On November 17, 1989 the communist police beat up a group of demonstrating students in Prague. This incident initiated a wave of nation-wide protests in Czechoslovakia against the communist regime. During the protests, people held keys in their hands and jingled farewell to the old regime. It marked the beginning of the so-called Velvet Revolution, and led to the end of communism in Czechoslovakia.

Let us quote one of the key figures of those distant times - the last president of Czechoslovakia and at the same time also the first president of the Czech Republic:

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

- Václav Havel -”