Haje Shopping Centre: Communist style Shopping Mall

Haje Shopping Centre does not feature in Prague travel guides. It is old-fashioned and a little run down, but very typical of shopping in Prague in the 1970s and 1980s in communist days, when there was not yet an abundance of luxury items on the shelves. Do not expect to find high-end shopping here! Yet, if you need gloves, boots, trainers, hair accessories, shampoo and lots more Haje Shopping Centre is your place to be The shopping center is adjacent to the same name metro station; the terminus of line C and serves Jizni Mesto, with 100,000 inhabitants the largest ‘sidliste’ or suburb in Prague.

Haje Shopping Centre

Haje Shopping Centre

You will not find luxury shops in Haje shopping centre. The ‘anything-whatever’ store is run by a Vietnamese who imports his merchandise from Vietnam: fly swatters, plastic flowers, stationery, quilted jackets, warm winter boots and a lot of useful and useless things. Furthermore, you can shop until yopu drop at KIK, a textile discounter, an Albert supermarket, Rossmann chemist, a second hand book shop, a pet shop, a sanitaryware shop and once a week an open-air market with Czech products. You can also have passport photos and keys made in Haje. It is not the range shops but the nostalgic atmosphere that is attractive in Haje Shopping Centre. Hop on the metro and exit two station down, Chodov, for the modern Westfield Chodov Shopping Centre. There is no greater contrast conceivable.

Haje Shopping Centre

Haje and Communist Architecture

Haje is not only a shopping centre but also the last station on metro line C. Almost every Prague district has its own shopping centrer. Haje was the shopping centre of Jizni Mesto, the suburb to the southeast of Haje (and Prague). This suburb was constructed between 1970 and 1980 and consists of housing blocks known as ‘panelaky’ or panel buildings that were constructed of pre-fabricated concrete slabs that were assembled on the building site. When you exit the metro station the first thing you see is an eye catching building and a show piece of the communist regime: two high-rise apartment buildings connected by a footbridge and decorated with a square clock in the shape of two hands on a red and white background to break the monotony of the residential towers.

How to get there

Haje is located in the south-east of Prague and can be easily reached by metro line C to the terminus of the same name.

Photos Marianne Crone

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