Dragon invasion

Several readers have inquired after the previous post about the identity of this crocodile swimming in such an absurd and nevertheless such a self-evidently natural way above the cobblestones of Brno and the field of sight of its passers-by like the monsters living in the other dimension in the Prague of Michal Ajvaz. This is the brněnský drak, the dragon of Brünn/Brno.


The dragon had come swimming on the river Svratka and terrorized the city by taking as prey the livestock and people coming down to the river. The city council offered a huge price for him who would kill it, but all who had attempted it perished. Finally a traveling journeyman won it by hiding a sack of unslaked lime in the body of a disembowelled ox and placing it on the river bank. The dragon devoured it, hide and hair, but when it retired to the river to digest, the lime began to boil in the water, and it was exploded in a thousand parts. The story of how it was pieced together by local artisans so that it could be hung up in the passage under the town hall’s clock tower as a warning to any further dragons passing by, must belong to the golden pages of the chronicle of Brno’s handicraft industry.

The talents of local artisans are also attested by the wheel on the wall of the same passage, which is not only a rustic decoration, but an important historical monument, and even a personality: it is the brněnské kolo, the wheel of Brno. It had been made in Lednice, some forty kilometers to Brno by wheelwright Jiří Birk for a bet in only twelve hours from the moment of chopping the tree to wheeling it in through the gate of Brno. He won the bet, but lost his clients, as from that time on he was considered to have made a pact with the devil. He died poverty-stricken.


This is the one version. Another is that the crocodile came to the town already stuffed in 1608. It was a gift of the Sultan to the Margrave of Brünn, who was none else than the younger brother of the alchymist emperor Rudolf, the later emperor Matthias. This is how the memorial table placed on the wall of the clock tower by the town council in 1749 announces it.

However, the council did not know enough the documents in their own archives. For these prove that the crocodile had been restored and cleansed of worms back in 1578-79. So it had to come to the city much earlier than that.


There is every indication that from the beginning of the 1500’s an unparalleled invasion of crocodiles showered upon Europe. As far as the sporadic sources permit to see, a terrible struggle unrolled between the natives and the intruders, and finally the latter were overcome. However, the trophies of some of them have been preserved in memory of the victory.


The most famous among them is undoubtedly the lagarto de la Malena, “the lizard of Malena” whose legend (!) was proposed by Spain just in the last year on the list of the “immaterial heritage of the world”. This dragon lived in a well in the Magdalena or Malena quarter of the southern Andalucian city of Jaén, taking as prey the people and sheep coming for water until a traveling journeyman did away with it. It is still debated how it was exactly killed. Some say that with the lime-stuffed bait prepared according to the Brno receipt, while the other party says that the winner completely covered himself with mirrors, thus blinding and then easily killing the beast. Its stuffed skin was preserved for a long time in the Church of San Ildefonso, but today it is only remembered by its statue set up at the well of Malena.


If the lime strategy came from Brünn, then the mirror tactics from Valencia. There a traveling Jew (!) killed in the same way the beast living in the river (which has dried up by today) and terrorizing the city. Its skin has been preserved on the wall of the atrium of the Collegio del Patriarca from which it has been called el dragón del Patriarca. What is more, its portrait was given a distinguished place in the decoration of the yearly Corpus Christi processions.


The skin of the lagarto de Calzadilla, the “lizard of Calzadilla” near to Cáceres has survived in the church of the Ermita del Cristo in very bad conditions. Its statue on the main square attests that it had devastated the flock until a shepherd did away with it. Unfortunately I could not clear how he did it, but the strange weapon in his hand refers to some new and cunning method.


The first crocodile in Europe we know about is so old that even its skin has already perished and now only a wooden portrait is hanging on its place. Its living original was sent by the Sultan of Egypt in 1260, after the Spanish conquest of Andalusia to King Alfons X as a first attempt to establish diplomatic contacts, together with an elephant tusk, a living giraffe and other exotic treasures. It was hung in front of the gate of the Cathedral of Seville to which it gave the name of Puerta del Lagarto, “the Gate of the Lizard”.


To Mallorca everything gets later. The crocodile invasion slapped the island only with its tail at the end of the 18th century. This beast lived in the alleys of Palma and took its prey in the night, mainly children from their cradles, at least according to the legend. Finally it was killed in 1776 by the Captain of Alcúdia, Bartomeu Coc who in that night was giving a serenade to his lady and immediately offered the crocodile to her as a token of his love. This gesture absolutely swept the lady off her feet, and she gave her hand without hesitation to the brave captain. This is how the deceased monster got the name of drac de na Coca, “the dragon of Mrs. Coc”. The trophy was preserved for long by her descendants, the Roselló family who exhibited it on ever 31 December. At the beginning of the 20th century they donated it to the Museu Diocesà where it is now on display. Its picture was published by one of our favorite daily readings, the excellent Mallorca Daily Photo Blog.


The heroic deed of Captain Coc also inspired a popular ballad, sung in the record below by the queen of the island’s folk music Maria del Mar Bonet.


Maria del Mar Bonet: El drac de na Coca (The dragon of Mrs. Coc). From the album Bon viatge faci la cadernera (1990).

Pel carrer de Sa Portella, quan la nit cau, diuen que hi surt una bèstia; valga’ns Déu, val! S’engoleix les criatures valga’ns Déu, val! Les mares de Sa Portella ploren d’espant. Han dit que la nau d'un vell mercader que anava i venia de Mallorca a Alger, va dur d’un viatge un ou venturer. I va néixer el drac: feroç carnisser. Pel carrer de Sa Portella valga’ns Déu, val!, les nits fan olor de por, d’algues i sal. Bartomeu Coc, cavaller, jove i galant, diuen que arriba d’Alcúdia quan la nit cau. De nit ve d’Alcúdia, –galant cavaller–, per veure la dama: rosa de febrer. I allà ha de combatre enmig del carrer fins que en queda tros del drac carnisser. Pel carrer de Sa Portella, quan l’alba penja, la pluja esborra la sang color de menta.

In the alley of Sa Portella when the night falls they say, a dragon rises: Lord, have mercy on us! It devours the children: Lord, have mercy on us! The mothers in Sa Portella are crying in terror. They say that the ship of an old merchant that went here and there between Mallorca and Algiers brought on an occasion a strange egg: and a dragon was born of it, a bloody killer. In the alley of Sa Portella – Lord, have mercy on us! – the nights smell of alga and of salt and of terror. Bartomeu Coc, a young and brave knight, they say, came from Alcúdia when the night fell. He came from Alcúdia in the night that brave knigh, to see the lady of his heart the rose of February. And they went into battle there in the middle of the alley until at the end the bloody dragon was cut in pieces. In the alley of Sa Portella when the dawn rises the rain washes away the mint-colored blood

Archive photo of the drac de na Coca from the collection of the legends of Mallorca.

But some crocodiles also appeared in countries where in lack of a sea they could have not come by themselves: for example in Switzerland or, indeed, in Bohemia. As their presence could not be explained away with natural reasons, thus their true story has survived more in detail, and it perhaps helps to understand that of the other crocodile trophies as well. In fact, these crocodiles had been taken home by pilgrims from the Holy Land and Egypt in the 15th and 16th century. Like for example the crocodile of Sankt-Gallen being restored on the picture below, which was brought by Ulrich Kromm from his pilgrimage in Egypt, and donated in 1623 to the library of the town.


Or the other Czech crocodile, the “dragon of Budyně”, brought alive from the Holy Land in 1522 by IV. Jan Zajíc z Hazmburka, that is John Rabbit of Rabbitburgh the Fourth.


The crocodile lived in the moat of the renaissance Budyňe castle of the von Rabbitburgh family until he died, and Jan IV loved to show up with it on festive occasions in the posture of a dragon-killer. This is how he had his portrait painted in the banquet hall of the castle.


The crocodile, as we have already mentioned when speaking about the 15th-century pilgrim guides, became an emblematic animal of the Holy Land, and an almost indispensable souvenir for better-off pilgrims. No wonder that every contemporary crocodile trophy with a known origin came to Europe in this way.

The wonders of the Holy Land from the 1486 Mainz edition of Breidenbach: These animals were
faithfully painted just as we saw them in the Holy Land. From top to bottom:
Giraffe. Crocodile. Indian goat. Unicorn. Camel. Salamander.
The name of this one is not known.

This situation gradually changed in the 17th century. The stuffed crocodiles remained favorite pieces of the cabinets de curiosités, but their emphasis shifted from their connections with the Holy Land to the a growing interest in natural history.


Later, with the establishment of special collections and scientific museums the hanging crocodiles were ousted from these sanctuaries of science, and gradually became the hallmark of old-fashioned antique shops and obscure scholars. As the text and illustration of Sir Terry Pratchett’s popular fantasy series Discworld presents it in an emblematic way:

Like all wizard’s workshops, the place looked as though a taxidermist had dropped his stock in a foundry and then had a fight with a maddened glassblower, braining a passing crocodile in the process (it hung from the rafters and smelt strongly of camphor).


Fortunately the dragon of Brno fell not on this sad, lonely and eccentric old age. It still stands in the center of the city’s life, lending its name to the beer, football club and radio station of the city, its image to the stamp of the tourist information center of Brno, and its “copies” decorate the town hall of Brno’s Husice district and the alternative theatre Husa na provázku, Goose on a string. What is more, even the emblem of this latter shows a crocodile performing as a lion, while in the reality it is only a little sea-horse.




It even inspired a jewel, displayed by janina on flickr with the comment: There are some stories about Brno, and many of them are shown on this dragon. “Where, where? lemme see!” says zmetok in excitement. Homework! replies janina. As you see, we are working on it.

Three sisters

For Liang Sheng on 23 November

I have bought the book Yiddish for fun in Brno, in the Academia bookshop, gallery and café where between two books you are served cakes, and from six in the evening the writers entertain their readers by words of mouth. Its author, Leo Rosten who had been born back in the Łódź of the czars, became popular in America – and, God knows why, also in Bohemia – with his books written on the encounters between the English and Yiddish language. The Hyman Kaplan series is the chronicle of the struggles of a Russian Jewish immigrant and his companions with the English language in the night school, while The Joys of Yinglish (1998) comments on the Yiddish words naturalized in English.

This book, in the original edition The Joys of Yiddish (1968) – whose enlarged edition, The New Joys of Yiddish was published in 2001 and also translated to Ceczh as Jidiš pro ještě větší radost, „Yiddish for even more fun” – is the explanatory dictionary of hundred and one Yiddish terms which illustrates their use not only with sample sentences but also with Jewish jokes. A genial feature of the dictionary is that it does not only interpret the most frequent Yiddish words – tsadik, mazel tov, rebe –, but it also lists with a special delight the various (up to fifteen or eighteen) shades of meaning of Yiddish interjections – aha! oyoyoy! feh! hoo-ha! nu! – which express a lot even with their changing emphasis: *

aha!
A term of several meanings, which formerly was frequently used in the Jewish conversation. Some of its meanings:
1. Understanding. “So you do not substract but add it? Ah-A!”
2. Realization. “AhA! That’s why he declined the invitation to dinner!”
3. Surprise. “So the doctor was wrong? AHA!”
4. Instruction. “Go and ask her, then you will see how things are. Aha!”
5. Joy. “Ah – A! So I have won the bet!”
6. Triumph. “AhA!” (Unsaid: So you confess that you were wrong!)
Don’t confuse “Aha” with the important interjection “Hoo-ha!” of which we will speak later.
—————
Mr. Sokoloff has had dinner for twenty years in the same restaurant on the Second Avenue. This evening, as always, he orders bouillon. The waiter brings it, and wants to go back, but Mr. Sokoloff addresses him: “Waiter!” – “Yes, please?” – “Be so kind to taste this soup.” – “But Mr. Sokoloff, you have come here for twenty years and you have never complained.” – “Please”, repeats Mr. Sokoloff obstinately, “taste this soup.” – “But what is the matter, Mr. Sokoloff?” – “Please taste it.” – “All right”, the waiter says. “But… a moment. Where is the spoon?” – “Aha!”, says Mr. Sokoloff.


I thought about translating the book into Hungarian, of course from the English original. But as soon as I began to check, I discovered that it already had a Hungarian clone: the 100+1 jiddis szó: zsidóságismeret új megközelítésben (100+1 Yiddish words: Jewish studies in a new approach, Budapest: Makkabi 1999) by Chief Rabbi of Budapest Tamás Raj.

At the first glance this book looks like an adaptation of The Joys of Yiddish. For both of them interpret 101 Yiddish terms, and a great part of them are also identical in the two books. And they also have the same structure. Each term is provided with a short definition and then illustrated with a number of Jewish jokes and anecdotes. Of course it would be a shame if the wise author did not know the book which has been the basic literature of this topic for more than thirty years. However, the 100+1 jiddis szó fails to refer to any antecedents. The name of Rosten or the title of The Joys of Yiddish does not occur a single time in it. On the contrary, Tamás Raj traces back the birth of his book to a personal inspiration:

The idea of this book was provided to me by a saying of Rabbi Lau. He has insisted that every Jew of Israel, even if perfectly speaking Hebrew, should learn a hundred words in Yiddish, the language of the European diaspora. Through these one hundred words everyone could recognize and feel the way of thinking of their ancestors as well as the peculiar atmosphere of the old ghettos and synagogues.

This multitude of random coincidences seems quite unlikely, but don’t forget that the Septuagint was also translated from Hebrew to Greek by seventy wise rabbis working independently of each other, and nevertheless their results, when compared at the end, were identical to the letter.


But apart from the similarities in the basic idea and structure, the book of Tamás Raj is a quite original work. In contrast to his predecessor he is less interested in the shades of meaning of the terms and more in the rich historical tradition standing behind them, from which he quotes with delight one story after the other. Most of his stories does not come from the international stock of Jewish anecdotes, but from his own personal experiences, from the Hungarian Jewish lore, or from the fresh events of recent decades, like this example of the article Sheker-bilbul (confuse lie):

In the times of Soviet power an American journalist visited Moscow. The above mentioned Comrade Brezhnev gave him a display of the brilliant economic situation of the Soviet Union, telling him that for one ruble one can buy a suit and for two rubles a complete calf. The journalist listened to him doubtfully.
– If you do not believe me, I will call in someone whom you will certainly believe –, Brezhnev said. And they agreed that the Chief Rabbi of Moscow would decide the question.
– Well, Mr. Rabbi – the party leader asked in an awkward tone – the truth is that one can buy a calf for two rubles at us, isn’t it?
The rabbi felt utterly embarrassed. If he tells the truth, he will be taken to the Gulag, and if he does not, he will lose his reputation all over the world. After a short consideration he answered to the journalist:
– But why do you insist on that calf? Do you know what? Add a hundred rubles to it, and then you can even buy a chicken.


The anecdotes, etymologies, historical analyses follow each other in an exuberant storytelling, and unexpected relationships are illuminated to the great delight of the reader. Se non è vero, è ben trovato. Like the following story about the Chinese Sassoon sisters in the article S’hoyre (wares).

And if we are here, we also have to tell about the Chinese Jews who settled there and used to live there in a large number because of the above mentioned Silk Road, to ensure the transport of the s’hoyre, especially around Kaifeng and in Shanghai. In the latter city there lived a rich Jewish businessman of Baghdadi origin from the famous Sassoon family, whose name was pronounced Sun by the Chinese. He had two daughters. The elder married a talented young Chinese whose education was financed by the businessman. The young man, in a sign of gratitude, adopted the family name Sun, and later he became the leader of the Chinese revolution: Sun Yat-sen. The other daughter also married a Chinese officer who later became famous as the leader of Taiwan: Chiang Kai-shek. The two daughters lived for almost a hundred years, and it happened so that the great widows of the “two Chinas” competing with each other were sisters, and of course Jews…

This beautiful story recalls the well known joke about the Martian visiting the Earth who on the question “And does everyone carry a little cap like this over there?” replies: “No, only the Jews.” One almost feels it painful to add some philological commentaries:

• The s’hoyre of the Silk Road used to be traditionally not in the hand of the Jews but of the Muslim Hui merchants playing a similar role in China.
• Although the history of the Jews of Shanghai is extremely interesting – I also want to write more about it later –, and Sir Victor Sassoon, the great developer of the cosmopolitan Shanghai of the 30’s in fact played an outstanding role in it, nevertheless this history only started in the late 19th century with the arrival of the first Jewish immigrants.
• It would not be easy to establish the pre-war local Chinese pronounciation of Victor Sassoon’s name, but today the Chinese Wikipedia transcribes it like 沙逊 Shā Xùn.
• On the other hand, the name of Sun Yat-sen was 孫 Sūn. And he inherited it from his ancestors, like any other Chinese.
• The education of Sun Yat-sen was not financed by Sassoon, but by his rich merchant brother Sun Mei living in Honolulu.
• And indeed, why should have Sassoon financed it? For they had absolutely no relationship. In fact, Sun Yat-sen did not marry the daughter of Sassoon,
• among other things also because Sassoon had no daughter: he died without children,
• but Soong Ching-ling, daughter of another rich Chinese of Shanghai. His father-in-law, who is better known as Charlie Soong because of his American education, came from a Hakka family just like Sun Yat-sen. But his Chinese family name was 宋 Sòng, which has nothing to do either with Xùn or with Sūn.
• Charlie Soong, being a Hakka, was obviously no Jew. But he was no Taoist or Buddhist either as one would expect it from a Chinese. But a Methodist Christian. Just like Sun Yat-sen. What is more, the two men met for the first time on a Sunday service. And what is even more, Charlie Soong himself was a Methodist missionary and preacher, who established his wealth with his Bible press.
• Logically enough, Soong’s other daughter Soong May-ling was no Jew either, but another Methodist Christian. Her husband Chiang Kai-shek was baptized as a precondition of their marriage, and later he became a convinced Christian.
• And those two daughters were in fact three. They also had an elder sister, Soong Ai-ling. She married the richest man of contemporary China, H. H. Kung, a 75th generation descendant of Confucius, who was also Premier of China for a short time, and a Christian himself.
• All this said, the essence of Tamás Raj’s story is basically true, although with some minor modifications. The wives of three – rather than two – of the main figures of the confronting post-war “two Chinas” were sisters indeed (and what is more, the widow of Sun Yat-sen was also Premier of the Communist China for a time). And they in fact were followers of the same religion. The only slight difference is that this religion was not the Israelite one.

A proverb widely known in China says about the three sisters: 一個愛錢、一個愛權、一個愛國, one loved money, the other loved power, the third loved China. The contraposition of “power” and “China” where the latter is identified with Sun Yat-sen, founder of the Republic, while the former with Chiang Kai-shek who had “torn off” Taiwan, refers to the saying’s being coined after the Maoist takeover. And indeed: this is the motto of the film The Soong Sisters (1997), the most primitive Communist propaganda film I have ever seen, although life has provided me with no small experience in this genre.

But why should we demand historical fidelity here, if we had not pried into the truth of the Chief Rabbi of Moscow and Brezhnev’s encounter? Indeed, the essence of this book is not this, but the convivial storytelling, the multitude of anecdotes, the evocation of once existing worlds. Read it with pleasure, although cum grano salis. And do not forget about The Joys of Yiddish either.

Catuli ursae, or To the Two Bears

When Hungary, on the first of January of 2004, joined the European Union, I was sure that now, with the suppression of customs frontiers, within some months the majestic Italian and Spanish wines will be available at us in a wide range. Not only because these full-bodied wines with an extremely sophisticated taste are among the best wines of the world. But also because they are among the least expensive ones as well. In the supermarkets of Barcelona or Florence you can buy already for a few euros so subtle wines that outrival a great number of Hungarian wines sold for fifteen-twenty euros. Not to mention the strong, rich, fruit-flavored vino sfuso infused for one or two euros into the large damigiane in the farms of Tuscany when we arrive there at the end of the year, after the vintage of grape and oil, to buy our supplies for all the year. To import so excellent wines for so low prices is a great business for any wholesaler, I thought. And I was looking forward to the arrival of the wines of Tuscany, Trentino, Navarra, Rioja, Catalonia, or the Ribera del Duero on the shelves of Hungarian supermarkets.

But they did not come.

There came, however, the category which a Mediterranean farmer would be ashamed to give away even for free. Mean wines from Puglia and Calabria, Andalucía and La Mancha, the cheapest imaginable quality on which the exporter can realize the greatest profit. Eight euros for a bottle of five litres, one point twenty for a pint. Because the wholesaler had got it for the tenth of it in their homeland. They filled up the shelves for a period, they were offered at various hot sales. And then they disappeared, as suddenly as they came. And I understand why. Whoever cared for the price only could also find cheaper ones, the plastic bottle category. And whoever cared for the taste could unambiguously feel how vile, sour, empty they were. They did a lot to ruin the reputation of Mediterranean wines in Hungary. Whenever I praise Italian or Spanish wine to my wine gourmand brothers and brothers-in-law, I see on their faces the lowest shelves of Auchan and Tesco appearing on the screen of their minds, and I feel that every word is in vain.

And I think that perhaps this was the purpose.

Hungary is the northernmost country where vine is grown. With much care, great investments and at a high cost even quite good wine is produced. But, obviously, there is far less sunshine as down there. Vine is the child of the Mediterranean, this can be clearly seen in the autumn on the vegetable markets where you can see side by side the big, sweet, desirable and inexpensive Italian import grape and the small, hard-skinned, somewhat harsh but expensive Hungarian one. Nevertheless, we have a nationwide structure for producing and selling wine which has firmly established itself since the beginning of the 90s, and what is more, it is inextricably intertwined with the political élite. Most Hungarian politicians have vineyards, winehouses or at least favorite and supported wine producers. Wine has become a question of prestige, just like the hegemony of Hungarian wine on Hungarian market (if we are not able to sell it abroad). Today in Hungary in the supermarkets, stores and special shops you can practically buy Hungarian wine only. If good Spanish wine could freely enter this market, it would break this hegemony in no minute with its excellent proportion of price and quality.

So let it not come.

When arriving at this point in the deduction, I decided to make a counter-proof. If it is really the intertwining of wine producers, wholesalers and politicians that prevents good and inexpensive Mediterranean wines from entering the Hungarian market, then in our northern neighborhood, where there is no significant wine production and respectively no political interest, they must be offered in a wide range.

And I entered the Billa of Banská Štiavnica.

It was a singular sight. At the end of 2004, hardly a year after the entrance to the European Union, in this little Slovakian town the great part of the wine shelves were filled with good quality Mediterranean wines: from Italy and Spain, but even from Croatia and Bulgaria. And all that for a much more buyer-friendly price than the Hungarian assortment of the same quality. Obviously there was a cheap low middle category as well, but even that was not the plonk which had been carefully used to make Hungarians customers loathe Southern wines.

Since then, whenever I go to the North, I always check the ever improving wine offer in the supermarkets. The last time in the Tesco of Brno, where eight large counters were full of the best assortment, from the reliable wines of the Mediterranean to the well known Southern African and Australian brands, and all that for a more than affordable price – just like in their respective homelands. It was enthralling. It demonstrated more tangibly than any political slogan the true meaning of freedom, open borders and Europe. Of course local Moravian wines also received, with full acknowledgment of their merits, three shelves in a counter, exactly as much as their deserved. Perhaps I have even seen a Hungarian bottle.

The above Bulgarian wine with the two Balkan bears was bought on my first exploration in Banská Štiavnica. We purchased ten different sorts for testing, known and unknown ones alike, from different countries and of different categories. Almost all of them stood the test, they were just what they had to be. This was the only extra bottle, one I have only bought for the label. I have not even expected much of it, and I have kept it reserved for an occasion when the wit makes pardonable the eventually low quality.

And the occasion has come. I have recently taken the two bears for the inaugural party of a newly purchased flat. And as I stopped in front of the row house built in the fifties in the style of the so-called “Stalin Baroque,” and I looked up on the facade in search of the house number, I immediately noticed that I brought them to the most appropriate place.


And to cap it all, the wine was good as well.

Švejk in Brno

The Chalice is already over, just like U Fleků and U Dvou Koček. In the suburb pub where the picture of the emperor used to be shitted on by the flies, now a liveried doorman welcomes the organized tourist groups from the West, the old varnished long tables have been substituted by a kitschy furnishing resembling the scenery of a variety theater, and if any member of a company does not want to consume for the triple prices, he (or even she!!!) will be made get up and asked to leave the room. If the war will be once really over, and the brave soldier Švejk and the old sapper Vodička will arrive, as they had agreed, to their meeting fixed “in the Chalice, at six o’clock after the war,” they will not be let in here.

Fortunately, the decline of the old Prague pubs coincided with the establishment of a whole restaurant chain all over the Czech Republic to cherish the memory of Švejk, Hašek and the innkeeper Palivec. And, actually, in quite a worthy way.


The furnishing of the restaurants Švejk recalls the puritan tradition of the old Czech beer-houses, with a touch of the feeling of the Monarchy, without any exaggeration. The faithfully conserved atmosphere of the old Czech pubs also invites the local public. In the Švejk of Brno, around six o’clock in the evening there were only local guests, that well remembered and very pleasant public. The draught beer is good, and the kitchen… mmm…


Certainly, each Švejk keeps a different kitchen, and its quality must depend on the chef. But this one in Brno is definitely majestic. The crisp-fried duck leg with hand of pork and two colors of cabbage steamed exactly as required, is crowned with a rare superb piece of smoked sausage, accompanied with Pilsner Urquell 12º and black Kozel. The two of us had quite enough of one plate of it, for only six euros, beer included. It is obvious that the chef observes the Švejkian traditions proclaimed by the quotation from Hašek above the counter:


Právě na kuchyni by měli dávat inteligentní lidi, kvůli kombinacím, neboť nezáleží na tom, jak se vaří, ale s jakou láskou se to dává dohromady.

Intelligent people should be sent to the kitchen indeed, for the combination’s sake, because the point is not how the dish is cooked, but with what love it is composed and served.

The emperor’s picture was shitted on by the flies already in the factory

Strangely enough, the information maps placed at various points of the city fail to indicate this restaurant among the other ones. We have made up for this negligence in the detail of the map below, at the upper edge of the old town, right at the first corner of the Česká street that broadens out like a square. Click on the detail for a view of the complete map of the old town. We hope that the little pictures indicating good restaurants will by the time multiply on it.