Czech Communist Industrial Wasteland Tour

This Real Tour brings you to a pitiful monument of Communist planning, Most City. Get an insight to what life is like 100 km away from Prague.

Although erected already in the 1970s, Most captures the atmosphere envisioned by Orwell in his dystopia of 1984.

On this tour, you will see the impact of the reckless exploitation of natural resources and forceful re-settlement of people of different social and ethnic backgrounds into indistinguishable 13 story panelak buildings. Most became synonymous with unemployment, disengagement, crime and hopelessness.

Overlooking the city's skyline from the monumental Hnevin mountain that somehow escaped the shovel of the communist planners who wanted to use its soil as filling for the usedup mines, we will visit the only survival of the Old Town, St.Mary Church, moved 841,1m away from the mines in 1975 to demonstrate the technological advancement rather than respect for religion - in a region where half of the population still votes for the Communist Party.

After lunch in a local pub set in the biggest block of flats in Most, we will continue through the moon landscape of Litvinov to Horni Jiretin, a village from 1284 still fighting for its existence against the will of the neversated mining companies. Despite Vaclav Havel's appeal on behalf of the village, its days may be numbered.

On the way back, we will discuss the current state of the environment in the Czech Republic.

The drive to Most is about 100km and will give us time for an introduction on the history and life in the Czech republic before and after the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the social and environmental aspects of the transformation, and its impacts on poor regions, like Most.

We begin our look around atop Most dominant, the Hnevin mountain. The view of the mined out areas, the Petrochemie mega-plant, and the Czech Republic's biggest wasteland surrounding the city will give you a clear perspective.

We visit the St.Mary Church from the 16th century, the only reminder of the old city of Most (dating to the 13th century), proudly moved in one piece on a specially made train-carrier in 1975 by the Czechoslovak government. This demonstration of technological aptness was to impress the Western neighbours rather than to please the Catholic church, at that time hardly operating. Priests and monks were rather occupied in the nearby mines than maintaining the once clerical property.

We will make our way through the Moon landscape to Jezeri castle passing villages that already disappeared, or are about to, such as Horni Jiretin. Jezeri castle is a unique baroque structure dating back to 1547 that became an important cultural centre in 19th century and a prominent Nazi prison during WWII.

In 1965 it was decided on the castle demolition, however it never materialized due to lacking financial means. Nowadays, the castle is again partially open to the public. We will get acquainted with the castle history on a 45 minutes tour.

We will have lunch at a local restaurant in one of many Most's similar looking neighbourhoods of flatblocks, allowing us to touch upon the everyday life of this predominantly workers town. A pub is a traditional Czech meeting point where doctors still mingle freely with mineworkers, and political satire was always tolerated during the communist regime, especially practiced in the pubs.

We leave lunch in time to explore the town on your own for about an hour. On the drive back to your hotel we will have time to discuss and round off the impressions of the day. We arrive at your hotel or another Prague destination before 16pm.