#COLD WAR

Prague’s Wenceslas Square is to undergo a thorough facelift that will see the iconic boulevard – which has witnessed events that changed the course of modern Czech history – become more people-friendly than ever before.

A Berlin court has sentenced an 80-year-old former Stasi officer to 10 years in prison for the murder of a Polish national in 1974 at the Friedrichstrasse border crossing in what was then East Berlin.

No longer is it a rarity to spot bands of tourists bundling into a Maluch before pootling away on a PRL-themed tour of Socialist Realist leftovers - yet as illuminating as such tours can be, they lack the gritty realism that comes with visiting Borne Sulinowo in the country’s north-west.

To counteract this, we need a long-term plan that will largely rely on investments and open, very transparent deployment of forces