08_Home_town

8. Home town

So, I’m going to talk about my home town, which is Kladno.

Kladno is one of the largest cities in the Central Bohemian region. It’s situated about 25 km north-west from Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. The population counts over 70 000 inhabitants. Kladno consists of 6 parts - the central Kladno, Kročehlavy, Rozdělov, Švermov, Dubí and Vrapice. It is a statutory town and the current mayor is Dan Jiránek.

Kladno was founded in 14th century as a small village called „Kláda“. In the past Kladno was well-known for mining black coal and also for steel produced by Poldi steelworks.

Kladno was called „Black town“, because the air was polluted by mining and steel industries. Though Kladno is mostly an industrial town, we have also several interesting places or sights to see. The historical centre is the square of mayor Pavel, which contains many monuments. One of them is for example the yellow town hall in neo-renaissance style and now it’s used as the municipal office and the ceremonial hall. The other monuments are the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which is a three-nave basilica with one tower originally built in gothic style, or the Virgin Mary Statuary. Not far from the square, there is the Chateau of Kladno, which is probably the most popular monument in Kladno. It was originally a fortress with gothic basement, but it was reconstructed by the famous architect Dietzenhofer to its present baroque form. It’s surrounded by a beautiful garden with two bears. One of the most remarkable dominants of our town is surely a monumental yellow building of the Gymnasium. The chapel was used as a prison for women and children from Lidice.

Kladno also has several places where you can spend your free time or where you can go to enjoy some culture. The most important is surely the Central Bohemian Theatre with its own drama group or the only cinema, Hutník. Kladno has several branches of the librairies, for example the Scientific Library, the City Library or the Children’s Library. If you want to go to concerts, they usually take place in the Cultural House. Kladno has also many sports centres, such as the swimming pool, aquapark, an ice-hockey hall, football pitches and many more. I often go in-lining to „Sletiště“, where you can find an athletics stadium, too. I also very often use the cycling paths and many forests for walking.

The notable natives of Kladno are for example Jaromír Jágr - the famous ice-hockey players, Antonín Čermák - the former mayor of Chicago or Zdeněk Miler - the creator of The little Mole.

The biggest advantage is surely the vicinity of Prague. In Kladno, there are no rivers, so there is no menace of flood. However, there are also some disadvantages. Kladno is quite a dirty town, the people aren’t polite and they’re not smiling much if you see them in the streets, most of the Kladno houses look communistic and the old industrial zones, for example in Poldi, are really disgusting. One of the serious problems is also the Romanies minority, because they usually live in particular areas (and these areas are often considered as the dirtiest places with the highest criminality.