In the morning it started raining after heavy fog and we had an early breakfast before we reached the town again shortly after 9 a.m. First we passed by a road side place with a small park, which had as only statue “Carving his own destiny” in the center. Then we parked again at the main square with Albins Neptun Statue, which showed more busy life in the morning, just in front of the Polasek inn house. It has a plaque on the house commemorating him. While looking up the house an old lady of 70 years walking on a stick approached me and started talking. My wife translated: She lived in this house until she was kicked out. She remembers that she did eat in the inn when she was young. She offered us to visit the empty house if she could reach her friend.
Then we went to the town hall where next to the main entrance there was an info shop. The offered maps and guide books of the Beskids and sold picture and souvenirs of Radhost. The young women Zuzana spoke English and a little German but accepted no credit cards. Then I asked the receptionist at the main entrance the way to the original statue of the Radegast. It is not here she said in Czech, it is around the corner. So we left and went around the corner just seeing the town hall from the back, but no entrance to see a piece of art.
I went back to the info shop and asked for the original statue of Radhost. Zuzana said “wait” and got a key from her desk. She told us to follow and closed the shop door. Then we entered the main entrance of the town hall on the left of the shop again and she opened the inner door with a security card. The receptionist glimpsed briefly and shrugged the shoulders and looked again at her PC screen. At the bottom of the staircase that led up to the first floor, there he stood, tall and fiercely grinning, with 3 shields explaining his fate in 3 languages. The text mentioned also the copy of Cyril and Method that can be found in the town hall. I asked Zuzana where it is. She said “come” and we left the town hall to go back to her shop.
This time she got an even larger impressive key from her desk and we followed her this time to the right just next to her shop. After she opened the big door with her big key and we saw a collection of sculptures lined up the walls. The first was the mastermind of Cyril and Method. Next to it was Albin’s bust and then came another version of “Carving his own destiny” and at the end of the hallway there was the Neptune statue. There were other sculptures where Zuzana had no clue of their origin.
I thanked and told her that I am a relative and after we went back to her info shop with no one waiting she gave me more information on the Moravian Beskids. She also showed me on a town map how to go to the library where other things of Albin could be found. We drove up there, again close to the Sokol gym and found the grey building of the library with photos of Albin’s art closed. One shield said it should be open the whole week the other just Monday to Wednesday.
We decided to stop at this point and left Frenstat – the home of our Polasek family – in direction to Frýdlant and Frýdek-Mystek. On the way out of town we found the bust of Albin Polasek at the riverside walk of the Limna. The bust makes the impression of a fragile giant who returned home after a long journey that carved his destiny from Moravian roots. A last good bye picture of Frenstat and then I left.
