Rashed Chowdhury's Photo Albums: Czech Republic

The Czech Republic is made up of three historical regions: Bohemia, Moravia and part of Silesia (the rest of Silesia is in Poland). Bohemia and Moravia are also known as the "Czech lands". Bohemia, which is called Čechy in Czech, is the true heartland of Czech culture and the Czech language. Moravians traditionally spoke a dialect that was in between Czech and Slovak, but standardised education and mass media have led to a blurring of regional distinctions. After Czechoslovakia was dissolved, there were some proposals to rename the Czech part of the country Czechomoravia. These proposals were scuttled on the fear that Moravia might eventually take Slovakia's lead and secede.

I spent the Fall Semester of 2001 in the Moravian city of Olomouc, attending the Central European Studies Programme run by the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. Our group, which consisted of 12 Americans and me, studied East-Central European history, the Czech language, Czech literature in translation and the sociology of the Czech Republic at Olomouc's Palacký University. The university as such was founded in 1946, but traces its origins to a Jesuit college established in 1566. One of my classmates there was one of two people I have ever met with three passports: in his case, American, Venezuelan and Italian ones. Dikybohu, I also found a very friendly community of Muslims at the university, mostly made up of Pakistani and Arab medical students, but including several Czech converts. There's a beautiful prayer room in the basement of one of the dorms, where sermons are read in English, Arabic and Czech by the same person, who also speaks French, mā shā' Allāh.

Olomouc, a quiet Medieval city of about 110,000, packed full of restaurants and cafés, and featuring an intact city wall, was definitely a nice place to spend a few months in. But even more exciting was the opportunity to travel around the Czech Republic, as well as Poland and Hungary. I took the train to Prague as often as I could, enjoying the bustle of the wonderful Czech capital, and then equally enjoying my return "home" to the more staid Olomouc.

Click on one of the pictures below to explore these cities in more detail.


Prague	Olomouc


Český Krumlov	Karlovy Vary

So where is all of this? The map below shows the locations of Prague and Olomouc, but, unfortunately, the other two cities are missing. As a general guide, they are both located in Bohemia. Prague is actually to the north-west of Vienna, and the Czech Republic has been a proud member of the European Union since 2004. Interestingly, it is the only EU member-state, apart from Luxembourg, that is completely surrounded by other member-states.