Most

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This article is about the city. For the acronym, see MOST.

Statistics
Area:	86.9 km²
Population:	67,905 (2005)
Map
Image:Czech city Most.png

Image:Most flag.png Image:Most-emblem.gif

Most (German: Brüx) is a city in the northwest of the Czech Republic, in Ústí nad Labem Region. It is situated in the picturesque region of volcanic origin called Czech Central Mountains (Czech: České středohoří) approximately 77 km (48 miles) northwest of Prague along the Bílina River and southwest of Ústí nad Labem. The city's name means "bridge" in English.

Most is the heart of the northern Bohemian lignite-mining and important industrial railway junction. Industry in Most produces ceramics and important steel and chemicals. As environmental conditions have improved in recent years, the growing of apples and grape vines has developed.

As a young city Most does not have many historical sights, yet there are two important ones: Gnevin Castle and the Gothic Church. On the other hand there are many amusement facilities that can be visited: planetarium, observatory, autodrome, aquadrome or hippodrome.

1 History
2 Recent city
3 City districts
4 Famous People
5 Neighboring cities
6 References
7 External links

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History

The Latin Chronica Boemorum mentions a Slavic settlement below the Gnevin Castle (Czech: Hněvín) called Gnevin Pons (Czech: Hněvínský most) in 1040. Through the swamps there led a merchant route from Prague to Freiberg. The network of wooden bridges was built to provide comfortable passages through this territory. Hneva from the Hrabisic dynasty established a military stronghold to protect caravans. Under this stronghold the village that would become Most developed.

In 1227 Kojata, the last of the Hrabisics, passed his property to the cloister of the Knights of the Cross. Since 1238 the royal town was owned by the Přemyslids and it became a rich city with many churches. Kings Otakar II, John of Luxembourg, and Charles IV all granted Most city rights. In the 14th century, due to colonization the city became predominantly German.

During the 15th and 16th centuries the city was hit by several fires. About 1517, city reconstruction began the foundations of several significant facilities, including the new dean's church and the Rennaisance city hall.

During the Thirty Years' War, the city was occupied by Swedish troops.

The German-speaking population of the city largely fled before the Red Army during World War II.

In the 1970s, the town was completely relocated due to the expansion of the open-pit lignite mines, thus completely destroying the old town with almost all of its historical sights. However one of these was preserved— the medieval Gothic Church of St. Mary was moved to the new town with painstakingly slow process of roughly 1 meter per day to its new location. This building was once mentioned in Guinness Book of Records as the heaviest building ever moved on wheels.

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Recent city

Nowadays (2005), Most is said to be one of the darkest cities of the Czech Republic. During the communist era it turned to dusty and dirty miner town. The mining itself has long tradition in the area. Extensive mining operations are continuing after the year 2000, but now completely under control of foreign corporation. Many surrounding villages are planned to be abandoned due to surface mining.

The city of Most is known for its huge share of people living in panelaks. The decimated environment along with urban development has given the city a depressing feeling. On the other side the concentration of population in the flats enabled remarkable development of informational technologies. For example the cable television project functional in 1988 was something unusual for any city in Czech Republic. Now many people have access to the broadband internet at prices well below average in the Czech Republic.

The new city is well designed, especially the infrastructure and traffic situation is quite good in comparsion with cities of similar size. The social situation of local people is bad. With unemployment rate of nearly 25% (2005) the locality far the worst in the Czech Republic. This number is caused by huge workforce of aging unqalified miners. Also flat accommodation is quite cheap so it pushes more unemployed people from other regions to live there and raising the number.

A bright side is that Most, due to heavy social and EU funding and the development of local business and industry, is beginning to recover.

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City districts

The well-known area of Rudolice (Chánov) was created during communist era to separate Roma (Gypsies) out of society. It has become a completely devastated ghetto.

Vtelno used to be a village near Most. When the new city was built near it, Vtelno became an integral part of Most. It has a church, a historical Baroque manor, and many monoliths and sculptures that have been collected during an era of demolition of villages in the region (due to coal mining).

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