First Prague Cold-Water Swimming Club

We are starting the new cold-water swimming season with something new that could make training together more enjoyable and help us keep track of it. Members of the First Prague Cold-Water Swimming Club are beginning to use the Czech app JSEM TU! In one place, they can find the schedule of meet-ups, confirm their attendance and keep a personal cold-water swimming diary. The app is free, and swimmers from other clubs, smaller groups and people who swim on their own are welcome to try it too.

Our traditional event combining a volunteer work party, a time-trial swim and a campfire began at 15:00, although the first volunteers were already gathering twenty minutes earlier. The undisputed hero of the day was Vašek Zahradník. Not only was he the only one to bring a chainsaw, oil and a can of petrol, which kept several more of us busy too, but after all that hard work, with sweat pouring off him, he still proved himself an excellent swimmer. I can vouch for that: he finished a minute ahead of me…

UPDATED 6 October 2026 — This article now includes a series from Czech Television’s travel programme Objektiv, covering our members’ journey through Kyrgyzstan described below.

Kyrgyzstan is a Central Asian country over which several powers are competing at once. Traditionally, there is Russia, which includes the country in its military and political alliance, the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty Organization, also known as the Tashkent Pact), and in the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) trading bloc. Then there is China, which shares a border with Kyrgyzstan and has its sights on the Silk Road countries. Turkey is another contender, with close linguistic and religious ties: both languages belong to the Turkic family. I discovered just how similar they are when I tried to show off my basic Kyrgyz and was mistaken for a Turk — probably because of my accent.

As usual, our club’s first event of the new year was the traditional cold-water swimmers’ baptism, held this time on Sunday 4 January 2026. Open to the wider cold-water swimming community, it took place near our Braník clubhouse in an icy wind and the bracing 2.2°C waters of the Vltava.

Club chairman Tomáš Prokop baptised several dozen swimmers from a beautiful glass goblet, filled to the brim with Vltava water and topped up with ice cubes. First in line were Vojta and Lucka, who married on the very day this article was published. From today, they therefore share the wonderfully fitting surname ‘Láska’ — Czech for ‘love’. Congratulations to them and to everyone who took part in the baptism!

Our traditional pre-summer triple event took place on Sunday 22 June 2025. This time, thoughts of our friend and fellow club member Luboš Baláš were with us throughout. He had not returned from his regular Saturday training swim and was still missing.

The first part of the triple event was a working party led by Roman Hujer. Some members cleaned the clubhouse, while another group prepared firewood for the winter season.