The Czech Series #1 - Vaclav Philips

The Czech series #1? No, I have written before about Czech berets (here, here and here), not realizing what a wealth of information there is on berets (or "radiovka's") from the Czech Republic and, previously, Czechoslovakia. 

The problem is to find the treasure (and not having any understanding of the Czech language doesn't help). I'll start the series with these two pictures of Vaclav Philips and really, that's all the information I have on these pictures, apart that they come from the Ostrava region.

They are not just old and vague pictures though; I think they show very well the atmosphere of living in rural Czechoslovakia before the Velvet Revolution of 1989.  I feel lucky to have visited Czechoslovakia a number of times during the 1980's and got a feel for the atmosphere, the people's resilience, the craziness and paranoia of the powers in place and the many great people I met along the way. These two photographs remind me of one very cold night, spent in a cottage without heating and electricity near Mlada Boleslav.