Week 22: Our Neighborhood

Nov. 30, 2022

I realised that after all of the information about the house, I haven’t actually talked about the neighborhood, the village or even Brno so I thought I would start by sharing a little bit of information about our neighborhood.

Our situation is quite unique for Czech Republic in that neighborhoods don’t often exist as we think of them in US. In most villages, growth happens in a very predictable way. The villages grow one house at a time and each new house is often on the very edge of the village, right next to the last house.

This means that villages here are clustered together and basically, farmland becomes zoned residential as the houses are built. While there are some exceptions, like forest cabins, most villages grow this way and one of the reasons for this is the infrastructure. By doing this, the electric, water, sewer and gas (if it exists) only has to be extended from the last house to the new one. The infrastructure is much more condensed.

Neighborhoods are becoming more common these days, at least in more heavily populated areas like Brno and Prague, however even our neighborhood is different from my previous building experiences. When I had my house built in Arizona, the entire subdivision was owned by one builder, who then sold individual lots and let you choose your floor plan. Our neighborhood is nice in that rather than do that, each person bought their lot and then was responsible for finding their own builder. We had some fairly strict building requirements, mainly having to do with the fact that the village wanted to maintain a more traditional feel.

Unfortunately (from my perspective) there is a trend for very modern houses in Czech Republic that look like big white boxes and the village thankfully wanted to keep those out. So while we had many options, we did have to meet requirements about roof pitches, house colours (no flourescent!) and height but nothing too egregious.

But the best thing about this plan is that while all the houses are cohesive in a more tradition nature, they area also nicely unique because everyone brought their own floor plan and builder.

And so, this is our neighborhood as it is today…a work in progress!

I’m including some aerial views but they are pretty old, so you’ll see that houses are in vastly different states than they show on the maps.

Our Lot

This is an aerial view of our lot. You can see the well (the round thing about 1/3 of the way in from the left) and the orchard with the trees off to the right.

Our property goes from the street back to the tree line which is about 1/2 acre. This is a big lot by Czech standards.

The Village

So this is our village, Železné. A bit on Czech pronunciation here. The first syllable in Czech is always stressed. Ž is pronounced like the s in treasure. An accent over a letter, such as é means that the letter is held for roughly 70% longer than a short e. Also, e and é are not pronounced like an eeee, but rather more like the e in elephant. Enough about that. I’ll say it for you after you ask for a refresher in how to say our last name! :D

Železné is a village with about 500 inhabitants which is 22 km (14 mi) from Brno and 167 km (104 mi) from Prague.

In the picture below, our lot is between the blue lines. We have access to public transportation if needed. The nearest bus stop is where the pink arrow is and the nearest train station is about 3km away in Tišnov. If we wanted to, we could be in the city center via public transport (bus and train) in under an hour. The cost one-way is a little bit less than $2.

It’s a super cute village, with a small pub which we haven’t actually been to yet because it’s only open in the evenings when we usually aren’t there but we are looking forward to visiting.

The Surrounding Area

The nearest large town to Železné is Tišnov, 3km (2 mi) with a population of about 9,000 people. This is where our train station is, several grocery stores and shops.

You can see where we live (blue dot), the bus station (pink) and the train station is where the red arrow is, about 3km away.

The Region

Zooming out again, you can see where we are (blue dot) in relation to Brno, about 22km to the northwest. You can see again where the train station is in Tišnov (red arrow) and the train line (purple arrow) runs along the highway for the most part directly into the city center (red arrow).

The Neighborhood Map

Well, here’s the same map but I added in a key of the photos that I took and the direction they are facing to make it more clear. As you compare the photos below to the map, you can really see how much building has happened.

The orange marker is sort of the center of the back of our property. You can’t see it but the back corner of the property is in the woods behind it.

It’s hard to tell in this photo, but there is path that runs directly behind our property into the woods.

This photo is from the same point, but just turned around. This is a continuation of the path which leads directly into the center of village. You can also see the puppy exploring with Stano.

In the background, you can see Tišnov.

A little bit past our house (red arrow) up our street. Stano and puppy are showing off their skills and trying to fool you into think that she’s well-behaved and trained.

This is at the end of our street. The first house on the left and the houses on the right are already being lived in. Some of the lots, like the ones that you can see the edges of in the front are still unbuilt.

This is looking down over the neighborhood toward the village with Tišnov in the background. The houses are in varying states of completion, but for the most part, the houses were built from the front of the neighborhood to the back.

This is the intersection nearest our house. All of the intersections in the neighborhood are made of brick and slightly raised to slow cars down. You can see some more houses that are already complete and some more lots (left) that haven’t been built on yet.

Stano and puppy are continuing to pretend that she is well-behaved on a leash.

This is the same intersection, just facing our house this time.

Continuing down the street, you can see some more completed houses (the one on the right was only recently finished) and the empty lots beyond it.

Continuing through the neighborhood, you can see in the distance the village Kindergarden. This was only built a few years ago, around the time when the neighborhood was approved.

More homes in varying states of completion.

Continuing on, this is an intersection on the main road into the neighborhood. You can see a corner of our roof hiding behind the other homes.

This is the same intersection, just facing again toward the school.

This is the Kindergarden and its playground. To the left is the future location for the village Culture House. (A central meeting place in most villages.) It will replace an existing one that is in the center of the village.

These next 3 photos are related to the founding of Czechoslovakia in 2018. In 2018, there were 100 linden (lípa) trees planted across Czech and Slovak Republics.

Below shows the outline of the former Czechoslovakia. The two left segments are present day Czech Republic, the middle one is Slovakia and the one to the far right is present day Ukraine.

This is the linden tree.

This sign says:

Linden No. 84

100 Lindens

Planted for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the republic

This is a sidewalk that passes through the neighborhood that connects to the main village sidewalk for access to the school.

This is the same sidewalk on the other end.

This is the first street and house you see when you enter the neighborhood.

And this is the entryway to the neighborhood! It’s still a definite work in progress but things continue. I’m not sure what the final plan is for the space immediately to the right and left of the entry way. Currently it is home to piles of dirt and weeds but I think the town will take ownership of it when the construction is done and I feel like I saw a map somew