4 ms·

Yes, I'm Czech living in Prague. Last 4 years the Prague local government was led by ANO, the party led by StB (communist secret police) member billionaire Andr

Yes, I'm Czech living in Prague. Last 4 years the Prague local government was led by ANO, the party led by StB (communist secret police) member billionaire Andrej Babis. Their campaign was extremely strong then and they won - today Prague is in horrendous state, bridges are literally falling down (2 more just this week), traffic is worse (extremely worse!) than ever due to idiotically planned long roadworks that have to be soon redone and zero construction of much needed infrastructure, the public transport is way worse than it was, taxi mafia is still the same, they caused a huge housing bubble... And on top of that Krnacova calls Prague people who don't like it "whiners", repeatedly and on purpose - she even recently confirmed that it's exactly what she wanted to say. The major implication for the whole country is that at least Prague citizens are absolutely fed up with ANO - that is important because they dominated the whole country politics for the last 2 periods. Today there are 2 other major parties - ODS (Občansko-demokratická strana, Civic Democracy Party) and the Pirate party. These are the three winners of the recent parliament vote - parliament politics affect local politics a lot in the Czech Republic. If you don't want to vote ANO then you vote ODS if you're more on the right (as in free market) and the Pirate party if you're more on the left. There are basically no other options - the remaining "major" (bigger than others but has almost no influence) party in the country is a racist one. Other previously major parties such as ČSSD (social democracy), KDU-ČSL (the Roman-Catholics) and KSČM (literal communists) have fallen down significantly over last 2 periods, most probably because of their cooperation with ANO. Pirates have a good track record as far as local politics go, but it's a relatively new party and they only participated in smaller cities/villages so far (on top of their recent entry to parliament). This person is completely unknown. Let's see.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
runn1ng 8y ago
Taxi mafia is the only thing I don't agree with. Uber shaked that up pretty well.
- Amygaz 8y ago
  Price-wise is Uber competitive or is it for the top 10% ?
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    It's not for the top 10%. It's on the more expensive side of things but a software engineer should be able to afford it. There are other companies like Taxify or Liftago that are cheaper. The public transport works pretty well as well, you don't need to use taxis much if you live here.
    - drej 8y ago
      But Software engineers are in the top 10%. (I'm a software engineer and use Uber in Prague every week or two.)
      - TomMarius 8y ago
        Maybe you're right. Somewhere in this discussion someone was talking about disconnect between the rich and the poor and to be completely honest, I'm completely disconnected. Everyone around me can afford it, I don't know anyone who can't except for my family members who are retired.
  - runn1ng 8y ago
    It is cheaper than taxis on average. There are local companies that are a bit cheaper, as others have already said.
saiya-jin 8y ago
Basically the problem of whole east europe (although we like to call ourselves central europe) - too much crap left over communist rule and twisted mentality (ie everybody for themselves, screw the rest). Extremely rich individuals openly influencing politics, laughing at the cameras and enjoying being in spotlight. Prague is a beautiful city to visit, be it for a weekend or a week. But living there long term sucks - most of the Prague apart from historical centre is properly fugly, as soviet-style architecture is still all over the place, cramped high rise residential areas with high criminality, little nature around (major mountains are > 500km away, sea even further), Czech love to constantly complain and moan about almost everything (it really gets to you after some time). Gap between rich (ie IT workers, managers) and rest of population is big and widening, people constantly hate politics but vote an a-hole after a-hole for last 20 years. So rich often discuss how to shield themselves financially from the rest of country, politics and economy as much as possible - not an indication of paradise. Half of the country is xenophobic and/or racist (although ie Roma question is a complex one). I've worked there for couple of years, to be successful in IT was trivial due to constant lack of senior people, from what I heard its even worse now due to massive off/near shoring of multinationals. When looking back, moving away was one of the best decisions of my life and major step up in quality of life. Of course there are positive aspects, just like everywhere. Professionals (I can judge IT) are smart and work hard, beer is the best there is (for me) and as mentioned its a great starting point for career. There are people who consider it the best place for them. Interestingly, none I know in this category lived abroad for longer to properly compare.
- foobarian 8y ago
  > Czech love to constantly complain and moan about almost everything Funny, so do all ex-Yugoslavs, and I understand Russians do too. Could be some kind of Slav thing. Or communist :-)
  - TomMarius 8y ago
    Definitely a side effect of communism, you can see how different it was if you read older literature, newspapers etc. The comparison can be made between Eastern and Western Germans.
jaxtellerSoA 8y ago
> If you don't want to vote ANO then you vote ODS if you're more on the right (as in free market) and the Pirate party if you're more on the left. Can you explain more what the platform of the "Pirate" party is? As an American I would have thought the the "Pirate" party would be far right libertarian (free market, downsize government, reduce or eliminate taxes).
- TomMarius 8y ago
  In the Czech Republic they're center to left, definitely not free market/libertarian. They propose government control of many issues like for example shared economy or housing, banking etc. At the same time yes, they propose to downsize the government and tax reduction, but not elimination. They also propose digitalization of government and reduction of bureaucracy, but they also want that as a base to build more control on. Many specifics of the Czech Republic are at play here, since the party is no longer a minor one and at the same time is the only major "non traditional" one (no historical baggage including people - actually that's very important) that isn't Babiš (ANO, but everyone knows the party is him, basically - including people in the party who went public), it attracts the interest of many very different people ranging from left wing radicals to free market anarchists; people who weren't as "radical" (they're not radical at all but definitely more than other parties) rather joined ODS (right, major party), ČSSD (left, almost irrelevant) or TOP09 (center, now totally irrelevant). Then the free market anarchists created their own party (Svobodní - "The Free Ones", never even became relevant except a very tiny little bit of relevance in the EU parliament) and the result is that Pirate party is more leftist. Sadly soon after conservatives have "attacked" (joined and changed the program) the party and made it conservative, and a lot of previously pro-free market people became conservative because of the immigration crisis and rapidly increasing EU influence that nobody here really likes, left or right (these same issues also gave rise to the fourth biggest party SPD, which is an openly racist pro-russian one, luckily they're largely irrelevant except for municipal politics in few places).
- slim 8y ago
  Pirates are different un each country. Because pirates are free
snidane 8y ago
Your disdain for Krnacova [ANO] is palpable. Typical for Praguer, similar to disdain for Trump in major liberal US cities. You make them look like they actively go around destroying bridges. One footwalk collapsed by accident and people rushed to investigate other bridges to prevent another collapse. Of course they found them in state of crumbling down so obviously tehy had to be shut down/prepared for reconstruction. You attribute the blame to ANO while it was more due to chance. You listen too much to house development lobby if you attribute the housing bubble to them. It'm more likely caused by global historically low interest rates. The taxi mafia question is hardly going to be solved unless the next government has economic understanding of the problem. By appeasing to all parties involved they can hardly move it forward.
- Latteland 8y ago
  Well, where on earth have the billionaire "tough" leaders been good for their country? Is there even a single example where someone is a billionaire, not in government who wins political power and does a good thing? In eastern Europe there's this additional common situation of rich billionaires who got their money from dodgy or likely illegal practices - they adopt nationalism because it benefits them to attack the naive and "weak" democratic governments. Think Putin.
  - Tsubasachan 8y ago
    Its funny ain't it? How quickly the plebs run out to vote for some plutocrat. And such men of the people they claim to be!

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

runn1ng 8y ago

Taxi mafia is the only thing I don't agree with. Uber shaked that up pretty well.

Amygaz 8y ago
Price-wise is Uber competitive or is it for the top 10% ?
- TomMarius 8y ago
  It's not for the top 10%. It's on the more expensive side of things but a software engineer should be able to afford it. There are other companies like Taxify or Liftago that are cheaper. The public transport works pretty well as well, you don't need to use taxis much if you live here.
  - drej 8y ago
    But Software engineers are in the top 10%. (I'm a software engineer and use Uber in Prague every week or two.)
    - TomMarius 8y ago
      Maybe you're right. Somewhere in this discussion someone was talking about disconnect between the rich and the poor and to be completely honest, I'm completely disconnected. Everyone around me can afford it, I don't know anyone who can't except for my family members who are retired.
- runn1ng 8y ago
  It is cheaper than taxis on average. There are local companies that are a bit cheaper, as others have already said.

saiya-jin 8y ago

Basically the problem of whole east europe (although we like to call ourselves central europe) - too much crap left over communist rule and twisted mentality (ie everybody for themselves, screw the rest). Extremely rich individuals openly influencing politics, laughing at the cameras and enjoying being in spotlight. Prague is a beautiful city to visit, be it for a weekend or a week. But living there long term sucks - most of the Prague apart from historical centre is properly fugly, as soviet-style architecture is still all over the place, cramped high rise residential areas with high criminality, little nature around (major mountains are > 500km away, sea even further), Czech love to constantly complain and moan about almost everything (it really gets to you after some time). Gap between rich (ie IT workers, managers) and rest of population is big and widening, people constantly hate politics but vote an a-hole after a-hole for last 20 years. So rich often discuss how to shield themselves financially from the rest of country, politics and economy as much as possible - not an indication of paradise. Half of the country is xenophobic and/or racist (although ie Roma question is a complex one). I've worked there for couple of years, to be successful in IT was trivial due to constant lack of senior people, from what I heard its even worse now due to massive off/near shoring of multinationals. When looking back, moving away was one of the best decisions of my life and major step up in quality of life. Of course there are positive aspects, just like everywhere. Professionals (I can judge IT) are smart and work hard, beer is the best there is (for me) and as mentioned its a great starting point for career. There are people who consider it the best place for them. Interestingly, none I know in this category lived abroad for longer to properly compare.

foobarian 8y ago
> Czech love to constantly complain and moan about almost everything Funny, so do all ex-Yugoslavs, and I understand Russians do too. Could be some kind of Slav thing. Or communist :-)
- TomMarius 8y ago
  Definitely a side effect of communism, you can see how different it was if you read older literature, newspapers etc. The comparison can be made between Eastern and Western Germans.

jaxtellerSoA 8y ago

> If you don't want to vote ANO then you vote ODS if you're more on the right (as in free market) and the Pirate party if you're more on the left. Can you explain more what the platform of the "Pirate" party is? As an American I would have thought the the "Pirate" party would be far right libertarian (free market, downsize government, reduce or eliminate taxes).

TomMarius 8y ago
In the Czech Republic they're center to left, definitely not free market/libertarian. They propose government control of many issues like for example shared economy or housing, banking etc. At the same time yes, they propose to downsize the government and tax reduction, but not elimination. They also propose digitalization of government and reduction of bureaucracy, but they also want that as a base to build more control on. Many specifics of the Czech Republic are at play here, since the party is no longer a minor one and at the same time is the only major "non traditional" one (no historical baggage including people - actually that's very important) that isn't Babiš (ANO, but everyone knows the party is him, basically - including people in the party who went public), it attracts the interest of many very different people ranging from left wing radicals to free market anarchists; people who weren't as "radical" (they're not radical at all but definitely more than other parties) rather joined ODS (right, major party), ČSSD (left, almost irrelevant) or TOP09 (center, now totally irrelevant). Then the free market anarchists created their own party (Svobodní - "The Free Ones", never even became relevant except a very tiny little bit of relevance in the EU parliament) and the result is that Pirate party is more leftist. Sadly soon after conservatives have "attacked" (joined and changed the program) the party and made it conservative, and a lot of previously pro-free market people became conservative because of the immigration crisis and rapidly increasing EU influence that nobody here really likes, left or right (these same issues also gave rise to the fourth biggest party SPD, which is an openly racist pro-russian one, luckily they're largely irrelevant except for municipal politics in few places).
slim 8y ago
Pirates are different un each country. Because pirates are free

snidane 8y ago

Your disdain for Krnacova [ANO] is palpable. Typical for Praguer, similar to disdain for Trump in major liberal US cities. You make them look like they actively go around destroying bridges. One footwalk collapsed by accident and people rushed to investigate other bridges to prevent another collapse. Of course they found them in state of crumbling down so obviously tehy had to be shut down/prepared for reconstruction. You attribute the blame to ANO while it was more due to chance. You listen too much to house development lobby if you attribute the housing bubble to them. It'm more likely caused by global historically low interest rates. The taxi mafia question is hardly going to be solved unless the next government has economic understanding of the problem. By appeasing to all parties involved they can hardly move it forward.

Latteland 8y ago
Well, where on earth have the billionaire "tough" leaders been good for their country? Is there even a single example where someone is a billionaire, not in government who wins political power and does a good thing? In eastern Europe there's this additional common situation of rich billionaires who got their money from dodgy or likely illegal practices - they adopt nationalism because it benefits them to attack the naive and "weak" democratic governments. Think Putin.
- Tsubasachan 8y ago
  Its funny ain't it? How quickly the plebs run out to vote for some plutocrat. And such men of the people they claim to be!