Very local radio
On the way down the hill from the Roman Catholic graveyard in the small town of Třešť in the Vysočina I was surprised by a short burst of music. It came from a rather inconspicuous loudspeaker on a pole by a terraced house.
Did such “radio” really still exist? I had never heard it before and only known of it at all from old Czech movies and TV programmes.
But evidently here and one presumes in other small towns the local authorities continue to inform the populace about public events via loudspeaker.
The devices had never come to my attention on the sleepy streets of Třešť but apparently there are about a dozen in a town with a population of less than 6,000.
How often, I wondered, does this extremely local “radio” echo through the streets? Several times a day, my companion explained, but only whenever something is happening. One presumes this is chiefly in the summer.
The first of the listings concerned a funfair that could be expected from 8 PM on Saturday evening. Among the attractions, the band Echo Budišov were due to perform “music for dancing and listening”.
That information was followed by another burst of music – in effect a classic “sting” as used by real radio stations to make their programmes more dynamic.
The following announcement was about a summer school for senior citizens at the House of Culture, an institution still to be found in pretty much every Czech town or city district.
The next lecture for old folks was to be the latest in the series The Fundamentals of Life Balance, organised by the Vysočina regional authority.
The one local cinema, Kino Maj, also got a mention. Visitors could choose from the movies Zakázané uvolnění (The Icing), Planes: Fire and Rescue, Díra u Hanušovic (Nowhere in Moravia) “and others”, with a complete list available on the town’s website.
The existence of that site raises the question of why the “municipal radio” continues to exist, given that Czechs of all ages seem relatively tech savvy.
That said, even though I’ve only heard them once in my life, I would still be sorry to see the end of the loudspeaker announcements, a hangover from an earlier, simpler time.
