Castle Houska and the pit to Hell

Hell is in the Czech Republic.

Don’t take it from me, take it from the Czechs and their forebears.

Deep in the heart of Northern Bohemia there is a deep and unmeasured pit, leading down into the darkness of a remote hill. Above that pit stands a lone castle, built for apparently no reason. The hills there have no resources, no trade routes, no strategic advantages that other castles don’t cover.

Yet there is a castle.

Approaching Castle Houska

When the castle was built over a millennium ago, it was built without outer fortifications, no walls. Without barracks. Without command over any road or way. It was built with everything facing inward. A square building around a square courtyard with a square well in the center. There are three floors, each with balconies that wrap around the entire square. The whole place gives one the feeling of a prison.

the square design and main gate

The well though is not the central important feature.

Opposite the main entrance, there is a door to the chapel. The chapel’s floor covers the pit.

Stories

It’s said that before the pit was covered, locals had long complained of half-man half-beast creatures roaming through the woods. The local authorities came and built the castle. The chapel has in it the oldest preserved Gothic paintings on the walls, one which shows a sort of left-handed, female centaur with a bow, aiming it at a man. There’s also prominently shown the traditional image of St. Michael slaying a demon.

During the 30 Years War, the Swedish Army occupied the castle. The Swedish commander was evidently an avid huntsman and a witch. He was said to sacrifice locals there to the demons, trying to provoke a great black rabbit to emerge in the woods. If he slew the rabbit, then he would become immortal. He was shot by a local marksman.

Nazis

In World War II, the Nazis occupied the castle. Specifically, the Hexen Sonderauftrag. The Nazis were known for their rounding up degenerate art and, for the most part, locking it away in cellars or just flat out burning it. The H-Sonderauftrag was in charge of sorting that art and seeing if any of it related to an alternate magical history of Europe. Specifically, they were interested in two things—if they were able to create a new German religion based on the pagan Teutonic roots, or if they could somehow blame possible enemies of the state, like the Catholic Church, on an affront against Germans in history, such as during the witch trials. If for instance, they could find evidence that the Catholics had been targeting ethnic Germans, then if the Church denounced the Nazis for their execution of Jews and Roma, then the Nazis could point their fingers back at the Church.

The Nazis used Houska Castle as a magical artifact depository of sorts. They were said to have conducted unknown experiments there, perhaps trying to make the Spear of Destiny lead people to immortality or what not, nobody knows. The only thing we do know is that there were the bodies of three Nazi soldiers buried on the grounds.

Castle Tour

There’s a small yard at the front of the castle. On the right side is a fairly new wooden building that houses the “Wood Museum of Hell”, filled with wooden carvings of demons. Next to that is a kennel with two very large dogs. On the lawn are various bits of steel works, all following the theme.

a lawn ornament

The tour is in Czech with English scripts. It’s led by a guy in medieval wear, complete with upturned leather shoes. He seems to quite dig the whole occult drawing that the castle gets, and it’s no doubt that that’s how he ended up there. He’s quite chatty, but he only speaks Czech so we were only capable of some broken conversation and lots of nodding and yeahs.

He first takes us to the chapel. Then to the hunting lodge. He informs us that the house was used as a random things storage place, mostly housing banned books. It was left in disrepair. When the Communist regime fell, there were holes in the ceiling and water had ruined much of the interior, but they were working on restoring the place. Work was paid for by the tours and also by renting out the castle to parties and American ghost hunting shows.

the front door

I'm usually keen on feeling the creeps, but actually didn't feel anything during the tour. Maybe it was because of the safety established by the tour, or the general lack of feeling anything but being a tourist. The only thing extraordinary was a very heavy, weighty air that filled the castle. But then, old places do tend to have weight.

Gothic art, depiction of nearby Castle Kokorin

The upper chambers were completed after the renovations in the 1500s. The height of the Knights' Hall was essentially cut in half, and the vaults are still there, with their original paintings exposed. Mostly of nearby castles and knights, the typical things in medieval works. Nothing as bizarre as what was in the chapel.

The tour ends in what was probably a cistern that collected drainage water. A door leads down into a cavern area that’s filled with evil looking wood carvings and metalworks, culminating in a huge iron throne where a doll of a red Satan sits. The room’s nickname is “Satan’s Office.”

Outside the guide asks us, “Do you have a Hell in Georgia?”

“A Hell?” I ask, thinking that the Czech word for “Hell” actually means “shoes”. But then I finally understand and say, “Yeah, yeah, of course, it’s a Christian country.”

“I understand,” he says.

Upon hindsight, I don’t think I understood. How did he understand?

a statue in the forest outside

Getting to the castle

Forget about public transit. The place is out in the middle of nowhere. The closest town is Melnik, which is about half an hour away on a poorly kept road. The road winds through thick forests and steep hills until you arrive a small collection of houses and a tavern, which is the village Blatce. The road climbs a hill up up and up and finally you arrive at Castle Houska.

Find more on Castle Houska, including events and tour information, on the webpage.

#touristicsites #castles

Just sometimes

Circus Brothers is not a problem

Someone watching Circus Brothers live

Circus Brothers rocked the stage in their debut Prague performance Friday night. Opening for them was a slightly more traditional Balkan-style act, Oranžáda (pronounced Orange-ahda). Circus Brothers is a breakaway act of the once locally famous Circus Problem. It seems that some members of Oranžáda are also members of Circus Brothers, or vice versa, or perhaps Oranžáda possibly refers to a drink sponsoring the groups. It's all really difficult to tell at this point, but I'm sure in time, everything will be illuminated.

The show begins The show started with (possibly) Oranžáda playing in the upstairs hall, trying to round up those just hanging out and party-goers who were ready to start. It's one of the huge difficulties of playing at Rock Cafe, where the concert was held. There could be a massive orgy led by Steven Tyler and Marilyn Manson going on down on the main stage on the bottom level, and no one in the rest of the bar would ever know. So going up and playing through the crowd on the main floor was a premium and excellent tactic, since it was clear that many people hanging out in the bar were suffering under just that delusion of boredom (for those keeping track, the other huge difficulty of Rock Cafe is that their beer is utter swill).

Oranžáda starting the warm up

Much of the crowd followed them down the stairs, where they continued their unplugged marching show in the basement before finally moving into the music club room. Instead of getting up on stage, they stayed down below with the crowd, trying to get everyone worked up and ready to start. When they were done though, the crowd was left hanging for some thirty minutes until finally the Circus Brothers got their act on the stage. This was a bit of a downer and a missed opportunity. Everyone was all riled up and energized, only to have to wait and chat in near silence, with only some radio playing top 40s. It wouldn't have been that big of an issue if it weren't for the aforementioned problem of playing at Rock Cafe: the beer.

Getting the crowd ready to go

A background to Balkan When Gogol Bordello hit the scene, much of the Western world only had exposure to Balkan music through Emir Kusturica movies and Goran Bregovic soundtracks. According to the American psyche, the Balkans were a scene of tribulation and darkness, a wild land untouched by the spread of NATO and gayropa.

Fast forward some years and Gogol Bordello has reached international super-stardom, while half of the former Yugoslav countries are either member states or on some sort of plan to join the European Union and/or NATO. When I traveled to the area some years ago, I was expecting some disaster porn, to see something far more depressing and worn out, but was amazingly and pleasantly surprised. All the nations there are vibrant and interesting in their own ways, with energetic music and friendly people being par for the course. The new cultural opening though made it clear why Balkan elements would easily fit into Western punk and ska.

With Gogol Bordello playing no small part, alongside the 2000s wave of post-war New York City immigrants that could finally afford music equipment after enough dishwashing, a new generation of “gypsy punks” have been inspired to start up their own Balkan style bands. The style isn’t just in NYC anymore. With the configuration of Beirut, DeVotchka, Slavic Soul Party!, and others in the States, Europeans have answered the call on their own music scene, tapping Balkan brass and turbo folk styles for new inspiration. It's a weird feedback loop of style. Some unknown European folksy element goes to the United States, gets distorted, misunderstood and exploded, and then returned to Europe in a hip new fashion and style, granting it some sort of bizarre rebirth.

The Circus Brothers rocking it

This musical migration has hit Prague pretty hard in recent years, with bands like Circus Problem and Oranžáda coming on the scene. As happy as I am about that, being a huge fan of Gogol Bordello, Leningrad, and the like, I was quite excited to discover Circus Problem a few years back at a street festival in Vinohrady when I first moved here with my wife.

A Circus Problem

We followed them along, hitting nearly every one of their local events and watched them emerge as a local gypsy punk band to a near spectacle event, trying to have some real circus problems, while stilt walkers and jugglers walked amidst them and they painted up their faces a few times in almost ICP style. Their real break was when they got on board with Tullymore Dew as a sponsor, which pushed them to go on a guerrilla street marketing rage, running into bars, playing one or two songs, running out, playing lots on the street. Before we knew it, they went from filling up a small pub to filling up huge music clubs, packed from wall to wall, even more than some international bands we’ve seen.

It was quite a tragedy for us when it was announced that they had broken up. It felt like a personal blow, being that they were one of the first bands here we really enjoyed.

I won’t get into the details of the breakup. The main frontman, Jirka Cevela, apparently had had a dispute with some of the other members. It seemed there was finance involved, which is usually the devil in any group. They parted ways and formed two more groups. Cevela kept Circus Problem and some of the other guys formed Circus Brothers. Cevela accused Circus Brothers of stealing his songs and changing their lyrics, and it seems a great deal of bad blood remains.

the replacement seems warmed up and sweating

Without Cevela, Circus Brothers really is a different band. It was Cevela’s voice and accordion playing that really gave a sound to Circus Problem that Circus Brothers doesn’t quite have. Which doesn’t mean they’re not as good, they’re just a different band, and the more they recognize that and break from their past, the more I hope they can reconcile.

Circus Brothers

That long pause after Oranžáda seemed endless. I could have drunken three beers during the break. I would have too, if we were at some other place besides Rock Cafe. I began to wonder if they were adding water to the beer, that's how awful it was. I was beginning to think I should request bottles of American beer.

Look Rock Cafe, no one's drinking your beer for a reason

But just before I went down that dark path, the Circus Brothers finally made the stage. And all said and done, it was a pretty awesome show, adeptly reviving the energy they had lost during the break.

Some of their songs did seem to be directly pulled out of the Circus Problem originals. And for some reason, they decided to change up one of the songs my wife and I really can’t stand—with a whiny refrain of “Thank you!” in Czech over and over—and they managed to keep it in such a way that we still didn’t like it.

bass duet!

They also sorted around a few of the other songs to much greater success and in my opinion, they changed the songs enough to make them all originals in their own rights. Let’s be honest, when it comes to folk music, there isn’t really anything that original. We just take a I-IV-I-V progression and replace it with a I-V-I-V and woah, suddenly it's my song and no one else's! No, the originality in folk music comes from the lyrics, not the progressions, motifs, or flourishes. And the Circus Brothers have done enough on that—they’ve put in their own lyrics (except on the "Thank You" song). Another pleasure is that the violinist, Martin Sedlák, gets a lot more mic time now. He's an easy crowd pleaser and keeps everything diverse and interesting enough, even when he's not wearing his traditional horse mask.

The violinist grabs the mic

The biggest change, of course, was the replacement for the former singer and frontman Jirka Cevela (at this point, I'm giving up writing Czech names as I can't figure out how to write the capitals with the diacritics and all), with one Elias Jerabek. At first I had a hard time jibing with his presence on stage. On the one hand he evokes a kind of 1950s Italian mafia thing. But on the other hand, he kind of comes across as the 1990s Serbian guy trying to be a 1950s Italian mafia guy, which goes right along with the baritone player’s green track suit. He sounds technically better than Cevela in singing, but it’s that technically that can get you hanged in the world of music. The best vocalists are never the most technically best. In a world ruled by Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, and Louis Armstrong, we can’t forget that the raw edge of a vocalist is usually better. And for that, I miss Cevela’s singing. However, Jerabek seems to bring kind of a hip-hop vibe to go along with everything, and he's certainly got his own class and a guitar, so I look forward to where the Circus Brothers go from here with their new vocalist.

He seems pleased with the show, and he should be

I expect the Circus Brothers to be playing a lot around Prague soon. You can catch them also at the festival Rock For People and keep up on their latest with their Facebook page.

#Prague #bars