Dateline: 4 April, 2023

When people told me that Americans have difficulty adapting to shopping in Prague, I simply had to see it to believe it. And my goodness, after living here for nearly a year, this Sunday morning marked quite another saga in this interesting and unexpected adventure.

First, a little background: Since the breakup of the Warsaw Pact in 1989, when the former Soviet block countries dismantled the total control of a state-owned economy in their respective countries, the result has been, how shall we say, mixed? Here’s just a list of a few unusual things I’ve had to adopt to when shopping for food and other necessities:

Variety is a luxury, as is consistency. I’ve lived in three different neighborhoods since my arrival in Prague last summer, and only one neighborhood grocery store had the exotic food item known as tofu. Tofu! Sure, if I lived in Vinohrady or Little Hanoi, tofu would be easier to find, but the rest of Prague hasn’t really caught on to such cosmopolitan cuisine. But there’s always an abundance of Pilsner and Budvar!

However, not everything in the supermarket is as consistently stocked as Prague’s prestigious piva. For example, the Tesco in Hradčanska has chickpeas but not baked beans. The Tesco in Anděl has baked beans but not chickpeas. Same store, different neighborhood. In other words, American expats can forget about one-stop shopping or simply narrow their tastes.

But that’s just food. Another thing that is interesting is that drugstores don’t sell drugs. Seriously. There is no pharmacy in any drugstore. Picture CVS or Walgreen’s without any food in the front or pharmacy in the back. But you’ll see plenty of cosmetics and vitamins! Anyone in need of any actual medicine will have to go to a Lékérna, which, in and of itself isn’t particularly problematic, but it raises the question: Why call your store a drogerie when you don’t sell any drugs?

I’ve navigated this new environment without much difficulty (and it helps that I’ve had local Prague person helping me obtain groceries since September), but today’s adventure at the local Billa seemed worthy of commemoration.

I promptly arrived at the Petřiny Billa at 8 am to purchase a few staples: rolík, mléko, Budvar, and soap. Yes, soap. I filled my basket with the food and drink that I needed, but when I walked to the health and beauty isle, one item was conspicuously absent.

Of course, it was soap. Even though they had every other health and beauty product known to humankind, every variety of shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, toothbrush, hand creme, shaving cream, and face cream, somehow the most essential cleanliness product of all was completely absent from the shelves. So if I wanted soap this morning, I would have needed to go the the drogerie. And yes, as you can see in the photo, this supermarket even had a supply of pre-fabricrated pomlázka whips for Easter Monday.

For the unitiated, the pomlázka is a whip constructed from willow branches, which boys are supposed to go out into the forest and construct by hand, after which they return to whip the girls. This annual Easter Monday dates back to pagan times, and somehow has managed to last in our present, 21st century. Many Czechs believe, as their ancestors did, that whipping women with the “stick of youth” endows her with health and fertility. In fact, the word “Pamlazka,” roughly translated from old Czech into English, means “stick of youth.” This springtime tradition is restricted solely to Easter Monday. So of course, today my neighborhood Prague supermarket had this nugget of ancient superstition in its healthy and beauty aisle (Na zdraví!) but not soap!

Fortunately, my bathroom isn’t completely empty at the moment, so my trip to the drogerie can wait for another time. So I left without soap, and of course, without the Pomlázka. Not to brag, but I think there are other ways to stay forever young.

Until next time, Na zdraví!

*This article has been edited from its original form to more properly reflect the true origin of the Czech word, “pomlazka.””