The Maritime Museum, the only one of its kind in Central Europe, is located in the former warehouse

The maritime museum, which recalls the rich history of Czechoslovak maritime navigation, which used to be the second largest landlocked country in the world after Switzerland, is housed in a former convenience store. “The idea was so stupid that it was good,” admits Martin Bednář, one of the three founders of the exceptional institution, with a laugh.

The second season starts on May 4. “Old buns, pasta, canned food, a rotten counter,” recalls Martin’s partner Zuzana Hledíková, what awaited them when they set out to transform abandoned consumerism. They completed the work in a quarter of a year. “Since glass cases are expensive and we pay for everything out of pocket, we used old shelving. They sanded them, painted them, bought Plexiglas,” continues Zuzana, who refuses to allow such an exhibition space.

Visitors can look forward to some novelties this year. The new ship’s cinema will show movies that our sailors filmed on their travels, and a simulator of the voyage of one of our cargo ships will be added. “So everyone can experience what it’s like to drive a two-hundred-meter-long cow. I’ve already sunk several times,” reports Martin.

The Czechoslovak Navy, founded in the 1950s, had 44 cargo ships, five sea-river ships and a steamship. They successfully transported ores, coal, grain and weapons. “Our shipowners were absolute professionals. There was, for example, a guy who arrived in India on our ship with 40,000 tons of black coal and left in three days with 40,000 tons of white flour. In the meantime, the ship had to be absolutely sparkling clean,” highlights the skill of Czechoslovak sailors.

The exhibition recalls the vessels and the fates of the people who served on them. The forty-five-minute guided tour begins at the first domestic footprint on the seas and oceans in the first half of the 17th century.

“Augustin Heřman, our real pirate from the Caribbean, fled to Rotterdam after the Battle of White Mountain. He learned to be a sailor, worked as a boatman, then bought a ship and started robbing and murdering Spaniards in the Caribbean,” says Martin. He also mentions Eduard Ingriš, the author of the legendary tramp song Teskně čúci Niagara, who sailed between South America and Polynesia on his balsa rafts, modeled after his friend Thor Heyerdahl.

“We thought it would be good to remember our maritime history. Word got around, and when we already had small excursion boats nearby on the Elbe, we started building a museum,” explains Martin, explaining the origin of the idea.

On display are flags, uniforms, models, parts of ships, economic reports, navigation items, set of chinaware, medical items, life-saving equipment, boats, wetsuits, sabers, stuffed crocodile, shark jaw, large crab, photographs, slides.

The necessary information is drawn from enthusiasts with a passion for water and ships in the shipyards where the vessels were built, or from the sailors, who numbered nearly three thousand, and their descendants. They sometimes went on trips with them. “Old captains called me and cried with emotion that someone had remembered them,” says Zuzana.

The expansion of the museum does not stop there. The institution has fallen on part of the Třinec, one of the most famous ships of the fleet, which is stationed in Rotterdam, where it serves as a transshipment point. In a year and a half, the immobile machine from 1975 is to be scrapped. “We have tentatively agreed that they will allow us to get the penultimate and last floor, the captain’s bridge including the radio cabin, to Veletov,” recounts Martin enthusiastically.

According to him, it is impossible to move an entire ship or a superstructure the size of a five-story block of flats. “We will build a copy of the bridge on the banks of the Elbe and install everything we manage to save from Třinec,” he reveals, adding that this year he will, among other things, be negotiating with the Dutch ambassador.

In 1992, Czechoslovak shipping was privatized, and in 1995 Stratton Investments, associated with Viktor Koženy’s Harvard investment funds, became the majority shareholder. Although the operation was profitable, the majority shareholders decided to buy back shares in 1998, which led to a curtailment of operations and the sale of assets and ships. The company went into a deep loss. In recent years, Česká navrí plavba has been mainly engaged in investment activities and the management and rental of real estate.

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