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Photo: CTK One of the most popular ski resorts in the Beskydy mountains, Pustevny, has a new attraction – an open air art gallery of snow statues. The Snow Kingdom is an annual event for sculptors and craftsmen who want to try their hand at snow-sculpting. In its twelfth year it attracted participants from around the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and Bulgaria. The teams worked with blocks of tightly-packed snow rising to a height of 3 metres and weighing approximately 700 kilograms. They attacked them with shovels, chisels and saws, working for three days in sub-zero temperatures. Photo: CTK The result was awesome and over 15 thousand people came to admire the statues over the weekend. Among the motifs were a statue of a woman, an ethno piece resembling the Maoi statues on Easter Island, and a voluptuous Mother Earth which proved a hit for happy snaps as men posed between her outsize breasts. The jury remained purely objective however and declared the ethno sculpture to be the best this year.

Photo: CTK The cold snap may be causing problems across Europe, but at least one Czech couple is enjoying the cold weather. Tatiana and Tomáš are both members of a club for hardy men and women – in fact that’s where they met and fell in love. Last weekend they wed in style, dressed in white swim-wear they waded into the freezing cold Metuje river for the wedding ceremony with a number of hardy witnesses and bridesmaids treading water behind them. The bride wore a white bathing suit with a posy, a veil and white boots, while the groom wore bathing trunks with a flower. The deputy mayor of Náchod, who conducted the wedding ceremony, refused point blank to take a dip and went through the rites from the embankment. Moreover, the newly weds were not alone – the bride’s bulging belly showed that a third member of the family was taking a compulsory dip as well – much to some people’s horror. However the bride was quick to reassure relatives on that count, saying that once the baby was born it would not be dipped into the river but given time to adjust gradually. Well – may they live happily ever after!

Photo: CTK Meanwhile in the town of Semily, the local underwater divers’ club organized its annual game of underwater football – playing the game on the inverted side of the ice covering the local pond. The football field is marked out on the surface of the ice with two holes cut out for the goalposts. The goalposts are just five metres apart to make the game easier and since the ball is pumped with air it stays just under the surface of the ice. It was a fast-paced game in which the audience counted nine goals altogether – though there was some confusion as to which team won the game. Several players said visibility was so bad they were constantly confused and simply tried to shoot as many goals as possible never mind which goalpost they were targeting. The underwater football game takes place every winter depending on when the ice is strong enough – and most of the town’s inhabitants turn out to root for one of the teams.

Photo: CTK The technical museum in Vysoké Mýto says it has acquired a unique exhibit for its collection of Aero car models with chassis from the famous Sodomka chassis and coachwork factory. This is a child’s model of a 1930s car – clearly inspired by the fabulous-looking Aero 50 Dynamic, which was in its hey-day at the time and was known as the Arizona. The car which is perfectly made down to the smallest detail is 1.5 metres long and was driven by a small motor. The owner of the factory, Mr. Sodomka senior, allegedly had it made for his youngest son. Several other miniatures were made for propagation purposes to be shown at car salons and trade fairs. As many as seven models are believed to have been made at the time but some were pedal-driven and only two appear to have survived. The miniature car is now undergoing renovation and will be shown to the public as soon as it has recovered its former glory.

Photo: CTK If you can’t spoil your kid with a miniature car from the factory he will one day own, don’t despair – some gifts come fairly cheap. Rudolf Kovařík builds his daughter a huge snowman out in the garden every year – the bigger the better, depending on the amount of snow available. At least that’s how it started out 19 years ago. She’s a bit too old for it now, but before Rudolf knew it it had become a family tradition. This year he was able to build his biggest snowman ever – tall as a house at 5.10 metres. While most of the other snowmen took him an hour or so to build this giant took all of three days and left poor Rudolf three kilos lighter. According to weather forecasts Rudolf’s snowman may stick around until mid-February.