Czech Castle a Mystery to New Occupants

Prague’s Hradcany Castle, an imposing and remote seat of power--first for Bohemian kings, then for hard-line Communists--is still something of a mystery to its latest occupants.

Vaclav Havel’s election as president of Czechoslovakia on Dec. 29 put a dozen dissident writers and artists into the massive baroque edifice, which dominates the city from a hilltop high above the Moldau River.

Eda Kriseova, one of Havel’s 12 advisers, described how after his election Havel went through the castle’s endless corridors saying: “What’s behind this door? It’s locked.”

“We’re exploring from the center outwards. I don’t think we’ve found all the rooms yet,” said Havel’s press secretary, Michael Zantovsky.

There has been a fortress on the site for 1,000 years. Until 1526 it was the seat of the kings of Bohemia. Then the region became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the capital moved to Vienna.

The castle has been the presidential residence since the Czechoslovak republic was declared in 1918.

Postwar Stalinist leader Klement Gottwald had a villa built in the grounds. Havel’s hard-line predecessor, Gustav Husak, also lived there, although he worked mostly from the Communist Party Central Committee building.

“It was like moving into a haunted castle,” Zantovsky said. “There were cobwebs everywhere.

“We found huge numbers of people working here. Some must have routine jobs like gardening and cleaning. Some must have other jobs but I don’t know what they are,” he said.

“I can tell you at times we laugh a lot.”

The new team has been in the castle only a few weeks and their brightly-lit offices still have a rather temporary air.

The walls are lined with still-empty shelves and there are cardboard boxes scattered around.

Telephones ring constantly and are often left unanswered. Young, casually-dressed assistants scurry from room to room.

There are even rumors in Prague that under the new, informal occupancy, staff use scooters to get around the building.

The castle’s views of Prague are fantastic, but the staff are not so delighted with the socialist-realist paintings inherited from Husak.

A painter friend of Havel went around galleries and studios borrowing paintings before a visit by French Culture Minister Jack Lang, an admirer of modern art.

Havel has his own bodyguards but the rest of the security staff are left over from the old regime.

“We think the ‘bugs’ are still here but we have the advantage that we don’t have too many secrets to keep,” Zantovsky said.

The advisers are old friends of Havel. “He wants to have people he knows next to him. He wants to work with people he trusts. We can’t abandon him and leave him on his own,” Kriseova said.

There is hardly a wall in Prague these days that does not have a poster of Havel, the dissident-turned-president who has become an international symbol of the country’s upheavals.

One of Zantovsky’s main tasks is to keep people away from Havel so he can get on with his work.

“The problem is that the president is a very kind man and when a journalist speaks to him at the theater or at a meeting and asks for an interview, he says yes and they come to me asking for the interview.

“But he is also a very busy man and tells me not to grant any interviews. I think we have just cleared the backlog of requests from during the revolution.”

The country’s first non-Communist president in more than 40 years faces a daunting task.

“He is president for only six months and in that time he must radically alter the political system,” Zantovsky said.

Havel has pledged to lead the country to free elections scheduled for June and then step down, although he has not ruled out running again.

“His main task is to build a new presidency,” Kriseova said. “He wants to make a new image, create a new role as president.”