This is my guide to the Retro Museum Prague, the newest Prague museum showing life behind the Iron Curtain in Communist Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s.
Some other Prague museums also focus on this recent period in Czech history, but none do it as comprehensively as the Retro Museum. You get to see all the trappings of life at home, gaudy wallpaper and all, but also many aspects of wider society – it’s almost a virtual village (or perhaps concrete apartment block) from the ‘70s.
It’s directed at Czech children, and is a great new place to see if you’re visiting Prague with kids. And it’s one of the most fascinating things to do in Prague with an interest in 20th century history. The Museum is also superbly designed, and the whole period brilliantly brought to life. Read on for more information.
What Is The Retro Museum Prague About, Exactly?
The Museum is a collection of around 12,000 items from Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s, and is intended to give Czechs of school age an insight into life at the time.
According to the Retro Museum Prague, little modern history is taught in Czech schools – surprising, perhaps, given that the country only emerged from half a century of totalitarianism a little over 30 years ago.
The Retro Museum Prague focuses specifically on the period of ‘Normalisation’, which followed the aborted ‘Prague Spring’ reforms of 1968 under Alexander Dubček.
The Politburo in Moscow took a very dim view of this, so Leonid Brezhnev sent Soviet tanks to Prague to force a more compliant regime on the Czechoslovaks, clamping down heavily on any thoughts of freedom.
The Museum covers aspects of this, but most of the emphasis is on everyday life in Communist Prague and Czechoslovakia up until the Velvet Revolution of November 1989.
Like other countries under the Soviet yoke, Czechoslovakia endured a certain level of material and lifestyle deprivation, and unique designs evolved under sometimes straitened circumstances.
See Also: Cold War Museum Prague – life behind the Iron Curtain in a nuclear bunker below the city
How Is The Retro Museum Prague Set Out?
The Museum is set out in a series of rooms, including those you would find in any Czechoslovak apartment (bedroom, play room, living room, kitchen, etc) and also places people would regularly visit (shops, school, hairdressing salon) as part of their everyday lives.
When we visited, it was located in the Kotva store, some of the sets were larger than they would perhaps have been in real life – certainly larger than the closest equivalent museum we’ve found in Europe, the Zagreb 80s Museum, which is set in a real apartment.
The space afforded by the location in the Kotva enables the exhibition to delve much further into life outside the four walls of the apartment.
See Also: Trabant Museum Prague – a tribute to East Germany’s (in)famous, rather comical car
Is The Retro Museum Prague Interactive?
Some parts are interactive. My son loved tapping away on the typewriter, watching the paper magically move across a little with each keystroke. But he was a little disappointed to find out that it wasn’t connected to the internet, that indeed there was no internet in those halcyon days.
You can’t touch some of the exhibits – a hands-off sticker conveys this message clearly.
However we both felt it is one of the best museums in Prague for kids, as there is plenty they can pick up and look at. It didn’t take my son long to become absorbed in the Czech equivalent of Lego once he found a pile of bricks. He also enjoyed looking at the books in the classroom, both on the teacher’s and pupils’ desks.
What Was Life Like Under Communism?
I’ve put this question to many friends who grew up under the Communist system, from countries across Central and Eastern Europe that were under the Socialist stranglehold until the revolutions of 1989.
The words ‘George Orwell’ frequently come up in response, but there was more to it than that, and the Retro Museum Prague tells another side of the story brilliantly. Here’s what we took away from our visit:
- Taste in wallpaper in the 70s and 80s was pretty bad either side of the Iron Curtain. Patterns, usually featuring a shade of brown, were de rigueur, and the living room display has one of the most garish wallpaper designs I’ve ever seen. I never dabbled in hallucinogenics, but imagine the effects would be pretty close to this. It feels like the walls are staring back at you.
- One aspect of life which the West had better during the Cold War was toilet paper. My son couldn’t believe how hard Czechoslovakian toilet paper was – it’s close in thickness and feel to modern baking paper. Even if your brain was telling you not to defect, your poor bottom would be begging you to contrive a way across the Iron Curtain.
- Czechoslovak kids grew up with some amazing toys. We were particularly struck by the football game Kopana Igra, in which you slide players up and down the pitch along what are essentially tramlines. It’s an absolute vintage classic, and you can still buy it in the 2020s.
- Fashion behind the Iron Curtain in the ‘70s and ‘80s mirrored the west in its tendency towards the garish – particularly the fascinating chunky knitwear.
- There was a veneer of normality, of everyday life, about everything, but behind the façade you could only enjoy the perks of life if you conformed. You had to be a good socialist and not rock the boat with Western-influenced counter-revolutionary rumblings of discontent.
See Also: Life Under Communism – What Was It Like?
Where Is The Retro Museum Prague?
Update: the exhibition at the Kotva department store is now closed. It is being moved to a new location in Prague 1 (Central Prague) – I will update the article further as soon as I have more details.
It’s a pity that the Museum had to move, as the Kotva building was such a great setting for it. The store was built during the Normalisation period. It’s a rare example of Brutalism in Prague architecture.
This genre of architecture is normally associated with vast blocks of concrete, but the Kotva is much lighter in effect, mainly consisting of steel and glass.
Getting To The Retro Museum Prague
The Retro Museum is very easy to reach. You can get there by Metro, stopping at Náměstí Republiky on yellow line B, or by tram (1, 6, 8, 15 and 26).
Otherwise, it’s around a 7-minute walk from either of the two main Prague squares, Old Town Square and Wenceslas Square. The Kotva building is across the street from the Palladium shopping centre.
Retro Museum Prague Opening Hours
It is open daily from 9 am to 8 pm. The Museum is provisionally open until January 2024. Once inside the Kotva building, you can either follow the sign to lift (Vytah) or go up floor-by-floor on the escalators. The Retro Museum is on floor 4.
Retro Museum Prague Tickets
Prices for the Retro Museum Prague are as follows:
- 220 CZK adults
- 175 CZK seniors and students
- 145 CZK children 5 and over
David Angel is a British photographer, writer and historian. He is a European travel expert with over 30 years’ experience exploring Europe. He has a degree in History from Manchester University, and his work is regularly featured in global media including the BBC, Condé Nast Traveler, The Guardian, The Times, and The Sunday Times. David is fluent in French and Welsh, and can also converse in Italian, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Czech and Polish.
Check out these other articles on Prague history:
- Prague World War 2 Sites – 15 Second World War Locations In Prague
- Visiting The Heydrich Assassination Site Prague
Also take a look at these places near the Retro Museum:
- Old Town Prague – 24 Must See Sights
- Municipal House Restaurant Prague – Dining In Palatial Art Nouveau Style
- Cubist Museum Prague – discover Cubism in the only city in the world were Cubism went beyond the canvas
- Mala Strana Prague – Baroque architecture, gardens and cobbled streets in Prague’s Lesser Quarter
- Holešovice Prague – cross the river to one of the coolest parts of town
- Vltava River In Prague – 37 places to see along the river