• 13/12/2022
• By wizewebsite
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25 years since the bunker clearing.With the Prague rock club ended in the 1990s<

The visage of an uncompromising adventurer Richard Nemčok holds a quarter of a century later.The former owner of the bunker smokes on the corner of Mlynářská and Petrská streets, wearing a military overall sewn pockets and Velcro zips.

Everything important happened across the street, where the history of the bunker is reminiscent of only the silver inscription Café on the stairs to today's city police offices.There was a club café here, while around a thousand guests took the underground every day.

"People, good experiences, trouble, everything," Nemečok describes what he is heading for in front of an apartment building with a gray facade.The bunker on Prague's Petr Square was born from post -revolutionary euphoria and became one of the few clubs that resonated beyond the borders.At the same time he targeted the Czech audience and the competition of Nemčok often blamed low prices, the entrance fee cost around 30 crowns.

The most read German magazine SPEX included a bunker on the list of ten best clubs in Europe, the British offshoot of MTV recorded an episode of 120 minutes.The company owed the company megalomania and recessed Richard Nemčok, who returned to Prague for eight years of emigration for Christmas 1989 after eight years of emigration.

Cultural cave

"Everywhere on the street I saw a lot of money.I walked down the street and thought: Dude, here's the Golden Mine, "sums up the first impressions after returning.Former Ostrava decorator, props and dissident Nemčok in 1978 signed Charter 77, three years later emigrated.He lived in Poland, France, Italy, in New York earned a living as an apartment building.

After returning in July 1990, he took part in a demonstration for rock clubs called for Mouse Ears, which three weeks day and night thunder Old Town Square."They wanted to protest but did not know how to grasp it.There was a mess, cups, papers everywhere, "Nemčok angry, in which the organizational spirit awakened at that time.He brought mobile toilets to the place and provided two homeless people from the main station, which he also paid for cleaning.

It was the concern of the protesters that Prague could lose its music clubs at the beginning of the bunker.For example, there was speculation about the end of Rock Café."The mafias have sensed that large underground spaces will be huge business, so they started trying to try," Nemčok says.

"I guess Marek Gregor, who told me to make a request for my own space," recalls Nemčok, whose Sudeten roots, fascination with underground and weakness for weapons and military equipment predetermined the name of the company."Underground fascinated me so I wanted a real bunker.I was always a cave."

When he got to the address of LODECE 2 when he was looking at the former civil defense bunkers, he first entered the telephone exchange of the nearby Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia.Inside, a large armor door."About five minutes I bought with the levers until it suddenly released.I opened, shined the flashlight and there the hall under the whole house.I say: I want this, "he describes the moment when he saw an area of approximately 900 square meters.

Since there was no officially communist anti -aircraft bunker and the process of declassification would take at least a year, Nemčok has driven the workers of the then district company of the housing management, which managed houses in socialist ownership.Got the keys and instructions that by the next day a ventilation must not work."So I played with it, the next day came, wrote a protocol about non -functional air conditioning and it was in the world," he sums up.

The loan of CZK 35 million without liability in the now non -existent agrobance probably due to misunderstandings - the CEO referred it to the branch, where they considered the director's acquaintance, so they met him.He invested the money not only in the club, and from the restituents he also bought the neighboring house at the Golden Cross, which the air -conditioning was left."Here the Tatras were exported," Nemčok watches the square as if he still knew about every divorce in the ground and the tube in the walls.

He built a wide staircase in the bunker and rebuilt the ground floor.Bought the best available technique, air conditioning was imported from Japan, apparatus and mixing counters from England."At that time, the culture was still heard and forgived duties," he nods his head.

Velvet underground

The opening planned on the second anniversary of the Velvet Revolution, ie 17.November 1991.He had 600 invitations made, attached to each T -shirt with the motif of the recently deceased singer Nico and signed vinyl.

Because the bunker was symbolically opened in honor of the band Velvet Underground, with whom Nico worked, its members arrived at the opening: bassist and keyboardist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison and drum player."She came with my mother, so I had to settle them at the table and build a security security.Not that someone wants to hurt them, but when people drink ... After all, my mother was 88 years old, "recalls Nemčok.

The bunker has quickly become a beating space where stars, politicians, rockers and often lost existence met.In addition to the spirit of the time, it was the firm hand with which Nemečok led him."I did not suffer from fights, I did not suffer hard drugs.And when someone started smoking the grass, I was angry why at least would not shut somewhere and provoke."

While the world outside has yet to create its rules, the bunker was given and paid for all.Nemčok as a security guards hired former professionals from the fast deployment department, without hesitation thrown away the famous and his friends.

For example, the poet Ivan Martin Jirous, who broke the expensive tape recorder in the local café, received a year's ban on the entry and offended part of the Art Nouveau chandelier."He sat there drunk, but that didn't matter to anyone.When was he sober?Maybe when we were sitting together in Mírov, "Nemčok, who spent four and a half years in prison for so -called parasitism or damage property in socialist property during socialism.Mirov left in November 1978.After the revolution on Petr Square, he created an alternative micro -world.

With a gun behind the waist

The dramaturgy was in charge of František Kotva, then guitarist of the band Yellow Dog.Nemčok likes to remember the concert of 17.November 1995, when musician and emigrant Ivan Král brought a star band from the US: led by Noel Redding, former teammate Jimi Hendrix, were in line -up Anthony Krizan from Spin Doctors and drummer Frankie Larock, who played with Bryan Adams.

"At that time they met for the first time and last time.Fantastic concert, "rejoices Nemčok.For great interest the concert was repeated the next day.At that time, 25 -year -old singer Tonya Graves appeared on the stage, who just moved from New York to Prague and later became the face of the Czech band Monkey Business.The album called Live From Bunker can be heard at the time the Red House singing from guitarist Jimi Hendrix.

As the city of ghosts.Club 007 Strahov closed for the second time in half a century, fighting for survival

The history of the bunker also briefly blended with Radio Stalin, the former pirate radio, already operated by several university students underground of the former Stalin monument at Letná.However, they did not have a license, so they got into trouble.When the authorities returned the confiscated broadcasting equipment in February 1991, Radio Stalin resumed the activity from the bunker café.Later she moved to Výtoň because of the financial difficulties.

When searching for new tenants for extensive premises, Richard Nemčok fell into the eye with musicians David Koller and Michal Dvořák from the band Lucie, which was at 90.years.In the underground of the bunker, a recording studio Cox was created, where Lucie and Ivan Král filmed a popular album Black cat wet frogs.

"There were three rooms, then recorded about three sound engineers from England and the Netherlands.Jon Murch, an Englishman with incredible equipment, arranged us.And we got together with Ivan Král, "recalls David Koller of Lucie.

The studio also created a soundtrack for America and Koller produced the first Czech album of Slovak singer Miroslav Žbirka."We recorded movements and a lot of advertising there.With Lenka Dusilová we found a mouth in the bunker and left an incredible line of 34 concerts after clubs.And then we disintegrated straight away, "Koller recalls the intense period.

The free spirit of rock and roll in the bunker collided with the wild conditions of Prague, in whose streets the "bags of money" were far from seeing only Richard Nemčok."Richard was a cowboy including a gun behind the waist.At that time, the Chechens and Serbs tried to go for ransom and sometimes it was like a stupid film, "recalls Koller, as the club owner trained in a long corridor near the studies."We'd better not come out.But otherwise Richard Prima was, "smiles.

Nemčok today says he did not come out of the house without a pistol, and he still has film stories charged.For example, how the security guard called him at two in the morning that the Russians came.He had one extra pistol for his waist, grenades in the breast pockets and sat in the car.

"They stood over there on the corner, boss and five more," he points to today's florist."We went to them in a swarm and wide spacing.Boss began to shout at me that I was preventing his people from entering the café.I asked if they mean drug dealers.When he said yes, do I say what we start, grenades or guns?Backed up.They understood that I was a larger freak than they were, "says.

Above the café, next to the skaters

The inhabitants of the surrounding houses began to complain before the bunker was opened.Hygiene never measured noise above the limit, but traffic on the street was significant and the club was constantly threatened to have to close.

The nature of the complaints is illustrated by the quotation of the former employee of the Trade Department in the MF DNES Archive."People around the bunker suffered, people rolled out in the morning, vomited the surroundings, pee on the street, had sex in the passages when the children went to school, there was a nice mess," she said.On the other hand, musicians and visitors to the club Nemčok supported.

The owner in period conversations works as if the possibility of closing the bunker at all did not admit."Because I believed in the right.Unfortunately, it did not apply, "says Nemčok today.

The District Office terminated the lease for the first time in 1993.The courts have been pulling up to 21.January 1997 in the morning the police arrived with a bailiff.David Koller recalls the rapid events that was the morning with the Lucie teammates in the studio."Michal was finishing some advertising and I was pulling the studio shops up the stairs.When we carried a sixteen -foot magnate, I grabbed my back, weighs perhaps 250 pounds and still works to this day.We left the last and the cops breathed on our backs, "Koller describes.

Musicians, employees and visitors the club in Body prevented their own bodies and the clearing lasted all day."When the movers arrived, the young boys said they wouldn't move the bunker and left.The police had to get another company, "says Nemčok, which also included Strkanice with the police.

Jonák, Mrázek and weapons under the jacket.Nineties tell about the time when they were born

The Municipal Court in Prague 1 has already identified the decision to evict the club as invalid 30.April 1996, but to Nemčok got a half -year delay, so he could not defend himself during the execution.Subsequent court scramble sounded lost.

"It was the first single club after Stalin, a long bar like from a film, music until morning and we had a headquarters in it.Above the café, next to the house skaters, "summarizes David Koller's hard to imagine atmosphere today..

Richard Nemčok unsuccessfully ran for the Senate for an independent initiative in 1996.He tried to revive the glory of the bunker in the Holešovice market, where the club under construction and investments was flushed by the flood in 2002.There was no second attempt near the Smíchov railway station.

Today he lives Nemčok outside of Prague, goes to nature and renovates the First Republic weapons."When I need money, sometimes I do something somewhere.And since I can do almost everything, I have no problem with that.I feel good, "adds the former operator of one of the top ten clubs in Europe without further clarification.