Eva sends greetings from the Czech Republic with this card from Stříbro, a town about 20 km from her home. She tells me that the name of the town comes from the Czech word for “silver”; the town was settled as a mining town in the 13th Century.

At first I had some trouble learning more about the town, not realizing that the town’s name morphed into Stříbra on the front of the card, being the object of the sentence. But ultimately I was able to find out that, outside of the Czech Republic, the town was historically referred to by its German name of Mies, after the river which runs through it. It’s also in the Pilsen region, from whence comes Pilsener beer. You can check out their municipal website, seemingly designed by a 12-year-old, or jump straight to their live webcam, which I have thoughtfully run through a translator.

That word hezký on the front of the card seems to be one of those catch-all words, like güzel in Turkish or nice in English. (There’s also another Czech word, pěkný, which seems to do the same thing.) A hezký den is a nice day, while a hezký muž is a handsome man.

This card was produced by Karel Thomayer, publishers of postcards and other non-periodicals.

For this week’s sortie into Postcard Friendship Friday, let us consider this photograph of friends.  Two of them are clearly soldiers, and the notation “1918″ puts them at the end of World War I.  But whence?

I puzzled over the origin of this card for quite a while.  First there was some ambiguity as to the handwriting on the back — the only clue whatsoever on this real photo postcard.  Tig lieu, perhaps?  Researching several permutations finally yielded success after I decided that the word was “Jiglau”.

It turns out that “Jiglau” is a variation on the spelling of Iglau, which is the German name for Jihlava, a city in the Vysočina Region of what is now the Czech Republic.  Its predecessor, Czechoslovakia or the Czechoslovak Republic, was created on October 28, 1918.  Previously, it had been part of Austria-Hungary.

Let us assume that two of these young men are newly minted Czech soldiers, and that the three of them are posing to celebrate the end of hostilities and the birth of a nation.

Be sure to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.

This card was sent to me by my friend Sue Eagan, from one of her many jaunts across Europe. It made it from Prague, Czech Republic to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA relatively unscathed. Plus, it has a really cool stamp attached.