more than anywhere else I visited, the remnants of the Communist regime appeared most frequently around Olomouc. while the town certainly has its share of historic sites at its core it feels like your average working, university town, albeit one that has undergone changes in the last two decades. while I’m sure one could say the same about other places, like Prague and Brno, Olomouc seems like a work in progress, as an evolving, thriving city. in Český Krumlov there was a concerted effort to restore the medieval character of the town to appeal to tourists, and Prague readily embraced capitalist/consumerist culture and adapted itself to suit the new system and obfuscate elements of communism that didn’t fit into a limited, easily-quantifiable box of history.
in Olomouc, however, you see things like these speakers, still attached to a light post in Dolni nam (one of two large town squares), twenty-one years after the Velvet Revolution. the speakers broadcast messages from the Party to residents of Olomouc — the importance of productivity, working for the betterment of the state and society, admonitions not to worry about reports of unrest in Prague, what are you talking about “velvet revolution”? students don’t protest – that’s just silly. whether a reminder of the past or simply a matter of expending resources on more important things, Olomouc still has some of these unique remnants that more seamlessly blended that part of the past into the present for me, reminded me that the present builds upon the past and no matter how ardently we might deny what we have or have not done, those events remain part of our nature and sense of self.
