No good footholds here
This story begins without a home
I want to tell you guys of a tour that I went on in Ostrava in the Czech Republic
A new company called Pragulic is brand-new to the Ostrava area
Pragulic is a social enterprise and
we try for six years already to change how people
see homelessness
W hire homeless people, we train them, and we employ them as tour guides in the streets of the city
we have operations in Prague and we recently launched in Ostrava and other cities in the Czech Republic
The problem of homelessness is quite big
we have 68,000 homeless people in the whole Republic and they've been quite overlooked by society and
the social system is not really helping them much and by doing doing these tours guided by homeless people
this topic really gets a lot of attention
Julek was our guide and what he wanted to do was tell about his life, his upbringing
About how he grew up in an orphan house, about how he got arrested, sent to prison for a few years, and ended up homeless
For two and half years, I slept outside and
then for five years I slept whenever I could. Like, by my friends or somewhere where it was possible
Julek also wanted to let us know about the Gypsy community In Ostrava
kind of their history in the city,
where they live, because they basically live in a ghetto that sits in between
the railroad tracks and the main highway
since they've been their society is kind of forgotten about them
and that little part of the city that they're in
The city kind of left them out of everything. Almost let them govern their own selves
But he also told us of some of the good that's happening there.
Like the Catholic nuns that make food for the homeless that need it
Which brings us here
It's a row of abandoned buildings right at the end of the ghetto
So in the early 1900's these apartment buildings were built to
house workers for the industrial part of Ostrava
you know, the workers that were in the coal mines and the rail yards
In 1997 a huge flood happened. It caused a lot of damage to these places
So some people moved out then but change of ownership and poor management
Just led to kind of a snowball effect of problems for this place. More and more people moved out
The places became neglected, eventually abandoned completely
And of course you had your squatters, your homeless people, but they were eventually kicked out by police maybe a few years ago
And now it's just here
Lonely. Quiet...
We were told look around at your own risk, and there is a lot because there's not much that's stable here
The light fixers are still here
but the ceiling fell down
No good footholds here.
Oh gosh.
I'm gonna hurt myself eventually
It seems like you can see some of the remains of squatters
Wow
There's people's furniture that was left here
Lots of big holes in the ground, I don't know what they were for
What is this?!
Looks like a freaking car that's been pulled apart into bits.
Yeah, this is a dashboard. What the heck?
It's dark down here
Ceiling's pretty low in much of this basement area
A lot of electrical wire
I'm guessing that was the bathroom. toilet seat there.
Oh man. this door is charcoal now
somehow that got burned
You can still see some people's personal effects
That's a hat
Sock
Stocking hat maybe... Curtains
Half a room of furniture
Given the state of the other buildings. It seems like this one is in the best shape
Because the floors are still intact
The other ones, the floors are just collapsed, ceilings are collapsed.
it does make me really nervous
that this could collapse at any moment too
I wonder if there's a roof I can get onto. I'm climbing up these stairs to find out
Oh!
shoot
Looks like that is right about to cave in. Gosh
So that pretty much concludes our tour. I have to say this is certainly the first tour of this kind that I've ever done
I really haven't done anything else even close to this before.
it is very interesting and very unique.
I don't even know what to call this type of tour or tourism
The main point of this isn't to highlight the rough parts of this city or any other city
I think the main point is to raise awareness of what goes on behind the scenes of industrial cities
Maybe even in your city there are similar situations to this
Let me know in the comments what you thought of this tour
and if you would take a tour like this to inform yourselves a little better of
what goes on on the other side of the tracks, so to speak
Tell me your thoughts in the comments below. I'd really like to hear what you think
if you're ever in the Czech Republic, look into Pragulic
I'm going to link them in the description below so you can have more information on them
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Catch y'all later