanterns have been used for thousands of years in Asia and are traditionally released to bring good luck and prosperity. Also known as flying lanterns or sky candles –they have become widely available in Europe and have gained great popularity in the Czech Republic where people buy them for birthday celebrations and garden parties, attaching a wish to the lantern before lighting a candle and letting it float up into the skies. The popularity of these lanterns – most often available in orange, white and purple colours - has had two side effects, an increase in forest fires and a greater number of people than usual reporting UFOs above the Czech Republic.
