Milena Jirušová

"I was a hockey fan, I never loved the Russians when we played them. When they came, the hatred was even greater. We were putting up signs, turning them towards Moscow, talking to them. Suddenly we knew Russian, we were telling them to get out. But they were complete morons, they told us they were at home. We told them they weren't at home, to go away. It was not pleasant." - "You figured that out quickly. You talked to the soldiers then?" - "We could do that, we even understood them, otherwise we didn't understand Russian, but this is what we could say. If you need to swear and send them somewhere, we knew how to do that. We rewrote the signs with chalk, turned them over. We were active, we knew what to do."

"We didn't mix communism with Sokol. We practiced at the Spartakiada, but it was a Sokol gathering. Because the old Sokols were doing it all anyway. You practiced for the Sokol idea. Whether it was called a Spartakiada or a Sokol gathering... It doesn't matter." - "I'll ask you about it in a minute, but when did you first practice?" - "1955. That was the first national Spartakiada. I've practiced at every one except 1975." - "Spartakiadas were stolen." - "The gymnasts who wre putting the exercise together were the old Sokol members. Nobody else did it."