Klára Votavová is a Czech freelance journalist and European Union policy analyst. In the past, she worked in the Czech public service as a policy officer.
The Czech Republic’s prime minister, Petr Fiala, boasts of his defense of democracy and the rule of law. Yet faced with Israel’s crimes in Gaza, the Czech government can forgive its Western allies anything.
From 1925 to 1932, a thousand Europeans took the monthlong train ride to Soviet Kyrgyzstan as new members of the Interhelpo workers’ co-op. Their story tells of the utopian hopes placed in the Soviet project — and how they were crushed.
Amazon doesn’t have a website for the Czech Republic, but it has created a distribution hub in that country in order to process orders for German customers. The site was set up amidst protests by German logistics workers — and today, their Czech colleagues are earning just half the wages.