the Baskerville Express

Notes from Underground {December 9, 2010 , 10:19 PM}

I spent my afternoon 50 ft underneath Prague, in the Bunkr Parukářka. This chamber, built in 1955, was once a nuclear fallout shelter installed by the Communists to preserve 25% of the city's population while nasty things took place above ground. Now it serves as a hot and trendy nightclub, housing a slightly smaller percentage of inhabitants so that nasty things may take place underground.

Without sounding flippant, I think that one could view this bunker as a figuration of the metamorphosis that the Prague Spring began and the Velvet Revolution realized: what was once a grey and gloomy Soviet state was transformed into a vibrant and challenging republic. Likewise the bunker, once a gigantic casket, is now a flamboyant club. Many of the shelter's walls have been coated in vivid graffiti and there's been a PA system installed for bands that perform at the locale. (Their noise, you might imagine, doesn't tend to bother those living 16 meters above the stage.) The sections that have been left unaltered still sport a clammy and lethal film and the gas masks, radiation suits and VZ-58's remain in their lockers.

Emerging from Bunkr Parukářka.

Afterward I had a chat with some Hungarian and Czech comrades; apparently success with most Hungarian vixens leads to death by mafia. I took my mind off of that discouraging idea by catching a little night music at St. Nicholas Church, Old Town Square.

Tomorrow it's off to Berlin.

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Brendan James