The Communist Museum and the Ossuary of Kutna Hora

Inside the Ossuary, or 'Bone Church'; the macabre sight of over 40,000 human bones which decorate this strangely beautiful chapel in the Czech countryside

The mound of bones you can see behind me are carefully stacked with no supports

The man himself(well, sort of)....Karl Marx

Entrance to the Communist Museum...through McDonalds!


Tuesday morning I headed out to the Communist Museum which I was amused to see on the leaflet was situated just above McDonalds. The irony however, was not lost on the Czechs who proclaimed of the museum: "We are above McDonalds, opposite Bennettons, Viva la capitalism!" The museum itself was excellent, I learnt a lot about the history of this troubled country which came into being in 1918 as Czechoslovakia when the Allied powers divided up the Austro-Hungarian empire after World War I. The depression hit the country hard in the thirties, and the Czech lands were annexed by Hitler in 1939. After World War II, the people voted in a Communist government who quickly became a dictatorship and essentially a puppet government of the Soviet Union until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. For decades the Communist regime subjected the people to a rule of fear and suspicion in which opponents and ordinary citizens were arbitrarily arrested, tortured and executed. The was even a Soviet occupation in 1969, so this ancient kingdom of Bohemia has truly had a tortuous twentieth century. The museum was very sceptical of the ideas of Marx and Lenin and it made me think a lot, having spent the last two years studying the failings of Capitalism. I shall not bore the most of you with my political ponderings but it served as a stark reminder that extremism in any direction will never bring a peaceful society into being.

In the afternoon I hopped on a train out into the country. I was delighted to find that it was one of the old ones, with separate carriage compartments and corridor down the right hand side. I have always wanted to go on one of these trains but they didn't have them even in Bolivia! I got off at Kutna Hora, a mining town which sprung up when silver was discovered there in about the 13th century and from which it grew famous. The famous ossuary, or 'Bone Church' is just on the outskirts and it was a glorious, hot afternoon when I wandered up to this tiny chapel. The ossuary was decorated with bones by a half blind monk centuries ago. An even older monk had travelled to Jerusalem and brought back a handful of earth from Golgotha, where Christ was crucified, and sprinkled it onto a local cemetery making it a prime spot for burial. Overflowing with bodies centuries later, the bones were exhumed and came to rest inside the chapel in their own strange way. Even in the hot sunshine, as I entered, a chill descended and I saw bones everywhere. Femurs and skulls were strung alternatly, as though on a bracelet, and these decorated the ceiling, while pillars made from bones and unsupported bone pyramids lay at the back. 40,000 human bones, displayed in such a way made for a macabre yet inexplicably beautiful sight, and as I stood before the altar I could literally see my own breath. It was good to go back up into the sunny Czech countryside, where I strolled around this strange town for a while before I caught the train back to to Prague.

The day was finished off with a few pints of excellent Czech beer, available for a mere 25 Czech crowns, or around a pound.