10/6/2008

United Energy Exhibit Celebrates Power Plant Anniversary

The gala opening for this exhibit organized by United Energy was held on Thursday, October 2. The opening event also included the launch of an album of old postcards and photographs as well as the United Energy 2009 calendar.
About one hundred guests came to the gala opening, including past and present employees, representatives from the surrounding municipalities and the company’s business partners.  “Sixty-five is actually the average human lifespan. There are however even more similarities with a human life – the power plant has experienced the pain of birth, school years, a productive age and even critical heart surgery when the boilers were reconstructed. Nowadays though, it is not unusual for people to live to see ninety or even a hundred and I thus believe that the power plant still has a long future in store,” said Petr Jeník, during his introductory remarks at the opening event.
The items that are displayed at the exhibit titled “How Our Granddads Built the Power Plant” include, amongst other things, the old German plans for the plant, a number of period photographs and technical relics. In addition, visitors will see how the power plant extended over into the creative arts. The exhibit also provides information on the older now-defunct power plant in Ervěnice.
Two items that were published by United Energy in observance of the anniversary were launched at the opening event for the exhibit. The “Album of Old Postcards and Photographs”, published in cooperation with collector Jaroslav Hron, is available to exhibit visitors at the library. It contains period photographs from the no longer existing Ervěnice and Komořany villages as well as historic photographs of the Ervěnice Power Plant, dating back to the 1930s up through the time it was demolished, and pictures of the Komořany Power Plant from the time it started being constructed after the war up to the present.
United Energy’s general director also broke a bottle of champagne over the United Energy 2009 Calendar, which bears the title of “Looking Back at the Komořany Construction Project”. The twenty-six photographs that were selected are reminiscences from the post-war construction of the power plant. The introductory text says, “We want to show that sixty-five years after the start of construction it is not only just a number. It is a series of human stories about the work of specific people – our grandfathers and fathers, who hurled themselves into creating something after the war ended.”

The exhibit is open to the public at the Most Municipal Library through October 31. Opening hours are Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and on Saturdays from 9:00 a.m. to noon.

 

Martin Maňák
+420 606 648 659