Prodano

Alena Boika
When in September 2008 Maria Moreno Leal came to Umelec/Divus and started to work with us as an intern, i proposed her to write about anything that seemed strange or interesting for her in Prague. A very poetic and curious person, she wrote short expressively lyrical text on a Prague subway. Proudly presenting this text, she asked, what is the meaning of “Prodáno” (Sold out)? Why, how, what? This word is indeed everywhere, and not just in the metro. Being total fresh foreigner, and trying to be poetic, she found and recognized immediately and exactly the essence of Czech Republic right now: “Prodano.”


Prague

By Maria Moreno Leal

Prague is a mother kangaroo with a green, red and yellow stomach. If you are lost, she draws you to her marsupial pouch, a place where you always feel safe, a place where you always find the way home, green, red and yellow. I live in Kobylisy, red underneath. Mother kangaroo feeds her foreign children with a gold fresh liquid, “the world’s best!” said my father. Green, red and yellow, my father was right. Prague is a beauty kangaroo, she is wearing charming pointed buildings, bridges and woods. Prague is young and old at the same time, people don’t speak too much on the tube, green, red and yellow, but when some elderly man or a busy mum get in, everybody stands up and offers the seat to them, green, red and yellow.


And so it is when nations join together and a Spanish woman learns Czech from a Belorussian.
I say to myself, that’s sweet.
And I hear them repeat and look for the meaning of the word “Prodáno.”
The word that is allegedly the most often seen around Prague.
So “Prodáno” is the Czech Republic’s motto?
(It could be. This verbal exclamation from a silly ad campaign does have its groundings in the context of the Czech Republic’s long-term situation.)
And now another sale is about to be closed.
Surely no democratic country on the planet would sell its airline.
The Czech Republic—yes.
For now the most likely buyer is Russia’s Aeroflot.
And I say that’s cruel.

Dita Lamačová

01.01.2009