Santa's Enforcer: The Krampus

Nothing says Christmas like mulled wine with raisins and tangerines, laughing children, a 20-foot tall fir tree, a parade of woolly-haired demons, and a band thrashing to heavy metal. But that’s how the Czechs in Kaplice carry on the season, along with many other villages across the Alpine and sub-Alpine lands. In the Czech Republic, by far the most biggest and most famous is the Krampus Kaplice festival in South Bohemia.

The tradition is not without historical precedent. As Christianity spread throughout the region, Santa Claus--short for Saint Nicholas for my European friends who are confused about the jolly giant of Anglo lore--needed some help with his piling list of duties. Not only did he have to take care of his reindeer, manage his growing army of elven woodworkers, keep a list of naughty and good children, somehow balance a loving marriage with Mrs. Clause, and hand out presents to all the various good kids of the world, he also had to start giving coal to the bad kids. Mama mia! he might have said. Though he was Greek and I’m not overly sure what those olive pickers are prone to saying when exasperated.

Santa starts the parade

And then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say, “What if we enslaved us a pagan deity of the Alps? I hear those Austrians and Swiss are hardworking folk, their old gods ought to be as well.” So Santa, with a team of some forty elves, sought the woolen haired, goat horned old god named Krampus. Luckily for Santa, pagan gods are prone to heavy drinking and dancing. So he got together a few of Mrs. Claus’s single ladies and set them to work.

Before the night was through, Krampus was in chains with a giant bell hanging off his back.

the most traditional versions have bells and baskets on their back

But it wasn’t such a bad thing. He got to relax and drink mulled wine for most of the year at his nice cushy pad at the North Pole. And in December, he gets to revisit his old haunts and torment young children and pretty ladies, slapping them with bundles of birch and generally terrifying them with any number of untold nightmares before Christmas. The tradition continues The tradition started in the 1600s, when it was mostly relegated to local village parades. It would start off with Santa Claus, followed by someone dressed up in sheep's wool, horns, and chains, symbolizing something like Christianity's victory over paganism, casting Santa Claus into an almost Solomon-like position, with an army of demons to do his bidding.

his bidding includes modifying a motorcycle and updating his sleigh

The tradition expanded recently, with the advent of costume technology and secularism. The two together were a powerful formula in translating a once semi-serious religious thing to just an all-out medley of bizarre.

Nowadays, Krampus is still celebrated with a visit from a devilish figure in the company of Santa Clause to tease the children on Saint Nick’s Day, December 6th. Major Krampus parades are held in Kaplice, Czech Republic on the weekend after, and a few other towns in the mountains of Austria, and also in Munich, which has a parade not only the Sunday after, but also the Sunday after that.

One man's Christmas is another man's Halloween

We discovered this seemingly-Satanic festival of the Krampus a couple of years ago, reading through a local expat forum, and immediately decided that this was something we had got to attend. Last year we packed our bags, found the nearest hotel, and made for Kaplice. This year we'll be in Munich, so I'll be sure to keep you updated.

waiting for the parade to begin

We arrived in Kaplice at about 4:00 pm. The parade would start at 6:00 pm, but already people were filling up all the available spots along the route barriers. It was really quite incredible and frustrating, though having some live music up on stage made waiting around a bit more tolerable. We immediately found a good position and staked it out. Like a good husband, I sent my wife back and forth to fetch me mulled wines as I strong armed people away from taking her spot.

rent a car and drive to Kaplice

Maybe it says something about the Czech character, but I was surprised about how many children were out for what basically was a Gwar concert procession. But I thought that was pretty cool.

it's all in good fun

The parade begins The parades star a long line of Krampus teams, each in thematic uniform, their own versions of the shaggy demigod, most being a bit overly demonic, as though they were using costumes that were recycled from Finnish death metal music videos. Indeed, the entire night was something right out of a death metal video.

armed with birch, the Krampus is ready to whip sinners

The procession lasted for two hours. The Krampii ran up, shouted, jumped on the barriers, threw away the barriers, whipped people with birches, and poked children on their noses and waved at them. A couple of times a Krampus actually stole a child and carried them around the parade, but it was all in good fun. The only crying child I witnessed was when the parade was over. The two-year old girl next to me was pissed that there were no more walking nightmares treading the grounds.

Krampus looking for naughty kids

My wife and I were a bit glad that it had ended, since our legs were red from all the whippings. If you're planning to attend, note where all the advertisement banners are hanging off the railings and stand behind one of those!

there were a lot of pyrotechnic displays as well

Time to cry After two hours, a huge fireworks show lit up the sky and then the after parties started up. But being married to a lovely wife, I had my own after party to attend to. So we made like Santa and left Kaplice.

So if you're in Czech Republic, Austria, or Bavaria this Christmas, December 10th, 2017, look for a Krampus parade near you!

Santa

Krampus Kaplice-1300447

#Christmas #festivals #Bavaria #SouthBohemia

Trdelnik: A History

There was a great disturbance in the Internets when the monster of pastries in the picture was released last year. Cyberspace exploded and the shockwaves passed through the comments section of many silly tourists thinking they know the true history of the thing. “Oh, that’s so common in Budapest and can only be found there!” said one. “You can only get those at Christmas in Vienna!” said another. Well, I’m here to set the record straight. Living here in Prague, I can tell you all about those amazing little spirals of sugar and thinly sliced walnut covered dough.

a bite-sized bit of awesome

A good dessert is impossible to pronounce

Here in Prague, the treat is interchangeably called trdelnik and trdlo, which are both equally impossible to pronounce. It has its modern roots in the Slovak town of Skalica, where in the 18th century the Hungarian general, Jozsef Gvadanyi, decided to retire. A poet and philosopher, he had a clear sweet tooth, which was reflected when he hired a Romanian chef from Transylvania who brought the dish with him – that's right, another story of immigrants and globalization!

a man and a chimney

In Skalica, the locals refined the treat and gave it its name. The name comes from the tool which is used to cook it – a metal chimney that the dough is wound around. It’s then placed and rotated over a coal pit until the dough is golden brown, after which they remove the pastry and dip it in sugar and sliced walnut mix. The treat is available year around in Prague and at every festival, as well as many other locales – especially in the Czech Republic and Slovakia – though in other places like Vienna it might be an only seasonal dish. It costs anywhere from 1 euro to 2 depending on what part of town you’re in. The two best trdelnik stands that I’ve found are on Na Prikope, near the Mustek metro station, run by some unfriendly Ukrainians, and at Malastranska Square in front of the tram stop. In most places they also cover it in Nutella for a few crowns more.

the Ukrainians serve the best Romanian treat in Czech Republic

A novelty is born

That was before last year. A new trend exploded onto the scene when a place started serving a new variation of trdlo. Seeing the sudden immense popularity of it, and as the trdlo was one of my and my wife’s favorite winter treats, we decided to go and investigate this Bohemian bounty of dulcitude. As we approached Charles Bridge walking down Karlova street, we saw many people with all sorts of delicious variations of it. Our excitement was growing. When we found the place that was serving this new version of it, Good Food Coffee & Bakery, at Karlova 160/8, we found a line that seemed to go on for some one hundred meters. We jumped in and got lucky, many people gave up and wandered off.

the source of all sin

We found that Good Food had modified the design of the trdelnik to make it into a cone so that various things can be put inside. They have the standard “chimney” option, which is filled with ice cream, and they also have a strudel option, with apples, walnuts, and raisins, as well as one with strawberries and cream. Most of the options are from 80 to 120 crowns.

too good to be true

Verdict To be honest though, after tasting it, I couldn’t figure out what the fervor was all about. The pastry itself was not the best I’ve had – which can be found at the above places – and the soft serve ice cream was pretty substandard. The popularity seemed to be based off the pure novelty of the product rather than the actual thing itself, and the fact that all these tourists probably didn’t realize that there were trdelniks everywhere for much cheaper and with far better flavor.

the making of a trdlo

Now every trdelnik stand does these crazy versions of the trdelnik. But even so, I stick to the "originalny". It's unpleasant to eat all that crazy amount of sugar and the simpler taste really is better.

#Prague #streetfood

The Narodni Divadlo and Laterna Magika

The Narodni Divadlo and Laterna Magika

When I was on my hiking trip the other week with my work, I was caught up in a discussion with one of my co-workers. Evidently he was a dancer, and enjoying the finer arts as I do, I asked if I could catch one of his shows. Naturally, I thought it would just be at some local theatre.

So when he invited me to his performance at the Narodni Divadlo, I was understandably surprised.

The Narodni Divadlo is one of the top performance halls in Prague. This was no small burrito. This was a massive Chipotle-sized bean-filled monster of dance and theatre.

the People's Theatre or National Theatre: an eternal struggle for translators

The Narodni Divadlo is divided into two parts. The original part and the “new stage”. They’re quite easy to tell apart, as one is perhaps one of the finest examples of neo-Renaissance architecture and art in all of Europe. It was built in the late 1800s as a national theatre, that is to say, as one that was dedicated to the Czech nation, where the Czech language would be the primary language of performance.

Nation and state weren’t the same things back then, as this was all under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Nation was more of a concept regarding a people that were united by language, religion, and culture, but not necessarily state. In the nineteenth century, this became a very important idea, as many nations were beginning to feel under-represented by their imperial overlords and were pushing for independence. This was especially true of the Czechs.

Narodni Divadlo, looking down the street along the river

Having a theatre dedicated to performances in the Czech language was a rather huge thing back then, as for the thousand years under much of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, Czech language had been for the most part suppressed, in large favor of the German language. In the 1800s, the Czech language had been having something of a renaissance, with a series of phenomenal Czech artists and writers coming to the forefront of the European art scene.

the roof of the divadlo

The idea of the Narodni Divadlo wasn’t always kosher for the rulers of Prague and Bohemia though, as the expression of Czech nationalism oftentimes pushed them towards two very dangerous movements in regards to the Empire: independence and pan-Slavism. If you take a stroll around the Narodni Divadlo, you can see those pan-Slavic sentiments, as many of the Slavic tales are told through the paintings that decorate the palatial complex, many reminiscent of Alphonse Mucha’s own Slavic Epic. Which makes sense, as Mucha was very much part of this movement.

Narodni Divadlo next to its companion "New Stage"

My friend wasn’t playing in that epically beautiful building. His troupe was operating out of the New Stage. The troupe, called the Laterna Magika, had its beginnings in the 50s as the world’s first multimedia theatrical performance, using computers, projections, and so on to interact with the stage and the audience. The founder, Joseph Svoboda, brought the troupe to Brussels, wowed the world at a theatrical exposition, and soon became a staple of the Czech theatrical diet. His Laterna Magika was the first to experiment with various lighting effects, like black light, which has become a regular effect on the tourist theater scene, but it was originally done by Svoboda’s group.

the entry to the New Stage

In the 80s, Laterna Magika was able to push for its own building. They built the New Stage--a horrendously and profoundly ugly building--attached to the beautiful Narodni Divadlo. The New Stage is part of the National Theatre and operates under its auspices. It’s just incredibly curious how such an incredibly ugly building came into being. With such buildings, I’m always left to wonder if the architect ever stood back and was proud of his creation, or did he turn up his trench coat collar and try to sneak out the back of a room filled with angry and confused people.

O beauty! Thine form knowest many faces! Or not.

Today, Laterna Magika runs a mix of new modern and bizarre visual works, as well as one or two staples from Svoboda’s original repertoire. My friend invited us to watch him dance in the production of Wonderful Circus, which falls under the latter category.

Beautiful buildings everywhere! Except here.

He met us at Café Nona, which is a café/bar that serves as a regular event place for live music and exhibitions itself and is literally directly underneath the stage. Our friend brought us into the middle stairwell though, and then showed us throughout the backstage. We got to see the corridors, green rooms, and make up rooms, and then up the stairs that led to the backstage itself. Then we got to hang out on the stage, soaking in the view that the actors and dancers regularly took, sans the blinding light.

the player's view

We then left him so he could get ready. We had a quick beer in the bar and then made our way to our seats, the show was about to begin.

The Wonderful Circus involves four main characters, with a small stew of backups. The story follows a sad clown and happy clown as they look upon a nude Venus who seems to be under a weird control of a guy who’s kind of like a director, but is also a lion tamer and photographer. The clowns fall in love with Venus, but for the most part she’s under control of the possibly evil photographer guy. The clowns at times save her, but then the photographer guy saves her. It’s also possible that the photographer guy is the protagonist, and perhaps it’s the clowns that are evil, but its impossible to tell since Venus seems to like them all. I suppose she’s kind of a metaphor for the stereotypical Czech girl… woah!

the stage is set for the Wonderful Circus

The stage is bare, except for a white curtain that surrounds it. A projector is used with various images and motion pictures to set the scene, making way for a hot air balloon ride, swimming, running down roads, and first-person puppeteering. All around it’s an entirely novel and neat part of the production. It also allows for the clowns and lion taming photographer to be at once real, and then at another time going behind the curtain and “appearing” on the projector, where they can swim, or do any other number of things in pre-acted scenes.

the props wait backstage

The play is for kids, but does feature a bunch of nude paintings, so I’m guessing Americans might not appreciate the show in entirety for their children, as we come from a land where a past Secretary of Justice once covered up the boob of a statue of the Lady of Justice.

the curtain's up, get ready!

So if you’re in Prague, definitely check out the Wonderful Circus or one of the Laterna Magika productions. It’s really a unique event and are quite affordable. And if you’re not a prude, quite family friendly as well. Tickets and times, along with the other Laterna Magika shows, can be found at this site.

#Prague #touristicsites #theatre