Honorary Czech consul visits Czech Heritage Club

While it is still roughly two months before Christmas, that holiday was the topic at the Wednesday, Oct. 18, meeting of the New Prague Czech Heritage Club. Marit Lee Kucera, honorary consul of the Czech Republic for Minnesota, Iowa and North and South Dakota, talked about a trip she took to the Czech Republic in December 2016, which included a slide show.

Kucera explained to a crowd of 20 people that she was visiting a third cousin, three times removed in the town of Velesin in the south Bohemian region of the Czech Republic. She noted this happened a few days before Christmas. There was a market set up in the town square with merchants offering needlework, gingerbread, braided bread, wood carvings, ceramic items and straw sculptures, some of which had been put in glass bottles. There were also many Nativity scenes.

“People were also selling live carp in the market,” said Kucera, noting it is a custom in that country to buy carp a few days before Christmas and then serve the fish as the main meal on the holiday. The fish are kept in tanks at markets. Kucera and others at the meeting explained the carp are either killed and prepared when bought or people bring them home alive and keep them in a bath tub until Christmas Eve.

The group also discussed how there are an assortment of traditions for the holidays in the Czech Republic. The discussion included a fortune telling game where if a person...

To see more on this story pick up the October 26, 2017 print edition of The New Prague Times.