NATURISTA.CZ

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The first English summary of Naturista - December 9, 2006

Vložil JirkaRybka, 9. Prosinec 2006 - 1:31

Along with many new features, Naturista.cz set up a new English-section lately. Although the almost-whole website is in Czech, the aim is to help also the visitors who are not familiar with our language, by releasing more-or-less regular English summaries of the past content. Today, I decided to create the first one, as to get the tradition going.

But where to begin? The original website started quite a few yeras ago, soon becoming the number-one site on Czech naturism, gathering more and more interesting content – but technically it was, roughly said, just a plain hand-made HTML page, which proved itself a lot inflexible as both the amounts of contents and contributors increased. Although the site is running just on a non-profit community-web basis, with very few people behind it, the need for a modern web-magazine style arose gradually. Lately, Naturista.cz finished its greatest-ever change, which pretty much meant starting from scratch again, but it allowed us to have a lot of new powerful features, because we're running on the base of a sophisticated software (the Drupal CMS) now. This all explains a few specifics of today's content at Naturista.cz: Although the old site is still available, it cannot be found via the new search-engine, and direct linking is also quite rarely seen on the new system. All the old content should be moved manually to the new site, but no-one knows the time, and even possibility of finishing this tedious work. So, although some of the old content is available here, right now it's far from being all the content. You'll also see that some texts about the website itself are now mixed between true naturist-reports, but this is just a short-term phenomenon too.

Let's switch back to naturism now. Starting the very first summary of this website, I decided to begin with just one-year-old events, considering that older items are both hard-to-find and too-much-outdated now.

In Prague, the year 2006 started with a whole series of small naturist-events, done during the regular Wednesday's swimming sessions in the Nude-Pool at Vinohrady. Petr Malínek, who was in charge of these sessions, prepared quite a few events including the Czech traditional St.Nicholas day, the Christmas and New Year celebrations, all grouped in the middle of winter, with little sporty competitions, and a lot of fun, as described in the original Czech article.

By the end of January, naturist dance-party in Hradec Králové was the first of big events of the year. 3-hours party with music, body-painting, and much more, took its place in a great complex full of pools (one with wawes, another 50m long), sauna, whirpools, toboggan… Due to entrance-limitations, most of people inside were couples. The event was also reported in Czech press, as seen on the site.

Widely discussed on the website were the entrance-rules to Czech naturist-events in common. There are two major approaches: The first one is the philosophy of naturists seeking the maximum of freedom and tolerance, thus allowing everyone to attend (as long as no excesses occur). This is the case of the Prague's Nude-Pool, where no limits are set at the entrance. But however, it results in a visibly unbalanced gender-ratio, because women are generally less interested in social naturism. The second approach, mostly spoken by couples and families, is seeking relaxed feeling, accomplished by removing any disturbance-sources, such as single men (understood as being potential weirdos). This is the case of naturist-events in Hradec Králové: While couples and families appreciate the better feeling, single men are complaining constantly of discrimination. By the end of winter, the discussion-forum was quite full of this topic, and quite the same may be found in a separate article written by a couple who didn't like the Prague's Nude-Pool, and proposed some changes in the rules. Later, they organized their own event in Neratovice. A bit similar topic of decent behaviour on nude-beaches was turned into fun with another small article.

short report introduced a February's meeting of naturists from the club NTSC (naturist travel-agency) at Seč's lake. 22 people attedned this small friendly meeting in a hotel.

During the final part of winter, several articles were published to the topic of holiday-destinations visited by Czech naturists in the previous year: Portugal, Croatia – Krk island, Rhodos and Lefkada in Greece.

Another group of the articles focused onto the nature, which is closely related to the lifestyle of naturism: The photo-series The story of Sunflower, Visit to the Trees, and April's movements, as well as a link to ecology-article on water-quality for summer outdoor-bathing. A widely known Czech song brought a bit of fun to the long-lasting winter.

February 26 was the date of another great regular nude-event: The naturist-party of the Aquapark Babylon in Liberec, which is held regulary 6 times a year. This time, some changes occured, so the purely FKK party lasted from 8pm till midnight, with a live music in one of the halls, which unfortunately didn'd deal well with the acoustics of the place. These parties are the greatest in Czech, hundreds of people having fun in a complex of multiple halls with pools, whirpools, slides, streams, caves, toboggans including an adrenaline-bowl, fast-foods, quite a few saunas and much more. But also these parties are maybe too much chaotic, as some people say: Constantly there are problems with people taking unauthorized photos, or with textiles lasting inside from previous hours, the regular body-painting competition remains also regulary unnoticed by most people, no-one bothers to blind the windows from outside… The extreme of freedom is the time between 6pm and 8pm – everyone is allowed to be textile or nude, as he/she like. For a few it's a dream, for another a nightmare. But still, the parties in Liberec are great, causing a lot of people to travel even across the whole country. Also this event was reported in press.

About a month later, another event took its place in Hradec Králové again: The nude Carnival. It was pretty much similar to the January's naturist dance-party, with all the pools and wawes and body-painting etc., but that's no weak-point at all! Great events simply must be repeated, to be greatly enjoyed again and again.

The May started with a brand new nude-event in a small aquapark in Neratovice near Prague. Just like the events in Hradec Králové, also Neratovice rejected all single men from the pool-entrance. No wonder – this is the event done by a couple, who didn't like Prague's Nude-Pool, as mentioned above. The report on Neratovice is rather short, but it's pretty clear that none of pool, toboggan, body-painting, or competitinos was missing.

A few articles informed about new and not-so-new nude-places in Czech: A tiny nude-beach in Uherský Brod, nude-pool in Jilemnice, recovered nude-beach at Velké Dářko, and constantly improving Opaťák by Hradec Králové.

The naturists from around the Hradec Králové (gathered in their SK Oplatil-club) started their outdoor-season with a traditional nude-run at their favourite nude-beach, which went almost unnoticed here on the website.

The begin of June brought the WNBR-day (World Naked Bike Ride) also to Prague. This is not a traditional form of naturism, but still Naturista.cz presented a report on the Prague's ride, written by one of the participants.

Soon after the ride, another unconventional nude-event occured in Prague: The night outdoor-nude-walk To the spirit of the night. Only 7 persons were brave enough to challenge the dark and chilly night, during 6km of nude-walking through the woods. The reward was an unique experience and feeling of being free and in touch with the nature, together with the dreamy atmosphere of the night. The event was repeated once more some 2 months later.

Short articles announced the 60th birthday of mr.Hájek, a well-known Czech naturist running his own travel-agency, and the very first phase of re-building the website Naturista.cz.

June ended with another outdoor-event done by naturists of Hradec Králové – The Solstice, which consisted of different games, competitions, and friendly talks by the fire. Due to the limited capacity of the place, these events are not so widely announced, to avoid overcrowding.

The end of June was also the end of Prague Nude-Pool's season, which was the last one with Petr Malínek in charge. No-one is able to run these activities forever, and mr.Malínek left a good piece of work behind him, before leaving. The question of the Nude-Pool's future was discussed, and solved by three new organizers for the next season.

In July, two articles reported on naturism in Czech press, and were shown also at Naturista.cz: How to become a Nudist and Tips for the best Czech nude-beaches.  

new series of articles started, in which Captain Wolf tells the stories from his trips around the world – The Captain's Diary (Introduction, Venezuela, childhood and boats on Elbe). Another trip-reports on holiday-destinations also appeared: Croatia – Cres – FKK Baldarin, Croatia – Sovinje, and a kind of warning about disappeared nude-beach in Primošten – Croatia.

The summer was – of course – full of outdoor activities, catching the tan at nude-beaches, swimming and sports… Another a bit unconventional event was reported at Naturista by the end of July: Naturists on a river!. And soon afterwards, the Summer's birthday.

Indoor activities are always a bit quiet in the summer, when everybody prefer outdoor fun, but still, the Naturist-parties in Liberec are held regulary. (The April's and June's parties went almost unnoticed, just a few comments in discussions reported it to be „as good as always“.) The August's party was a bit empty, if compared to other times, but still good.

With the start of September, a new season came to the Prague's Nude-Pool, with the brand new team in charge. The first meeting included a small water-throwing competition, catching colorful balls from the pool, some music and other fun. The regular Wednesday's swimming sessions then continued successfully on.

The end of summer was also the time for great changes on the website. A completely new system was installed and configured, then replaced with another one, and once more replaced with an even-better one…

None of us was experienced with this kind of work, so it all took a lot of time. The old website ran into some minor problems with quickly-outdating contents, and the new system was gaining its shape for months. We all had to learn a lot, to tune the configuration properly, a brand new original appearance was created etc. Occasionally, reports on this topic slipped between the other news during the rest of the year: The progress of New Naturista, Naturista's new skin, Naturista offers RSS. Today, the great and tedious work of moving all the old contents is still in progress, as well as submitting data into our brand new list of Czech nude-places with clickable map – currently, a special article asks all the Czech naturists for help with descriptions of their favourite beaches. A similar list for Czech saunas is about to begin soon. All that will be hopefully done in time, to help Czech naturists in the new season 2007.

But re-building the system wasn't the only activity! With the new features available, Naturista started Photo-competitions, where user-submitted pictures of beautiful nature and naturist-life are gathering votes… Eh, I'm sure that you know yourself, what's a competition! And the prizes are quite nice. The first competition Naturista's Summer competition finished already, but there's another one: The Autumn Walk, finishing by the end of 2006.

A short series of two articles (the second) described an interesting experience: One of the people around Naturista.cz found himself in front of a camera for a while, speaking about naturism for one of the major Czech television-channels.

The Helloween time came with three events. The first one was another of the great regular naturist-parties in Liberec. The article reports this event together with a trip to the surrounding nature, and gives attention especially to the music: The February's live music was moved to different places within the complex, replaced with a DJ, and further moved as the regular parties went by, but the result still seems to be a little poor. The October's party came with a loud DJ's production, that might be enjoyed by disco-style teens, but not by the wide range of quiet-loving Czech naturists. The second Helloween event was a part of Prague's Nude-Pool regular swimming session, with two small competitions (catching objects from the bottom of the pool, and throwing balls to a given target), and a special twilight atmosphere. The last of the three events was much bigger, again full 3 hours of wawes, toboggan, pools, body-painting and all these traditional activities of Hradec Králové's pool-complex. A very good end-point to the trio.

December started with the traditional Czech St.Nicholas Day at the Prague's Nude-Pool. The traditional trip of St.Nicholas accompanied by an Angel and the Devil, to give sweets and small gifts mostly to children, was transformed to a bit more naturistic style here, with another small competition, welcome-drink at the cash-desk, and a lot of fun of course.


This is the end of the #1 summary… The short overview of the year 2006 shown above is just a try to give you some clue about the contents of Naturista.cz, it's no way a complete report on Czech naturism! There are quite a few another activities in other regions, none of which is, sadly, reported to our website.

We're looking forward to the last events of the year: The St.Nicholas's Towel in Hradec Králové, Santa's First Try in Prague, and the regular Naturist-Party in Liberec.

Happy new year!
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