This is where the peaceful student demonstrations of the Velvet Revolution started in 1989.

The square has witnessed many key events in recent Czech history. During the Prague Spring in 1968, the clashes with the Soviet armored units took place here, you can see the bullet holes in the walls of the National Museum preserved until this day. In November 1989 a protest rally in the square against police brutality led to the Velvet Revolution and the overthrow of Communism. Originally a horse market, today it is lined with hotels, restaurants, clubs, and shops. A big equestrian statue of St. Wenceslas that looks the length of the square from in front of the National Museum was erected in 1912. We will also pass by the Jalta hotel where STB, the secret police was eavesdropping on the foreign diplomats and businessmen who were often accommodated in there.

The National Museum was a silent witness of the clashes with the Soviet occupation army which took place at the Wenceslas Square during the Prague Spring in August 1968. You can still see the bullet holes in its walls - they were preserved as a memento during the recent renovation.

The worst beating by the police force during the Velvet Revolution in 1989 took place here. The police blocked the side streets and formed a narrow cordon. Whoever wanted to escape, had to pass through and received a heavy beating on the way.

The museum provides a suggestive view of the following aspects of life in Communist-era Czechoslovakia: daily life, politics, history, sports, economics, education, art (specifically Socialist Realism), propaganda in the media, the People’s Militias, the army, the police (including the secret police, the StB), censorship, and courts and other institutes of repression, including show trials and political labor camps during the Stalinist era. It focuses in particular on the totalitarian regime that ruled the country from the February putsch in 1948 until the Velvet Revolution in 1989.