With a Russian accent
After drinking local water, German Chancellor Bismarck, the “father of all Turks” Atatürk and Czech President Havel forgot about ailments. Each of Europe’s greatest composers – from Beethoven to Chopin has paid homage to the healing secrets of Karlovy Vary.
Our cultural figures, following Peter, also reached out here – Batyushkov, Vyazemsky, Gogol, Turgenev … And when Czechoslovakia became part of the socialist camp, the station became almost his, “home “, General Secretary Brezhnev and Prime Minister Kosygin with their wives gained strength here, almost all the first cosmonauts improved their health, starting with Gagarin. It was in Vary that Gorbachev, who was mourning the departure of his wife, was recovering from the blow of fate. Marshals Budyonny, Konev, Eremenko and Timoshenko, alternating mineral water with beer and Becherovka, spent their holidays in these regions.
Yulian Semyonov wrote “Seventeen Moments of Spring” and the script for the TV series “TASS is allowed to announce” here.
The huge Imperial Hotel, three years after the end of the war, was transferred to our state and became one of the most popular sanatoriums of the USSR Ministry of Health, then until 1990 it was served members of the Soviet trade unions. Only this “Imperial” for forty years improved the health of more than 115,000 of our fellow citizens.
Strange as it may seem, Karlovy Vary achieved its greatest prosperity precisely after the collapse of the Eastern bloc, the collapse of socialism and the return of market times. In the 90s and the “zero” years, many large spa hotels were bought by Russians and other CIS countries. In addition to hotels, other real estate was actively acquired – elite apartments in the resort area, shops, restaurants. Thanks to generous investments from the East, the medieval city literally blossomed.
The skyrocketing fashion for thermalism in Vary has made many wealthy citizens of our country come here year after year. And what? No problem with visas. The flight from Moscow takes just over two hours and the local airport, like Prague, has also started to receive direct flights from Russia. All signs are in Russian. Hospital staff are also properly trained: they know how to please customers.
Sitting at the colonnade on the bank of the Tepla River, one could see a dozen recognizable faces in an hour: a deputy, a governor, an oligarch, a show business star, a crime boss, an astronaut, a champion Olympic…
It got to the point that the subject of the Russian presence began to be beaten into jokes. For example, in this. Putin calls the Czech prime minister and says, “If you allow the Americans to build radar for your missile defense system, we will aim our missiles at your Prague. “Okay,” the Czech replies, “then we’ll bomb your Karlovy Vary.”
Russian trace – a monument to Peter I. Photo: Wikipedia
Is the source dry?
The situation began to change rapidly after 2014, when entire categories of Russian officials, security officials and “sovereign persons” were banned from traveling abroad. The ensuing “sanctions war” did not help tourism either. Direct flights from Russia have been canceled. The stream of welcome guests – those who came for two or three weeks, ordered lots of medical procedures, spent lots of money in local pubs – dried up every year.
Spa hotels tried to refocus on customers from other countries, began to attract their Czech compatriots with all sorts of actions. But the problem is that the Germans (and the border with Germany from the station is half an hour by car) and their people are not used to long treatments, they come here for a maximum of three days, and they save money unlike the Russians.
Now voices are being heard to switch from water here to… beer
The bravest hoteliers have tried to get in touch with Chinese and South Korean tourists – there have been more and more of them in recent years. Alas, these “aliens” also did not fall into the trap of publicity, they do not believe in the healing properties of groundwater and do not recognize European methods of treatment.
Someone else is hoping for rich Arab sheikhs. However, not everything is easy here either: this audience is very picky, they have unconventional approaches to hygiene, diet and medical procedures. Moreover, sheikhs usually come to Europe only in July, when unbearable heat reigns in their homes.
On top of that, the pandemic that started three years ago has literally wiped out hotel occupancy. There were months when almost all of the fifteen thousand places remained unsold. Considering that the city’s economy is very dependent on the presence of foreign guests, one can imagine the mood of the residents of Karlovy Vary.
Finally, everything that happened a year ago definitively closed the subject of the Russians in Karlovy Vary. The Consulate General of the Russian Federation no longer operates there. If Russian speech is heard on the streets today, then most likely it is German returnees, former residents of the USSR and now German citizens – by the way, they remain constant “patriots” of hydrotherapy . From ancient memory come the Jews who once lived in Moscow, Odessa or Leningrad, and have now become citizens of Western states.
hope for beer
So does one of Europe’s oldest and most famous stations have a chance of salvation?
Karlovy Vary Mayor Pani Pfeffer-Ferklova recently admitted in an interview with Czech internet portal Actualne.cz that the city’s spa industry is on the verge of shutting down.
“If in pre-Covid 2019 Russians spent a total of three hundred thousand nights in hotels in Karlovy Vary in the first three quarters, then in 2022 – only ten thousand for the same period,” said the head of new clientele, the spa industry as such will completely die.”
But finding a full-fledged replacement for our tourists, apparently, will not succeed. Then what ? Now the city authorities are feverishly looking for a way out. After all, along with the loss of spa recreation, thousands of citizens will lose their jobs – medical staff, hotel staff, as well as everyone working in related infrastructure.
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p class="">Yes, Karlovy Vary is not just hydrotherapy. It is also a traditional "A" category international film festival. These are popular golf tournaments in the surrounding courses. This is a mass of cultural programs with the participation of the famous local symphony orchestra. And yet, the city derives its main income from the pragmatic use of practically free water, springing from the ground.
Now there are voices to switch from water to… beer. That is, to turn the seaside resort into a kind of entertainment center located in the very center of Europe. After all, tourists still come here – Germans, Spaniards, Britons. Well, if they don't want to be treated with mineral water, let them cool off with local beer – by the way, it is no less famous.
In any case, some enterprising residents are already preparing for such a rescue option: they open beer bars and ask the authorities to allow the sale of alcohol until late at night.
And I well remember those times when already at nine o'clock in the evening the streets of the station were completely deserted, the city fell into a dream. Because early in the morning, his guests were waiting for medical procedures.
