Skating across the frozen Vltava River recalled

The Czech Republic has been hit by extremely cold weather in the last week or so. Some roads have been blocked by snow, border crossings closed and flights have been delayed at Prague airport. One thing we haven't seen here in Prague is something which used to happen often: the Vltava River has not frozen over. That change is largely due to the building of a series of weirs and dams downstream of the capital in the 1950s. The last time it was possible to walk, or skate, across the Vltava was in 1978, though the ice was not so thick then, and it was unsafe. To find out what it was like skating across the river, Ian Willoughby spoke to Prague-born philosophy professor Erazim Kohak, who was 70 last year. Ian began by asking him to describe the winters of his boyhood.

Skating across the frozen Vltava River recalled

Vltava River, photo: CTK

"I remember the winters of my childhood as remarkably free of automobiles. We boys would gather if in Kostelni ulice at Letna, where I lived, if an automobile would park. We would all gather around it as a curiosity. But there were not enough of them to interfere with our sledding. And I remember Prague as covered with snow, and the Vltava as frozen, with the snow swept away so that people could skate on the Vltava."

Did you yourself skate on the Vltava?

"Yes, I did. And swam across it in the summer."

Where on the Vltava was the main place for skating? Or was it everywhere?

"It was not everywhere. It was specifically by what was then Smetanovo namesti. It used to be called Na Rejdisti, before it became the Square of Empress Zita, in 1917. There was one place there where a man always swept the snow away and one could go skating there."

How many people at a time would you see skating on the Vltava?

"I was too young to count that high."