7 Bullets as in Sarajevo

7 Bullets as in Sarajevo

Last Friday night, my colleagues and I went for a beer at a pub in Vysehrad. I was chatting with the husband of my co-worker when I heard something like “jako Sarajevu” from the other end of the table. “It was strange,” I thought to hear anything about Sarajevo in this country. Then Tomas, the husband explained that they have a popular expression in Czech: “Sedm koukle jako Sarajevu” meaning “Seven bullets as in Sarajevo.”

What?

From Czech’s greatest classic “Good Soldier Svejk,” seven bullets were fired during Franz  assassination in 1914 in Sarajevo. This expression became widely popular for Czechs when they go to the pub and order something for seven people. There were exactly seven of us that night.

Wait.

The coincidence did not stop there. The beer we ordered was called Ferdinand, brewed from a town close to Konopiste where the royal and his family lived before his “eventful” trip to Sarajevo.” His grand-daughter recently demanded this castle back from the Czech government.