Bohemian Rhapsodizing: Let's Go - Ruckl Crystal and Koněprusy Caves

Yesterday, the SCA (think PTA in the U.S.) went on it's last field trip of the year. For this final foray, we loaded our cars with friends and headed to the Ruckl Crystal factory and the Koněpruské jeskyně (caves).
First, the crystal factory.

Located about 35 km (20 miles) from school, Ruckl produces some of the finest lead crystal in the world. We are talking Wimbledon trophy, Stanley Cup quality here. But that isn't surprising, because the Czech Republic is renown for its crystal.

Founded over 300 years ago by the Rückl family, the crystal made here is completed entirely by hand. Let me repeat that, it is done COMPLETELY by hand. It is impressive, in the fact that much of it could be automated. It could be mass produced and mass marketed, but it is not. It is still heated, blown, quality checked and etched by real, live human beings that have spent years (3 in trade school, 7 or more as an apprentice) learning their craft. The molds are still made of wood (pear or oak) and the cutting wheels are manned by very skilled artists.

Some of the worn out wooden molds. They can only use each mold 40 times before they loose their shape, and a new one needs to be created.

We started our tour by visiting the furnace and glass blowing area. This is where the chemicals are mixed, added to the furnace and shaped into balls of goo. Really, they are balls of steaming hot goo. They are then rounded into perfect spheres and placed into their specific mold. Here they are blown into shape by giant straws (I kid you not), removed from said straw, and placed in a special cooler to, well, cool. It takes hours, sometimes a full day, for the glass to cool. Being heated to over 1000 degrees Celcius will do that to you.

Being formed into a perfect sphere.

It is then placed in the mold, where a very interested helper (I kid...) helps to press it down into the mold so that it keeps its shape.

Once removed from the "straw", the object is placed in a pile of sand awaiting transport to the cooling area.

This is the man who will transport it to the cooling area. Over, and over and over again. This man walks miles a day and only covers the same 5 feet of floor.

A different form being shaped.

And a slightly different process on how it gets to cooling. This is the guy from the picture above. He has just blown this piece and it is ready for cooling, but first it needs some final touches...

So it is handed off, from one hot poker to another...

He literally takes a small axe to the jagged edges at the top, essentially removing that top bulb...

Trims the rough parts with a scissors...

And files it down...

This is the pile of oops. It will get reheated, and reworked.

We then headed into the quality control room. Every single piece must go through here before being sent to the etching room. About 20% of the pieces are rejected because they have bubbles, a weak spot or are just not exactly right in one way or another. They too will be recycled and reworked.

Finally, it is off to etching for those pieces that make it that far. First, they do a net drawing on the piece. It isn't etched, it is just marked into equal parts so that the etching can be completed symmetrically. These marked pieces are then passed on to the masters for completion. It was incredible to watch. All of them lined up in a row. Each with their own set of crystal awaiting their mark. And each of them never faltering, not once making a misstep, nor stopping their wheels.

And ~~these goofballs~~ my friends ate it all up.

A quick lunch and we were off to take a tour of the Koněprusy Caves. The oldest (over 400 million years) and largest (more than a mile and a half on three levels) cave system in the Czech Republic, it was discovered in 1950 by miners blasting on the hill. Opened to the public in 1959, the tour takes visitors deep into history.

The caves were formed by a small stream that flowed through the area about 2 1/2 million years ago, aided by the rainfall that seeped in through cracks in the limestone. This drip-stone created thousands of stalactites and stalagmites, and the Koněprusy Roses, which can only be found inside this cave! The roses are formed by calcium carbonate mixed in with the rainwater, which then became precipitation on the walls of the cave. This created small bushes which, when the very tips dropped off, left a rose shaped formation. Spectacular.

But the cave isn't all limestone. In the earth filled areas, scientists found the remains of hundreds of animals - many of them prehistoric and dated around the Pleistocene period (3-2,000,000 years ago). Bones from the Mastodon, Sabre tooth tiger, Woolly Rhino and more are on display, as are the remains from a Neanderthal man from more than 13,000 years ago.

And there was also a counterfeiting ring run from inside the caves. From 1460-1470 a group of unknown me made Hussite coins, using copper with a thin cover of silver amalgam, instead of pure silver.