ECF EuroVelo13 Central Section
Newsletter 2011/2
The Central section of the EuroVelo13 – Iron
Curtain Trail
Current Activities
Each of the consortium partners are currently working on their national reports. In order to prepare for this they have had to undertake field work,
data collection and, in most cases, organise national workshops.
There have also been some bilateral meetings taking place. For example,
the Austrian and Czech partners met in Poysdorf, Austria at the end of February. The route between Lower Austria and South Moravia had recently
been fixed and the meeting enabled the partners to agree a common methodology for developing this stretch of the route and to set shared goals for
the next 3 years.
Václav Havel Becomes Patron
Václav Havel, the famous Czech playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and
politician, has agreed to became a patron of the Iron Curtain Trail (ICT/
EV13) in the Czech Republic.
Václav Havel
National partners:
 Nadace Partnerství – Czech Republic
 Nadácia Ekopolis – Slovakia
Mr Havel was one of the most prominent dissidents who fought the commu Future Base Wein4– Austria
nist regime in Eastern Europe and was a key figure in the “Velvet Revolu Weinviertel Tourismus GmbH– Austria
tion”, the non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of
 Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club Lanthe communist government. He then became the first president of postdesverband Sachsen-Anhalt
communist Czechoslovakia and later of the Czech Republic. It is a great
 Ökotárs Alapítvány– Hungary
honor that Mr Havel has agreed to become a patron of the Iron Curtain Trail
 Slovenský Cykloklub – Slovakia
in the Czech Republic and it reflects the growing importance of this project;
 Cycling Hungarian Alliance– Hungary
which he felt was one of the key challenges for the international partners.
 Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad-Club Landesverband Thueringen – Germany
Two new Iron Curtain museums open along the ICT/EV13
in the Czech Republic
Not one but two museums devoted to the Iron Curtain opened in the Czech
Republic at the start of May, both housed in former custom houses. The
first museum is situated at the Valtice (Czech) and Scharttenberg (Austria)
border right on the ICT/EV13 route. The Museum of the Iron Curtain Border
presents a history of border patrols between 1951 and 1989
(www.muzeumopony.cz). The second museum was opened at the former
Czech-German border crossing at Rozvadov (Czech) and Waidhaus
(Germany) and situated only 1km from the ICT/EV13. (www.ironcurtain.org).
Photo credit Radka Žáková
Photo credit Radka Žáková
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ECF EuroVelo13 Central Section
Newsletter 2011/2
65 years since Churchill‘s famous “Iron Curtain”
speech
On March 5, 1946, at the request of Westminster College in the small
Missouri town of Fulton, Winston Churchill gave his now famous "Iron
Curtain" speech to a crowd of 40,000. Churchill used the very descriptive phrase: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron
curtain has descended across the Continent." The speech surprised
the United States and Britain because up until that point they had
been concerned with their own post-war economies and had remained
extremely grateful for the Soviet Union's proactive role in ending World
War II. It was Churchill's speech, which he titled "The Sinews of Peace," that changed the way the democratic West viewed the Communist
East.
Though it is widely believed that Churchill coined the phrase „the Iron
Curtain‟, the term had actually been in use for many years. However,
Churchill gave it wider circulation and it became the most popular
term used to describe the division of Europe into East and West. Indeed, many consider Churchill's „Iron Curtain Speech‟ to be the beginning of the Cold War.
ICT makes the news in Hungary
On 19th May, one of the most widely read newspapers in Hungary,
Nepszabadság, featured an article on the ICT/EV13:
http://nol.hu/utazas/20110519-_sebgyogyito__kerekparut_europan_at
The article covered the growing popularity and national support for
cycling tourism and highlighted the importance of international trials.
Michael Cramer MEP was interviewed for the piece and spoke about
how the ICT is a good opportunity for the communities close to the exborder to show their cultural and environmental values. He also raised the issue of the differences in road quality and services along the
trail, which he felt was one of the key challenges for the international
partners.
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Upcoming events:
16/17th June – Workshop for ICT/E13 (Central)
in Magdeburg – for further information please
contact David Tucker: [email protected]
ECF EuroVelo13 Central Section
Newsletter 2011/2
News from Europe
Meeting of EuroVelo National Coordinators at Velo city Conference in Seville
The latest National EuroVelo Coordinators Meeting was held on the 23 rd
March during the Velo-city Conference in Seville. The meeting was well
attended with 31 participants, some of whom had travelled from as far
away as Turkey and Finland. The organisation of the meeting was cofinanced by the European Union under the preparatory action
„Sustainable Tourism‟. At the beginning of the meeting Adam Bodor was
introduced as the new EuroVelo Manager. Each of the national coordinators then gave a short presentation on current developments in their
home country. Further updates were given on the EuroVelo Central Coordination Project and the re-organisation of the National Coordination
Centres. The presentations are available from the ECF website:
www.ecf.com/14_1
Application for EuroVelo national coordination centres
and coordinators
As a reminder, whilst there is no deadline for the submission of applications for people or organisations wanting to be National EuroVelo Coordinators, we will publish a new list based on the emails and applications
received by 20th June 2010. For more information please view the ECF
website: http://www.ecf.com/4213_1
Contact
If you would like to learn more about the project or get involved in the
transnational activities or even if you want to share some information
about events along the route, please contact David Murphy, project
manager (Tel: (420) 724 808 276, E-mail: [email protected],
Skype: dcormac).
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ECF EuroVelo13 Central Section
Newsletter 2011/2
Responsible editor
Adam Bodor
EuroVelo Manager
European Cyclists' Federation asbl
www.ecf.com