Letter from Prague Purple suits long gone but ‘period’ café remains at old Federal Assembly
The End of Czechoslovakia as Seen from the Parliament is the English title of a documentary that was screened as part of this year’s One World film festival in Prague. It is a fascinating portrait of the end of an era. Many big names of post-1989 politics appear: 17 years younger, often in bad ties or even – I had forgotten that bizarre early ‘90s fashion – purple suits.
For me the film was also a rare chance to see the interior of one of Prague’s most distinctive buildings, the Federální shromáždění, or Federal Assembly, which is to the left of the National Museum if you’re walking up Wenceslas Square. You may know it. It looks like what it essentially is: a dark rectangular block built, as it were, on stilts, around a smaller construction.
In the very heart of the building, in the actual former Federal Assembly chamber itself, you will today find paper signs signifying where some of the more important Czech and Slovak deputies sat. The electronic vote tally boards are still on the walls too. This I know as over the last couple of months I’ve been there three or four times at different events, a pleasure unimagined back in March as I watched that documentary from 1992.
The reason the building is now accessible to the public for the first time is that it has been taken over by the National Museum. After the Federální shromáždění voted itself out of existence, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty was based there for a good many years, but the US-funded station moved out earlier this year. By the way, RFE’s departure also meant that ugly concrete security barriers erected after 9/11 on the streets outside were finally removed.
Prager café, photo: www.nm.cz
While much of it is currently sitting empty in a period of transition, at
the moment there is one exhibition on at what has been renamed the New
Building of the National Museum. There are also guided tours, a shop and
the Prager kavárna, a café named after Karel Prager, the architect who
designed the late 1960s extension of the building into its current form.
The café, which unfortunately closes at 6 pm, is old school. In fact, the furniture and fittings look like they have been there since the days when the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly still called the building home. And for my money it is currently one of the hidden (or at least not so well known) gems of Prague.