W. A. Mozart - booklet

Catalogue number	0695
Date of issue	31.8.2011
Face value	20 CZK
Print sheets	á 6 die-cut self-adhesive stamps
Size of picture	52 x 30 mm
Graphic designer	Marina Richterová
Engraver	Martin Srb
Printing method	multicoloured offset

Expressively conducting Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an original copy of the Don Giovanni score and the Prague's Estates Theatre in the background.
A stamp identified with the letter E corresponding to the price of Ordinary Item up to 20 g - European countries in international priority service (current price according to the Price List of Basic Postal Services: CZK 20).
Price of the booklet as of the date of issue: 6times CZK 20, i.e. CZK 120.
Stamps identified with a letter can be used alone or in combination to mail any sort of domestic or international products.

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Men's European Volleyball Championships

Catalogue number	0690
Date of issue	31.8.2011
Face value	20 CZK
Print sheets	á 50 pcs of stamps, sheets are marked with bar code
Size of picture	23 x 40 mm
Graphic designer	Pavel Švejda
Printing method	multicoloured offset

Following the 2010 FIBA Basketball Championship for Women in Brno, Ostrava and Karlovy Vary, a most successfull event for the Czech players who won the unexpected silver medals, the Czech audience will get a chance to see players of another ball game, even more popular than basketball, viz. volleyball.
The Czech men's representation team won the surprising 10th place at the 2010 World Cup in Italy after they had beaten the previous world champions, the US team, 3:0, but had unluckily lost 2:3 to the new world champions from Brazil.
The championships will be hosted in Austria and the Czech Republic. The anticipated tough events will take place in two Austrian and two Czech cities. The Austrian cities are Vienna and Innsbruck. The two host cities initially chosen by the Czech organizing committee, i.e. Prague and Liberec, were recently changed to Prague and Karlovy Vary, maybe because the latter was a successful host of the basketball championship finals.
Jan Svoboda, coach of the Czech representation team, used the following words to assess the position of the Czech players in Pool B: "We did not want to get Russia or Serbia before the drawing took place. Now we are in one group with Russia, Portugal and Estonia. Portugal has also been one of the top European teams, and we were very glad we had managed to win the World Cup qualification event after the 3:2 heartbreaking finish. And Estonia would not have been our choice from the fourth, easiest group, either. It is a tough pool, and it will not be an easy task to go through. But it is our aim."
The top European tournament comes back to the Czech Republic exactly after ten years. The Czech team won the fourth place in Ostrava in 2001. Four pools, each of four teams, means sixteen teams. The winners (first position) of each pool will go directly through to the final eight matches, the runners-up (second and third positions) will fight for the next four places out of the final eight, and those finishing on the fourth position will quit the tournament. So the task for the Czech team is to end up as second or third in the pool, with the possibility to face further competitors from Pool D, i.e. Poland, Germany, Bulgaria and Slovakia.

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Nature Protection: Šumava - UNESCO Biosphere Reserve

Catalogue number	A0691
Date of issue	31.8.2011
Face value	62 CZK
Print sheets	4 stamps + 4 coupons (se-tenant)
Size of picture	118 x 170 mm
Graphic designer	Libuše and Jaromír Knotek
Engraver	Martin Srb
Printing method	recess print from flat plate in black combined with multicoloured offset

The importance of the Šumava National Park and Protected Landscape Area grew in 1990 with the declaration of a biosphere reserve (part of the UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) programme) covering almost the entire Šumava region and the neighbouring Bavarian Forest National Park in Germany. The Šumava Biosphere Reserve is to preserve the typical Šumava landscape and all of its traditional elements including the way of its cultivation. The biosphere reserve is located in the mountain area along the Austrian and Bavarian borders with the Czech Republic. The entire region was affected by human activities (such as gold mining, glass industry) and frequently used from as early as the 10th century. Šumava is also the last big central European area with an extensive way of using. The area abounds in ancient mountain forests, lakes of glacial origin, peat bogs, rivers and their canyons and similar values that have been preserved until the present day. Unlike the Šumava National Park with a higher percentage of forest (83.8%), forests (flower and acidophilic beech woods, mountain spruce woods, wetland pine woods) are present in more than 65% of the Šumava Biosphere Reserve. Local peat bogs are clearly the highlight of the area. The plains that cover the central part of Šumava at more than 1,000 meters above the sea level are also extensively used. The vast area is used as meadows or pasture land. A large number of rare animals, such as Northern birch mouse (Sicista betulina) or the imported Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), live in the area. Prominent wild birds include wood grouse (Tetrao urogallus) and black grouse (Tetrao tetrix). The Blanice river headwater area has the highest presence of freshwater pearl mussel (Margaritifera margaritifera) in the Czech Republic. The Šumava-UNESCO Biosphere Reserve miniature sheet is the final one of the present series of six sheets featuring Czech biosphere reserves.
Cat. number - 0691: Face value 10 CZK - Tetrao urogallus, Turdus torquatus and Erebia euryale. Picture size: 50 x 40 mm
Cat. number - 0692: Face value 14 CZK - Colias palaeno Dactylorhiza traunsteineri. Picture size: 23 x 40 mm
Cat. number - 0693: Face value 18 CZK - Tetrao tetrix, Aeshna juncea and Alces alces. Picture size: 50 x 40 mm
Cat. number - 0694:Face value 20 CZK - Lynx lynx and Picoides tridactylus. Picture size: 50 x 40 mm

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European Florists Championship Europa Cup 2011

Catalogue number	0689
Date of issue	15.6.2011
Face value	25 CZK
Print sheets	á 50 pcs of stamps
Size of picture	23 x 40 mm
Graphic designer	Vlasta Matoušová
Engraver Printing method	Miloš Ondráček multicoloured offset

Like the Olympic games, the top prestigious EUROPA CUP competition in floral design takes place once every four years in one of the member countries of FLORINT, the European Federation of Professional Florist Associations. The federation was formed in Strasbourg in 1956 under the name Fédération Européenne des Unions Professioneless des Fleuristes (FEUPF) and changed its name to Florint in January 2009.
The first of these professional florist competitions was held in 1967. The EUROPA CUP 2011 will be held on August 31st - September 5th, 2011 and it will be the first time the competition will be held in the Czech Republic. The City of Havířov and the Czech Union of Flower Growers and Florists will be the organizers. 
The competitors will come from 24 European countries. The six disciplines will take them through the history of the organizing city and the history of Czech music. A couple of the competition themes will reflect Havířov's early history and its relationship with coal and flowers. The next theme will be the 170th anniversary of Antonín Dvořák's birth. The final theme will focus on fashion and surprise. 
Jaromír Kokeš, 2010 Czech Master Florist, will represent the Czech Republic.

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Young Animals - Cricetus Cricetus

Catalogue number	0688
Date of issue	15.6.2011
Face value	10 CZK
Print sheets	á 50 pcs of stamps
Size of picture	23 x 40 mm
Graphic designer	Libuše a Jaromír Knotkovi
Engraver Printing method	Martin Srb multicoloured offset

The European hamster (Cricetus Cricetus) is a species of hamsters relative to voles. Some authors classify hamsters, voles and mice as a single family.
The European hamster is a medium-sized, stout-bodied animal with short legs. The tail is short and furred. It is often taken for a marmot, but unlike a marmot, the European hamster is more colourful, with yellow to orange brown dorsal fur with black ends, and a dark brown to black chest and belly. The top head fur is reddish, with white or yellow patches behind the ears and on the nose (and on the front legs). The animal changes its rather thick coat colour once a year. Other prominent features include very large cheek poaches, and flank glands of males that are much larger during the breeding season. 
The European hamster is a nocturnal species. It is an excellent runner and jumper. It lives in separate burrows, consisting of tunnels 6-8 cm in diameter, nesting chamber, hibernating chamber, food and storage chambers and droppings chamber. It can burrow as deep as 2 meters in winter months when it hibernates. Females usually have 2-5 litters each year. The gestation period is 20 days, and the size of the litter ranges from 3 to 12 young. 
The European hamster's diet consists of grains, seeds, plants, insects and baby young nesting birds. 
It is native to a large area extending from south-west Siberia (the Yenisey river) to Belgium and north-east France. It started spreading from its original habitat on steppes into central Europe during the extensive deforestation period, significantly earlier than marmots; its remains were found on neolithic archaeological sites dating back some 6-7 thousand years. In the Czech Republic it lives in an open landscape. Since the 1970-80s, when it has become almost extinct, especially in hills and mountains, its presence has been steadily increasing, reaching very high levels in some regions (around the Labe River, in south Moravia, etc.), although its occurrence in areas more than 500-600 meters above the sea level is rather rare.


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100 Years since Jan Kašpar's First Public Flight

Catalogue number	0687
Date of issue	1.6.2011
Face value	21 CZK
Print sheets	50 stamps
Size of picture	23 x 40 mm
Graphic designer	Pavel Sivko
Engraver Printing method	Jaroslav Tvrdoň, Bedřich Housa rotary recess print in black combined with photogravure in yellow, red, violet and greybrown

Jan Kašpar (May 20th, 1883, Pardubice - March 2nd, 1927, Pardubice) was a Czech engineer, Czech aviation pioneer, most renowned member of the first group of Czech aviation builders and pilots. His pioneering long-distance flights made him particularly famous.
A mechanical engineering graduate from the Imperial and Royal Czech Technical University in Prague, Kašpar successfully completed a one-term programme at a higher car school in Germany and took up a job with Basse&Selve in Altena, Westfalia in 1908 where his interest in aviation began. After a short employment with Laurin&Klement in Mladá Boleslav he returned back to his native Pardubice and set up an aviation building business with his cousin Evžen Čihák. Both cousins went their own separate way after some time, however, with Evžen Čihák starting an independent business together with his brother Hugo. 
Kašpar first construction was a monoplane after the Antoinette monoplane manufactured by French designer Latham. While he was still building the monoplane, he heard the news of Louis Blériot's first flight across the English Channel on July 25th, 1909. The news made him buy a Blériot XI (serial number 76) for 18 000 francs after he had found himself unable to take off his own model. The first engine he used in the Blériot was his own model, later replaced with an Anzani. Kašpar's first successful flight, covering 2 kilometres at a height of 20-25 meters, came on April 16th, 1910. He gained his first experience as a pilot during the next few months, and passed a pilot examination on June 16th, 1910. 
In 1911 Kašpar performed the first flight in his own model fitted with a 70 HP Daimler engine and intended for a first long-distance flight in the Czech territory. The first test flight at a 400-meter height lasted 24 minutes and 23 seconds. Kašpar made another flight on the same day, April 30th, 1911, this time accompanied by his cousin Evžen Čihák as passenger. 
Kašpar's highlight event, the famous Pardubice-Velká Chuchle flight (May 13th, 1911), covered 121 kilometres at about 800 meters above the ground in 92 minutes. The aircraft, donated by Kašpar to the Technical Museum of the Czech Kingdom (today's National Technical Museum in Prague) in 1913, is still on display. 
Kašpar's next famous event was the first long-distance passenger flight. The Mělník-Chuchle flight lasted 41 minutes and 55 seconds; the passenger was Jaroslav Kalva, editor of theNárodní politika daily. 
Impoverished and suffering from mental disease, Kašpar committed suicide in 1927.


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Execution of 27 Protestant Leaders (21.6.1621) on the Old Town Square

Catalogue number	0686
Date of issue	1.6.2011
Face value	26 CZK
Print sheets	4 stamps
Size of picture	50 x 40 mm
Graphic designer	Zdeněk Ziegler
Engraver Printing method	Václav Fajt recess print from flat plate in black combined with offset in red

The stamp commemorates the 390th anniversary of the execution of 27 Czech Protestant leaders on the Prague's Old Town Square. The mass execution of June 21st, 1621 became a symbolic end of the series of events that begun with the second defenestration of Prague on May 23rd, 1618, central to the start of the Thirty Years' War in 1618, and ended with the Protestant armies' defeat at the Battle on White Mountain near Prague, November 8th, 1620.
The execution was to become a shocking and frightening performance intended to prove to the contemporary Europe that the Habsburgs were not impressed by the leading Protestant aristocracy's revolt and that no rebellion, staged by Protestants, was able to jeopardize their authority. It led to a stronger position of the Habsburg dynasty on the Czech throne and suppression of any form of resistance on the side of a potential opposition.
A set of cobblestones, installed at the place where the scaffold (dismantled after the execution and given to the Prague's Monastery of Merciful Brothers) stood, commemorates the execution site and the sad end to the Czech Protestants' uprising.

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