You may be watching the recent developments in Ukraine with the same dread and anxiety and fear for civilian lives as much as we do here in Prague. We stand with Ukraine as it faces a violent, unprovoked aggression from the Russian government. We say Russian government because we firmly believe that regular Russians as a people have nothing to do with this and have no interest or desire to wage a senseless war against a neighbor.
But perhaps you are from overseas and planning a trip to Prague, or Central Europe as a whole, and you’re thinking how it may affect us, or your trip. So we thought it would be a good idea to clarify how the war in Ukraine affects us here in Prague, and how do we feel about it here in Prague. And let’s be honest here: when I write “we”, I mean fairly affluent, liberal-leaning urban dwellers from Prague. We’re not the ambassadors of Czechia, and can’t speak for everybody here, but we feel compelled to give our two cents about this whole situation. So let’s get to it.
Executive summary
If you’re planning a trip to Prague, and you’re concerned about safety, you don’t have to be. The fighting is far, and the real-life consequences of the fighting are, at the moment, virtually non-existent. That said…
Please consider giving support to Ukraine and see if you can help in any form from where you are. This proud nation deserves its, and we should help them whenever we can.
How far are is the fighting?
Pretty far. My Google Maps tells me it would take me a 8.5-hour drive to Snina in Eastern Slovakia, which is where my mom’s family is from, and which is about another 25-minute drive from the Ukrainian border. (Jan writing this, hi.) Add Kiyv, and the total route is a whooping 19-hour drive. While Czechs don’t probably feel immediately threatened by the war, it reverbates in the Czech society for many, many reasons, and the invasion has left many Czechs (us included) shell-shocked throughout yesterday and today. (Writing this on February 25).
Why is this important to the Czechs?
Oh, you mean, besides the sheer human tragedy of it all, the lives lost, and the dreams crushed?
First, Ukrainians are the second largest minority in the Czech Republic, behind Slovaks (who barely count as a minority anyway). They have come here to find better jobs, for which they are usually overqualified, from a country that offers little to none. It is a fair assessment that the Czech construction industry, agriculture and food industry would collapse without the immense contribution of Ukrainians. As we speak, Czech companies fear an exodus of Ukrainian labour as the Ukrainian government calls all its reserves and men to arms in an effort to defend the country.
Second, there’s shared history: the western part of Ukraine used to be part of Czechoslovakia in 1918 through 1938. Ukrainian was one of the six languages on Czechoslovak banknotes back in the “First Republic”, the between-the-wars years. (We often mention the multicultural aspects of between-the-wars Czechoslovakia, and the sore lack thereof later on, during our tours.) So some of us feel closer to Ukraine than you might. And everybody knows a Ukrainian - it can be a colleague, or a waitress, or somebody who provides a service to you on a daily basis.
Third, there’s history. The thing is, we’ve been through this. The Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968 when we wanted to take a more Western turn, and occupied the country until the last Soviet soldier left in 1991. And the Czechs felt abandoned and helpless as much as Ukrainians must feel today. Also, in 1938 Hitler’s Nazi government seized the Czech Republic on a made-up pretext that the Czechs were abusing the large German minority living in Czechoslovakia at that time. They were also on an alleged peace-keeping mission that ended up being a full-on occupation. So what Putin is doing right now feels, to many Czechs, as a play straight from Hitler’s playbook of the late 1930s.
Is the Czech Republic under a threat?
The Czech Republic is a member of NATO and the European Union, so an attack on it would in theory mean an attack on all NATO countries, incl. the US. That gives us a sense of security, although Czechoslovakia also had allied agreements with Western powers in the 1930s and it didn’t seem to mean much when the Nazis invaded us, which leads to some scepticism among the Czechs about their NATO membership.
Me personally, I think that depends on how mad the Russian president is right now. I don’t feel threatened particularly, and life hasn’t stopped here: we had lunch, went to a coffee shop, did some work yesterday. Nothing’s changed, except the constant watching of news. Russian banks present in Czechia are losing clients by the thousands, and there are rallies in front of the Russian Embassy. But other than that, it’s business as usual, albeit with some dark thoughts about the war.
What next?
We honestly don’t know. On our end here, we will keep supporting Ukraine and make steps towards locally-produced energy (our next car will for sure be electric) to minimise dependency on Russian oil and natural gas where the proceeds go to funding the Russian war machine. (Again, our heart goes not just to Ukrainians, but also the majority of Russian people who oppose the war.)