Ing., Arch. Anna Hostičková

“Well, we went to bed and a phone call woke us up at two o´clock in the morning. And a complete stranger who probably mistook the phone number was calling. I am not sure. He was probably upset and was stammering a bit and I thought at first that he was drunk. So, I (told) that poor guy who said: ‘For Christ, it must be a mistake. But so that you know, the Russians invaded us!‘ And I responded: ‘Please, go and get some sleep and leave working people alone.‘ I apologized to him many times from a distance for thinking he was drunk. Even though I do not know who he was.”

“On the one hand, there was my subconscious desire to become independent. I studied in my home town contrary to my many schoolmates. I never lived in a hall of residence, and I never ate in the school cafeteria because I had my mum who took care of everything at home. I studied without worries. Well. I tutored. I tutored little children in maths to make some money for my needs because we did not get pocket money. You had to somehow deserve it during the holidays. Well, I deserved it during the school year by tutoring in maths. I taught children to draw parallel lines and so on. They paid me seven crowns per hour, it was an amazing part-time job back then.”

“We did not take it badly. Firstly, we did not move far away and secondly, it was a huge adventure for us children because our parents borrowed a two-wheel hand truck from their friend who was a room painter and we moved everything, including my father´s piano on it. And little punks from Štěpánská Street were shouting at us: ‘Comedians are coming, there will be a circus!‘ Because a guitar, violin, all those musical instruments... They might have thought there would be a festival or something like that.”