Fast confession – the Mayor of Prague 1 Oldřich Lomecký: I enjoy shooting and I shoot well!
Oldřich Lomecký has been the mayor of the city district of Prague 1 for eight years now. He endeavours to duly improve Prague 1 as possible, even at the price of conflict with his colleagues. But he guards his private life ferociously. He made a small exception for Luxury Life Prague and revealed how he enjoys spending his free time with his partner.
How did you come to politics from the field of electrical engineering?
Like everything in life, by chance. After building transmitters and working in the narrowly specialised field of television transmitters and metering technology, after development was completely halted in this country following the Velvet Revolution and only manufacture continued, I felt unfulfilled. I travelled to study abroad and I graduated from the Faculty of Economics, Marketing and Accounting to obtain additional education. I launched business activities, a period that lasted for six or seven years. I subsequently took the position of director of Tyrš House for family reasons and I gradually became manager and subsequently the first Deputy Mayor. At that time the Sokol organisation needed help, particularly in assuming management of Sokol facilities, and assuring property and material matters interconnected with legal issues. I think that I did a good lot of work and that the organisation was stabilised. The indebted organisation and the damaged Tyrš House became first-class.
In 2009 people who I was helping came to me because they were establishing the TOP 09 party. Their conservative ten commandments were very close to my ideology. They asked me whether I would like to join them in their activities, since I was already helping them. Even though I had never had anything to do with politics and I was fifty three at the time. I had a long and successful career behind me and after considering their offer I acknowledged that I could enjoy communal politics, on the contrary to nationwide politics. I was given the opportunity to choose my colleagues. And then we won the elections in Prague 1 for the first time, for the second time and I hope we will win for the third time.
And you really never desired to go into nationwide politics?
No, because I am a practical person and communal politics is about managing public assets, repairing the sewers and pavements, dealing with schools, pre-schools, social facilities and other practical items. I am truly a practician and not a theoretician who would be happy sitting in the Chamber of Deputies and arguing with political opponents. I really do not like debating, it bores me and you could say that I find it very unpleasant, which is why I never desired to take this direction and never will.
Don’t these colleagues from state politics try to interfere in your activities here in Prague 1?
Yes, we have disputes, because my practical solutions are sometimes in conflict with their all-encompassing political visions. You were right, because my sometimes regulative decisions, which also concern specific matters in Prague 1, are frequently in conflict with their visions about the general democratic right of everyone to be able to do everything. On the contrary, I say that the rights of one person end where the rights of another begin and we frequently argue about this. However, I can assure you that there has never been more than an attempt at influence. I am a very hard-headed and obstinate person and I have always managed to assert myself.
But that means you have to have a great number of enemies.
Yes, you are right – I have a lot of enemies. But I think this may not be a bad thing. A person who has no enemies, does not have any actual supporters. I believe that when you do something, you must incite emotions. I will use an old Czech proverb: “There is no-one who can please everyone.” This proverb has been true for centuries and I am convinced that it continues to apply today. How much people support or do not support me is decided democratically once every four years during the communal elections. I am actually looking forward to them so that I can test whether I am making the right decisions. I frequently make decisions, which I know are not popular, but which are necessary. I continue to believe that the citizens of Prague 1 are sufficiently well-educated and clever to understand that we often need these measures more than the all-encompassing and propagandistic talk about better tomorrows.
I feel that the citizens of Prague 1 are slowly disappearing from the centre due to airbnb. If there are any here, do you meet them? Do they know who you are?
It’s a slight cliché to say they are disappearing. I am a person brought up on mathematics and physics, so I can answer that you simply have to look in the register of citizens. The biggest slump in numbers occurred approximately eight years ago, when residential areas were transformed into commercial areas. We stopped this, the fall in numbers stabilised and Prague 1 has a population of 29,950 today. The trend has started to reverse a little and I can assure you that, as the mayor who welcomes newly born citizens, I have had the great pleasures of welcoming about 1,800 new citizens. It is true that of course people have problems with the negative points of living in the centre, such as increased noise due to tourists, but these are matters that do not have a simple solution. Airbnb must be dealt with by legislation, by law, as we dealt with Segways, which had to be legally defined and then an ordinance could be issued about them. I think that living in the absolute centre remains lucrative and has its value. Of course the people who live here must accept a specific higher level of noise and must be reconciled to the greater number of tourists. This means that we have to clean more and deal with parking and transport issues. But we try to maintain as many schools, pre-schools, senior homes, and investments into parks and into maintenance of housing funds as possible.
There are 30 thousand people here and I meet them, but not everyone has to agree with me. A significant number agree and those who disagree respect my opinions. But I am persistent and consistent, I do not change my opinions from day to day and I believe that this is important to them.
Apart from the fact that you welcome new young citizens, you also marry people. One of my friends is getting married and wanted you to officiate, but your schedule is apparently full for the entire summer. So I ask, what will your summer be like, will it all be about work?
There are other people for officiating over marriages, who have more time for this sort of thing. I try to fulfil requests when possible. Last year I officiated over the marriage of Mr Satoranský, who is our best NBA player, when he married Miss Mauerová and it was very interesting. If there are couples who want me personally to officiate over their marriage and not one of the councillors, and I can find the time in my schedule, then I am happy to do so. I think that this is also part of being the mayor of Prague 1, so I consider it an honour rather than a duty.
What about you and marriages, your wife and children? I have never read anything about your private life on Google.
I believe that everyone is entitled to their secrets, which they should be able to keep. I am not an exceptional person in regard to this, but I try to protect a specific area of my privacy, even if only with regard to the protection of those this concerns. Of course I respect the fact that I am a publically known person, and people are entitled to know more about me, but there are certain limits that should be maintained even for publically known people.
What do you enjoy doing when you are not being mayor?
My girlfriend and I sometimes go for a ride on scooter. We travel, a little randomly, through the Czech landscape, we visit friends or we sometimes manage to take the opportunity to combine something pleasant with something useful and we even visit friends from abroad on our trips. This frequently means Italy and we intend to travel to Denmark. I also have many friends in Iceland, which would also like to visit. And then there are trips in our country, because of the mobile phone, which can force me back home when someone sends me an SMS that something important is happening and the presence of the mayor is essential. And this happens quite frequently. It is sometimes difficult to leave for long and travel far.
Otherwise, our longer trips abroad lead to Austria and Germany for instance where we have affiliate organisations. Last year in summer I visited the mayor in Budapest, where the water sports championships were taking place, so we had the opportunity to see the most interesting things and we visited the most interesting places while being accompanied by the mayor. We combined our own holiday with maintaining contacts with the locations that Prague 1 has abroad.
What about you and sport?
I enjoy playing tennis and do so often and I also organise tournaments, for example the Mayor’s Cup, which interesting tennis players from the entire Czech Republic take part in, so that is my hobby and life-long love. I used to do a lot of sports, I played tennis and football, I canoed and you may find it surprising that one of the sports my girlfriend and I enjoy is shooting. Trap and skeet shooting is shooting at clay targets. This is rapid shooting, during which a clay target, a sort of orange plate, flies out and you have to shoot it quickly. We are members of one sports club, where we go shooting. We enjoy shooting and we shoot well. I even have several cups.
And one final question, are you willing to discuss matters or are you always convinced that your opinion is the right one?
Discussion is naturally a science. Sometimes discussions are about the fact that things should be different to the way I think they should be. And this is why I have them, and this is an example of the fact that I will accept advice. But it is difficult to advise me chiefly in fundamental maters where I feel that I am doing the right thing. However, there are many things that I do not have a set opinion on. I am someone who does not like people who immediately have a clear-cut opinion of things. This is proof of their stupidity, because you cannot be an expert on everything, You cannot have information about everything. It is logical that you frequently have to rely on information from people around you, accept this information, verify it, study the problem and then make a decision.
