News

The Continental Cup, the third largest athletics competition after the Olympic Games and the World Cup, will be held in Ostrava on 8 and 9 September. The best of the world’s athletes will be competing in Ostrava for two days. The Continental Cup is a reward for our city for the successful organization of sports events such as the World Ice Hockey Championship, the European Table Tennis Championship, the Davis Cup and the Fed Cup, the Golden Spike and more.

On Wednesday 15 October the City of Ostrava took part in a bilateral meeting with members of a Taiwanese delegation visiting the Czech Republic. The aim of the meeting was to present Ostrava as an excellent location for business and investment.

Cyclists are now able to use almost 5 kilometres of newly opened cycle routes in the heart of Ostrava, from Muglinovská Road to the footbridge near the Silesian Ostrava Castle. In the period 2013–2015 Ostrava plans to build a further 51 kilometres of cycle routes, creating a direct unbroken link between the city and the Beskydy mountains to the south.

New buildings at the Ostrava Science and Technology Park Ostrava’s Science and Technology Park currently has two buildings (Piano and Tandem), offering around 5 500 m² of leasable space. Both buildings are regularly full to around 96–100 % of capacity, and the Park is no longer able to meet demand for larger premises. This is not only an obstacle to the Park itself; it is also preventing the region from fulfilling its strong potential for innovative business and enterprise.

In June of this year, Ostrava was nominated to be European City of Sport 2014. Mayor Petr Kajnar welcomed the decision: “It is a great honour for us to join the family of European cities of sport. We will be holding a wide variety of exciting sports events, which will encourage both citizens and visitors to take an active part in sport. Increased visitor numbers will also bring tangible benefits to our local economy, so the title is good news all round for the tourism and services sector – not only in Ostrava, but throughout the region.”

From May 2013 to the middle of 2014, thousands of new trees will be planted in Ostrava – lime trees, maples, plane trees, oaks, birches, and various types of bush and shrub, all of which will help to reduce atmospheric pollution levels. The planting will take place as part of four separate projects, and will cost a total CZK 37 286 000. The majority of the cost (90 %) will come from EU funding, with the rest provided from the City’s budget. Thanks to a public tender announced by the City, the final cost will be almost 60 % lower than originally anticipated.

On 9 May Ostrava’s Cinestar cinema hosted the premiere of the film Isabel, with Petra Lorencová (from the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre) in the title role. The film tells the story of a young and ambitious yet naïve journalist who suddenly finds herself in a perilous situation. At a press conference in Ostrava, the directors Lukáš Melník and Marcel Škrkoň talked about their new film, which takes place on the boundary between the real world and a world of vampires.

Thursday 16 May saw the opening of the largest congress centre in North Moravia and Silesia at Ostrava’s Clarion Congress Hotel. The ceremony was attended by many VIP guests including the Deputy Mayor of Ostrava Martin Štěpánek and the Mayors of Ostrava’s Municipal Districts Vítkovice and Ostrava-Jih Petr Dlabal and Karel Sibinský.

Ostrava’s new supercomputer, the centrepiece of the IT4Innovations project, has been given an illustrious name from Ostrava’s past – Anselm. The ‘christening’ ceremony took place on Friday 24 May at the VŠB-Technical University of Ostrava, and was attended by the Education Minister Petr Fiala, the Regional President Miroslav Novák, the Mayor of Ostrava Petr Kajnar, the MEP Evžen Tošenovský, the Rector of the University Ivo Vondrák, and the Director of IT4Innovations Martin Palkovič.

FILM OSTRAVA!! is a project which aims to attract filmmakers to the region. As part of the project, a new website www.filmostrava.cz has been launched. The project presents and promotes Ostrava as an ideal filmmaking destination that is filmmaker-friendly and that abounds with unique and original locations.

Road closure of half of an important transport hub began on Friday the 13th January. Due to the reconstruction of the South Svinov bridge it will be closed until mid-August.

VSB-Technical University of Ostrava (VSB-TUO) and University of Ostrava (OU) began merging. The process should be finished in 2015. The name of the new educational institution has not yet been selected. Ministry of Education will fund the first phase of the project with 40 million CZK. Universities of Ostrava are the first universities in the country, which are merged.

Ostrava Zoo, which is certainly one of the most attractive city funded organizations, celebrates its sixtieth birthday. It was opened on the 26th October 1951, first in the Kunčičky district, near the Alexander mine. Two years later, a search for suitable new habitat began. Choice fell on Stromovka in Silesian Ostrava, where we can find it today. New ZOO spaces were opened here in 1960.

Employees of Ostrava city communications are ready to fight the masses of snow on the roads of Ostrava in the forthcoming winter. The first test they passed in mid-October, when they had to eliminate ice on the bridges. Winter Maintenance Plan anticipates that the snow removal and maintenance of road conditions will be the same as last year, handled with the "rayon-zone" way. In practice this means that the selected technology will be used for maintenance of specific sections of roads.

Representatives of mounted police from the entire Czech Republic, Poland and this year also from Italy, competed together on Saturday 27 August in the ​​Orchards of Comenius area at XIV.Annual International meeting of mounted police driving in three competition disciplines - show jumping, jumping, mirror jumping and the main discipline, the police jumping. On behalf of Ostrava city, the sports action launch and evaluation participated the Deputy Mayor Ales Bohac.

At the start of the season, the National Moravian-Silesian Theatre is inviting for the open day under the name Antonín Dvořák Theatre open from head to toe; in Sunday, the 4th September. From 10 to 16.30 o'clock the theatre facilities will offer open ballet lesson for children with parents, under the title Chief technical magic you can also taste the job of working engineers, lighting and other stage equipment.

City of Ostrava’s Archive starts from the 5^th September the annual exhibition in the foyer of Ostrava City Hall, which is called Corporate header this time devoted to the treasures of commercial graphics. Its content is characterized by the contemporary slogan "The company will introduce best - postcards, header." The exhibition will be presented a small commercial graphic creations, which were made by order from the 19th century to the 40th of the 20 century.