Magazine

The fugitive Czech businessman Radovan Krejčíř is thumbing his nose at the Czech authorities – from the page of new calendar promoting luxury cars. Got any spare orchid roots? Make a handbag! And, yes ma’am! The town where women call the shots. Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarova.

Czechs with money to burn are going wild in Prague’s luxury boutiques, where due to the global financial crisis prices have dropped more steeply than usual. Hermes, Versace, Moschino and Gucci have all launched their new years’ sales early with 30, 40 and even 50% price cuts. A J. P. Gaultier dress is now available for 17 thousand crowns, Gucci is selling its day dresses for around thirty thousand. The Versace boutique near Prague’s Powder Tower launched its annual sales ahead of Christmas with lucrative 50 percent price cuts in order to make up for the seasonal lack of tourists. At present the big spenders these boutiques are relying on are rich Czechs and Russians who reside in the country. Even in the midst of a crisis, they are not doing too badly. Boutique owners say that while the crunch may bring profit margins down they expect to survive – twenty years after the fall of communism they have enough rich clients in the Czech Republic who are used to buying luxury goods all year round.

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People whom you haven’t seen in years tend to pop up when you least expect them to. The fugitive Czech businessman Radovan Krejčíř, who is wanted for billion-crown-tax-fraud, is featured on a Czech calendar promoting luxury cars. The motto of the Prague car salon which commissioned the calendar is “they know what to order” and one of the clients with refines tastes is none other than the wanted Mr. Krejčíř. The fugitive businessman who spent two years in the Seychelles, after fleeing from the Czech Republic, and is now living is South Africa is featured on the calendar’s July page with his wife and two dogs – looking very satisfied with life. Well, that’s one calendar that Czech interior ministry officials and members of the police force will not want to hang on their office walls – no matter how much they like luxury cars.

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You may have seen the vegetable dresses that a Russian fashion designer presented in Moscow this week. Although here in Prague we don’t have carrot and cucumber dresses yet, there is something special on show – accessories made of plants. Handbags, shopping bags and baskets made of coconuts, palm leaves and orchid roots, among other exotic materials, are currently on display at the Prague Botanical Gardens. The exhibits are all made of 100 percent natural fibres – and some of the most intricate are made of as many as 15 different plants. They have come to us from different parts of the globe, but mainly Indonesia and South America. The bags come in all shapes and sizes and look extremely fashionable, but unfortunately they are not for sale. Though of course, if you are really desperate and have enough orchid roots or a spare coconut who’s to say you can’t try weaving one yourself.

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Photo: CTK

Central Europe is not the place you’d expect to find exotic breeds or poisonous species – but you never know. A new type of poisonous spider has just been detected in Moravia – and promptly named Eresus Moravicus – the Moravian ladybird spider. The Moravian ladybird spider is of the European ladybird spider family – one of the largest, most poisonous and colourful spiders in Europe. So far scientists had recorded only two of these beauties - the Eresus Cinnaberinus (not that it’s likely to ring a bell) and Euresus Sandalitus – now there’s also Eresus Moravicus. Two centimeters big, the spider is hard to miss. The male species has a distinctive red-and-black body, while the female is even more striking in red, black and orange. Czech botanist Milan Řezáč came across a specimen by pure accident near the Moravian town of Mikulov and at first thought he was dealing with one of the known breeds. Although the Eresus would normally be hard to miss, this spider had most likely not been spotted earlier because, like its two relatives, it lives underground and rarely makes an appearance in daylight. All for the best really, since its bite can be extremely painful and bring on a high fever and racking headaches. What is most peculiar about this breed is that the young first feed on their own mother. None of this sounds particularly encouraging – but Czech scientists are very excited about the find. The discovery of a new species in central Europe is extremely rare – most species in the region had already been well-documented by the mid 18th century.

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The town of Žerutky near Blansko is about to become the only place in the Czech Republic exclusively run by women. The town has sixty inhabitants and a six-member town council made up of three men and three women. By chance, all three of the men are leaving – one was recalled, another is moving to a different part of the country and the third for health reasons. Elections to fill the vacant posts are taking place this weekend, but with exclusively female candidates in the running it is clear that the future of Žerutky will be in the hands of women. The mayor, Věra Poláková, says she’s looking forward to the new set-up. “I think it will be easier to reach agreement on things,” she told Mladá fronta Dnes. “Women are much easier to deal with, they have a practical, no-nonsense attitude and go straight to the core of the problem.” The ladies are aged 31 to 64 and there is unlikely to be any political bickering – all of them are independents. And with a town that size the priorities are self-evident – a new bus stop, a new roof for the local mixed-goods store and getting a team of labourers to fix the potholes and pavements. That’s for a start. Once they roll up their sleeves – the sky’s the limit.