The origin of the Czech people in Vienna

Hey guys!

Have you ever heard the expression „Ziegelbehm“ before? No? Because it’s actually a big part of the Austrian history.

In the late 19^th century Vienna needed people to work on the Ringstraße boulevard and most of those people came from the Czech Republic. They were quite important for the Austrian economy because they helped to build a big part of the magnificent buildings you can now admire all over Vienna. But those people had to live quite a rough life, which was mostly caused by the conditions they had to live under (there were often too many people living in houses not even having toilets or anything close to a bathroom).

They were discriminated by people and assimilated really quickly even though 
400 000 out of the 1,6 million Viennese inhabitants were Czechs.

Pivothek - the home of Czech national drink in Vienna

I was given the instruction to go to one of the many Viennese pubs. But because this blog should connect and find the connections between Vienna (or whole Austria) and Czech Republic and Slovakia, it wasn’t just any ordinary pub. This pub is called Pivothek -  a combination of the words pivo (means beer in Czech) and –thek which signals the collection of something. And they actually have a collection of not well-known (at least not worldwide) Czech beers, for example names like Svijany, Bernard, Lobkowitz, Primátor or Postřižinské pivo – a product of the famous brewery, which was featured in the well-known Czech movie Postřižiny. Many of these sounded familiar to me, even if I’m not a big fan of beer. You can get most of them in supermarkets in the Czech Republic or Slovakia, but if you’re not anywhere near, Pivothek is a good alternative. So when you’re up for drinking a beer, don’t forget to stop at Landstraßer Gürtel 19 – just a few minutes from Vienna Main Station. And of course, leave a comment - which one of their beers is your favorite?