I love Prague Masaryk Station 🤍 It evokes a melancholy and sentimentality similar to Shibamata Station, where Sakura tearfully sees off her brother, Tora-san... a good old station building in the capital of the Czech Republic.
"If you say that, it's all over!"
Tora-jiro Kuruma, rushing out of his family's grass dumpling shop, "Kurumaya," located on the approach to Taishakuten Temple, with a look on his face as if he were about to flip the dining table. His half-sister, Sakura, chases her brother to Shibamata Station, hands him some money from her purse for her "yakuza brother," and sighs, "You're such a fool, brother..." as tears well up in her eyes.
A small station building that reminds me of such poignant, famous scenes from the "Otoko wa Tsurai yo" (It's Tough Being a Man) film series stands right in the heart of Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.
From the majestic Vltava (Moldau) River flowing through the city, you take a tram, passing the Industrial and Trade Ministry building—which looks just like the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima—on your right, cross the bridge, and get off at the second stop to find the laid-back atmosphere of Republic Square (Náměstí Republiky). If you walk straight through the square in the direction you were heading, or just take the tram to the next stop, you will find Masaryk Station (Masarykovo nádraží), the terminal station that brings commuters from the suburbs to this prime location.
Despite its location right in the middle of the capital, it always drifts in a silent mode, just like Keisei-Shibamata Station in Katsushika Ward, Tokyo's downtown. I have long been possessed by the mysterious charm or magic exuded by this local terminal station that connects the heart of a small, former communist country with a population of only 10 million to its suburbs. In Czech, it is called "Masarykovo nádraží" (Masaryk's Station).
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Prague, I lived for about two and a half years in a hotel near IP Pavlova Station in the heart of the New Town, with a monthly contract of just €326. My work was always remote, the Czech language school under Charles University was online for a long time, and there were periods when dining in restaurants was prohibited, so I spent about three hours every day walking around, enjoying the beautiful "City of a Hundred Spires" when there were rarely any tourists.
Finally, once, on a snowy evening, I had the miracle of having the Charles Bridge, looking up at Prague Castle, all to myself... a moment of having a World Heritage site entirely to myself. On such journeys, my favorite place to stop by almost every day, listen to the sound of the piano, and take a breather was this Masaryk Station.
Prague Masaryk Station, which also appeared in the NHK BS "Station Piano" series, boasts the oldest station building in the city, a retro, solid reinforced concrete structure that opened in 1845 as "Prague Station." It is currently named after Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first president of the Czechoslovak Republic (in office: 1918-1935).
Even when I lived there, there was a "station piano" in a corner of the small, quiet station building that anyone could play. Commuters waiting for their trains home, young geniuses attending music conservatories in Prague, and even drunken homeless people who had lost their jobs and homes to COVID would freely play the keys, laughing off the sorrows of life just as brightly as Tora-san. "Despite all my struggles and efforts, another day of laughter and tears comes to an end." As the "Otoko wa Tsurai yo" series reached its final stages, the focus shifted to the romantic troubles and adolescent angst of Mitsuo, Sakura's only son and Tora-san's nephew. The role of chasing Tora-san to Shibamata Station, his tail now slightly less ferocious, was passed from mother to son. During those brief farewells, the moment I thought the uncle's stylish words had pushed his troubled nephew forward, he would receive a painful counter-punch. Their exchanges, which felt like a surreal yet heartwarming comedy sketch, were truly impressive.
Masarykovo nádraží, with a mood that would suit a scene from a Shochiku film, was a wonderful intersection of life where I could idly watch the slow human drama passing through—a public transportation hub where unpretentious people came and went—accompanied by the simple melodies spun by amateurs. The only drawback is that if an elite businessman in shiny leather shoes and a suit were to sit on a bench in the station and busily tap away at his laptop, it feels like some idle old guy like Tora-san might snap at him in Czech, saying, "Hey you! You're quite the intellectual, aren't ya!?"
In the summer of 2022, the city was covered in the same gentle warmth as before, as if the coronavirus had vanished from all of Europe. I could order a draft beer for about 250 yen at the attached restaurant, "Masaryčka," and until I finished that glass, I could entrust my heart to the free melodies echoing through the station building, enjoying the cheap luxury of heading home with a slight buzz from the beer and the piano.
Unfortunately, perhaps to avoid being caught up in the rowdiness of vagabonds, the Masaryk Station piano has now been relocated to the lobby of Václav Havel Airport Prague, the gateway to the skies of Prague, where it continues to be played as an "airport piano."
After the station piano was gone, the silence after the last train left Masarykovo nádraží became even more reminiscent of Shibamata after the bellof Taishakuten Temple echoed mournfully at dusk, evoking a sense of melancholy and sentimentality. Workers, scholars, clumsy guys like Tora-san and Mitsuo, and the beautiful women who added color to their romantic follies—they all must have passed through this station again today, creating various emotions and stories in a flurry, only to return to their homes in the suburbs. Sometimes, perhaps, while watching the scenery from the train window with a sigh, saying, "That's the tough part of being a wanderer..."
