Rhapsodic Bohemia... Page
Two
where you can become a homeowner
for less than $4,000
by Steenie Harvey
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| The kitchen table
seats 30 people!
With Russians uninterested in the
rural lifestyle, cottages in the Karlovy Vary countryside haven’t seen
the same price hikes. They start at $7,400. I also thought a massive farmhouse
building (through Capitol Reality) worth mentioning. Basically it’s two
houses: one is 8,800 square feet, the other is 8,500 square feet. That’s
huge—the kitchen table seats 30 people! The current owner lives in one
half and has divided the other into vacation apartments. With 76,000 square
feet of land, outbuildings, wine cellar, and a barn, the property is seven
miles from Karlovy Vary. Mr Karel suggests it’s a good prospect for a riding
school venture. The price is $168,000.
Where the real Bud comes from
Many Czech towns seem unpronounceable—take
Ceske Budejovice. In case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “Chesky Budiyov-ITZY.”
But even if the name is unfamiliar, you’ll have heard of its most famous
product—Budweiser beer. Sorry, Budweiser isn’t an original U.S. product. |
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The largest settlement in South
Bohemia and a regional capital, Ceske Budejovice has 100,000 inhabitants.
Its old name was Budiwoyz but the city became known as Budweis during the
years that the country belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Up until
1945, half the city’s population was of German stock. The local pivo (beer)
was thus called Budweiser beer. Its brewing history goes back six centuries.
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Half liter (roughly
a pint) glasses brimming with golden Bud cost 36 to 42 cents. And it’s
feistier than the beer sold in the United States. One place to sample it
(along with goulash and dumplings) is in a cavernous beer hall called Masne
Kramy. From medieval times until the 19th century, this church-like building
housed the town’s meat market. Patrons sit in chapel-like snugs (former
butchers’ shops) on either side of a central aisle. You’ll find this beer
hall just off Namesti Premysla Otakara, the town’s arcaded main square
with a fountain of Samson.
Although the historic center is pretty,
I thought parts of Ceske Budejovice felt nondescript and industrial. A
lot of back streets are grimy and run-down. However, it makes a good base
for exploring south Bohemia. One realtor with buys in the nearby countryside
is Pavel Crha of Hornik Agency. Pretty wooden summerhouses start at $10,500. |
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And a small, newly built cottage
suitable for a couple priced at $15,500 also seems reasonable . Although
the bathroom still needs completion, it has electricity and you could live
here year round. In a village called Lhenice, the ground floor consists
of a kitchen and living room with beamed ceilings and fireplace. There’s
only one attic bedroom, but summer visitors could bivouac in a little wooden
house in the apple orchard.
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| South Bohemia’s lakelands
A 30-minute bus-ride from Ceske Budojovice
brought me to Trebon and a lakeland district given the status of a UNESCO
Biosphere Reserve. Back in medieval times, villagers set up a complex of
fishponds to raise carp, a freshwater fish that’s still the mainstay of
Christmas Eve dinner tables. South Bohemia once had 5,000 of these fishponds.
Founded in the 13th century, Trebon
is a toytown of 9,000 people, which you enter by one of three arched gates.
Vestiges of ancient bastion walls remain...track them and you’ll come across
a house that once belonged to the local hangman. It also has an ornate
main square with old-fashioned inns, a plague pillar, and a Renaissance-style
château with an immaculately kept park. On this spring afternoon,
all the benches were taken up with grannies busy with wool and knitting
needles. |
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Properties through Josef Kolar of
Trebonska Realitni Kancelar include a two-bedroom house in Trebon for $56,000.
Just three miles into the countryside, a good quality three-bedroom house
costs $25,500. All woods, meadows, and lakes, this is prime bird-watching
territory with cormorant and heron colonies on the pine-covered islands.
The complex of fishponds also attracts waders, grebes, goldeneye ducks,
and white-tailed eagles. And if you tire of birds and fish-ponds, there
are plenty more castles and fortresses to discover. Between the 12th and
16th centuries the inhabitants of southern Bohemia built 500.
Time-stopped Cesky Krumlov
Many towns and cities describe themselves
as medieval—which usually means they have a medieval quarter. In Cesky
Krumlov, the Middle Ages completely swallow you up. A storybook town of
15,000 inhabitants near the Austrian border, it was added to UNESCO’s World
Heritage List in 1992.
Almost untouched by time, Cesky Krumlov
is divided by the fast-flowing Vltava river where local youngsters were
making good use of old tractor tire tubes by using them as rafts. On one
side of the river is Latran neighborhood, dominated by a fortress-like
castle where you can look down on the huddle of red-roofed gingerbread
houses. Adjoining the castle is the most ornate round tower I’ve ever seen.
It reminded me of a multi-colored wedding cake concoction.
Bears still roam the Czech Republic’s
eastern forests but I wasn’t expecting to see any. Wrong! Clambering towards
the castle, I came across a bear pit...with three bears. Although they’re
popular with visitors, I thought they looked rather miserable. But it’s
an old tradition—the bear pit has been here since the 1500s. And besides,
if I owned a summerhouse, I’d sleep happier at night knowing bears were
confined in a stone pit rather than rampaging around my forest garden.
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From Latran, wooden
bridges lead to the core of the old town where numerous 14th-century burghers
houses are adorned with frescoes. Cobbled streets wind down towards a main
square complete with one of those plague pillars I mentioned earlier. Cesky
Krumlov’s stoupa was built to give thanks for delivering citizens from
the 1680-to-1682 Plague. Legend tells that eight saints provide protection
from plague...they include St. Wenceslas (Vaclav) and St. Vitus (Vit).
Most properties in the historic center
are now businesses, which means prices are high - an 1800 sq ft house renovated
in 1995 was $355,000. Better value lies in the leafy suburbs. Currently
divided into two apartments, an attractive yellow 2,000-square-foot house
was $120,000 through Renom Reality.
Hornik Agency has a 300-year-old
stone house for $9,200 in nearby Horice na Sumave village. Ripe for reconstruction
(but not tumbling down), it’s a row house with two big downstairs rooms,
a basement, and garret. There’s a sewerage connection, new electricity
line, and the garden is 6,000 square feet. |
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| Silver and bones
in Kutna Hora
In 1400, King Wenceslas moved his
royal court to Kutna Hora. This quaint town of 22,000 inhabitants, just
45 miles from Prague, is in Central Bohemia. Thanks to its silver mines,
it was once incredibly wealthy and some magnificent buildings were built
on the mines’ proceeds. Palaces, cloisters, another of those plague pillars,
the huge Cathedral of St. Barbara, patron saint of miners.
Although the ore is now played out,
rock hounds can find rich pickings in the town’s gem and mineral stores.
I bought some little gifts—glass bottles filled with gold flakes and garnet
shavings. They were less than $1 apiece but I later wondered if the gold
was real.
A man in the tourist office told
me Kutna Hora boasts the world’s first Alchemy Museum—it chronicles all
the weird ways that were once tried to transmute base metal into gold.
A medieval wild child
I love places full of stories. Wandering
a backway smothered in white elderflowers, I turned into a lane called
Ruthardska. This was named after Rozina Ruthard, a medieval wild child.
Her father certainly didn’t believe in free love so he walled her up in
a closet with the result that she smothered to death.
I don’t know if Rozina got buried
in Sedlec, but don’t miss this place. Now part of Kutna Hora’s suburbs,
Sedlec has one of the most gruesome sights imaginable—an ossuary (a bone-house
or bone chapel). Thousands of skulls and bones are displayed, but not all
lie in quiet repose. The chapel contains chalices, heraldic symbols, and
even a chandelier—all made from human bones.
In 1278, a local abbot visited Jerusalem
and returned with earth from Golgotha, which he sprinkled on Sedlec graveyard.
Not surprisingly, everybody then demanded to be buried here. Space got
even tighter when the plague of 1318 wiped out an estimated 30,000 souls
in this small region alone. |
The silver screen and a star
hotel
Going since 1948, Karlovy Vary’s
film festival is almost as old as the Cannes festival. But unlike nowadays,
Hollywood stars weren’t always invited. For decades, the resort alternated
each year with Moscow in showcasing the Eastern Bloc’s film-making talents.
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I hate showing ignorance, but the
list of previous winners means little to me. I’m certainly not familiar
with Ukroscrije Ogna (Taming of Fire), a U.S.S.R. film, which scooped 1972s
Grand Prix. Or Bulgaria’s Kozijat Rog (The Goat Horn), which got the special
Jury Prize the same year. But although soul-searching French and Polish
dramas remain the order of the day—think art-house, not Bruce Willis—the
annual July festival has gained a rapt following. Recent visitors include
Alan Alda, Whoopie Goldberg, and Johnnie Depp. The biggest headlines were
made in 1996 by Gregory Peck who had appendix surgery in Karlovy Vary’s
hospital. For tickets or more information on this year’s festival, visit
the website: www.iffkv.cz.
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Most stars favor the classy Grandhotel
Pupp. Established in 1701 by a confectioner called Johann Pupp, rooms start
at $170 for singles and $208 for doubles. Pricey, but you can enjoy all
the Grandhotel’s facilities including the Roman baths by booking into the
annexe, the Parkhotel Pupp. Singles cost $90, doubles $108. For reservations,
contact Grandhotel Pupp, Mirove Namesti 2, Karlovy Vary; tel. (420)17-310-911;
fax (420)17-322-4032; website: www.pupp.cz. |
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A brainwave of a half-blind monk,
the ossuary was built in 1511. Bones were formerly piled in heaps, but
in 1870 a Czech prince donated 12,000 gold coins to turn the chapel into
a macabre work of art. Definitely a curious place for school trips—an excited
party of 8- and 9-year-olds were here when I visited. Entrance costs 90
cents plus 90 cents to take photos.
Kutna Hora is thoroughly engaging
but parts of town still seem neglected. While many buildings have now been
restored, a good number remain dilapidated. Sadly, some 15th-century houses
seem too far gone. Their frescoes have completely faded and the stonework
is crumbling to dust.
RIS Agency has properties within
the town but the least expensive renovated home was just over $120,000.
Rental apartments of between 700 square feet and 1,200 square feet cost
$170 to $307 monthly.
Up the street from this agency, I
stayed in Hotel Anna, a charming little hotel with just 13 rooms. Basic
but clean, the $31 rate for doubles includes a light breakfast. For reservations,
contact Hotel Anna, Vladislavova 372, 28401 Kutna Hora; tel./fax (420)327-516-315.
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| Purchasing real estate
Changes are expected once the Czech
Republic joins the European Union. At present, there are restrictions on
foreigner ownership of property. Real estate may only be bought by those
having permanent residence in the country or “legal entities” with a registered
Czech office.
Foreigners normally acquire property
by establishing a limited liability company. Necessary capital is approximately
$6,000. All the realtors listed can help you form a company and find the
requisite Czech partner for the first three months. This partner is in
name only, and you control all company assets.
The procedure is to then inform the
Czech Embassy that you own a company and require a working visa. This qualifies
you to obtain a long-term residency visa, renewable annually. For more
information, contact Embassy of the Czech Republic, 3900 Spring of Freedom
Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20008; tel. (202)274-9103; fax (202)363-6308. |
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Joining a druzstvo is an alternative
way of purchasing an apartment or a cottage on an estate. Pavel Crha of
Hornik Agency in Ceske Budejovice described it as similar to joining a
club. A druzstvo is a cooperative, but obviously you have to find one seeking
new members. Mainly to facilitate Russian buyers, Mr. Crha is currently
involved in acquiring properties for new druzstvos in south Bohemia.
Realtor address book
• Capitol Reality (Mr Karel), Stara
Louka 22, 36001 Karlovy Vary; tel. (420)17-322-1046; e-mail: capitol@cbox.cz.
• Architecta Realitni (Miroslav
Ptak), T.G. Masaryka 42, 36001 Karlovy Vary; tel. (420)608-224-450; e-mail:
ing.ptak@volny.cz
• Hornik SRO (Pavel Crha), Novohradska
20, 37021 Ceske Budejovice; tel./fax (420)38-635-6012; e-mail: crha@hornik.cz;
website: www.hornik.cz
• Trebonska Realitni (Josef Kolar),
Husova 69, 37901 Trebon; tel./fax (420)333-723-861; e-mail: trebonrk@treb.cz
• Renom Reality (Rene Mracek), Namesti
Svornosti 7, 38101 Cesky Krumlov; tel./fax (420)337-711-640; e-mail: info@renom.cz
• RIS Agentura (Michaela Spackova),
Vocelova 342, 28401 Kutna Hora; tel. (420)327-511-243; fax (420)327-511-937;
e-mail: office@ris-kh.cz; website: www.ris-kh.cz
Taxes and investing
Czech residents pay income tax on
worldwide income. Non-residents pay income tax on Czech-source income only.
Residency is defined by having a permanent home in the Czech Republic and/or
residing in the Czech Republic for at least 183 days in any consecutive
12-month period. Tax rates are progressive up to the top rate of 32%.
All companies and individuals are
subject to property tax but it’s very low, rarely more than $30 annually.
It’s calculated according to the ground area of the building: 3 cents per
square foot for business premises with a lesser rate for residential buildings.
“The Czechs are among the most industrious
people in the world,” said The Economist in 1999. Looking at Czech Invest,
the government body, which facilitates inward investment, standards haven’t
slipped. A typical Czech worker works 1,976 hours annually—nearly 400 hours
more than German workers. Incentives are available for investors. For more
information, contact Czech Invest (Mr. Robert Hejzak, Director of Marketing
and PR), Stepanska 15, 120 00 Prague 2, Czech Republic; tel. (420)2-9634-2500;
fax (420)2-9634-2502; e-mail: marketing@czechinvest.org; website: www.czechinvest.org.
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