Everyone who visited Prague saw the giant metronome set up above Chekhov Bridge . But few know the background of this picturesque place above Vltava, from which the entire Old Town opens as if on a palm . It turns out , in the mid-1950s a young sculptor Otakar Shvets was commissioned to design a monument not to anyone, but to the leader of the communist people Joseph Stalin . The author tried his best and the works were completed on time: on May 1, 1955 . solemnly opened the monument to the secretary general , it became the largest th sculpture in the city, which is no wonder, given the tastes of those times .

Behind the leader in a dense array with soulful faces stood the masses, who waited and believed that they would lead to a brighter future, which, incidentally, did not happen. The opening of the monument was pompous - Khrushchev was invited and the entire top of the Czechoslovak authorities at that time.

Then, as we remember, the famous XXth party congress took place, at which the debunking of the "cult of personality" was announced and monuments around the USSR began to be dismantled . To Prague this innovation only came in 1962 ., Stalin's comrades were razed to the ground, and the entrances to the underground premises under the base of the sculpture were scored with boards . That did not prevent the detached youth from arranging a rock club there, and later a radio station called " Radio Stalin ». So she would live herself that m, if not held in the country the General Czechoslovak Exhibition 1991 g . It was to her opening and it was decided to establish over Vltava a giant metronome, the author of which was the sculptor Vratislav Karel Novak . Initially it was assumed that the metronome will stand temporarily, however flaunts there and to our days . Counting the inexorable run of time and reminding all tourists and residents of the city that nothing lasts forever .