what are the globally known Czech brands other than Škoda and Pilsner Urquell?

38 comments

  1. Avast, Skoda JS (Jaderne strojirenstvi, got nothing to do with automotive/Skoda WV), Tatra, Bata shoe company

  4. Baťa – shoes, Jawa – motorbikes, Kofola – drink, Petrof – pianos and pianos, Prim – watch maker

  8. JetBrains – Software company that created IntelliJ IDEA tool for Java developers and also created Kotlin programming language which was approved as a new default language for Android development by Google.

  26. Indian here.

    1. My dad used to ride Yezdi (rough transliteration of how Czechs might pronounce Jezdit) motorcycles during the 70s/80s/90s. The company used to produce Jawa motorcycles under license. There were some Jawas on the road as well and, if I remember correctly, they were regarded as a bit better or more original. Both the Jawa and Yezdi names recently came back into the Indian market under different management. They make vintage inspired motorcycles today. Google it. Some of them look a lot like vintage 250cc Jawas.

    2. Bata shoes are still quite popular in India, although not as much as they used to be. Back when I was in school, black Bata oxford/derby shoes were the prescribed “school shoe” in most schools.

    3. The Indian army used to operate a lot of Tatra trucks when I was a kid. Not sure if they still do though.

    EDIT: I don’t think most Indians knew/know that Yezdi/Jawa and Bata have anything to do with the Czech Republic (or the former Czechoslovakia). As a kid, I just assumed that Bata was an Indian brand.

  29. Koh-i-noor Hardtmuth (even though the company was originally based in Austria, in 19th century it was relocated to Czechia)

  33. Koh-i-Noor

    Art supplier

    WTF I went through nearly all the comments and didn’t find anyone mentioning Koh-i-Noor.

    Apart from beer it had been the most known among my foreign peers as well as it being a Jewel of Czechoslovakia knows for its high quality.

  34. A lot depends on industry really. We have fair number of pretty high tech cutting edge stuff, but in relatively niche industries, so there’s not that much global awareness.

    Additionally there’s a number of companies that are czech like Bata, but most people don’t actually know they’re czech outside of the CZ

  35. Tatra, Budvar (budweiser), Krtek (little mole), Baťa, Czech Crystal Glassware, Becherovka, Czech Garnet (jewelery Turnov), Jawa moto, Zlin aircraft, Zetor tractors, Jet Brains, Y soft, Jablotron, PRIM watches, Jolana guitars ( George Harrison, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton)

  36. Avast/Norton

    You won’t find an art shop in the USA that doesn’t have a section dedicated to Koh-i-noor

    Zlin aviation

    Czechia has a bunch of well known companies. I’m Irish born American who moved here, but I was a student pilot in the US, and I can honestly say probably more than 50% of pilots in the US will think of the Czech Republic and think “oh yeah, zlin! I had a buddy who had one/I used to go camping in one”

    Jaromir jagr isn’t a brand but I grew up in hockey loving Colorado, and Milan Hejduk was our captain and jagr my idol, so I always thought of the Czech Republic as a country with lots of internationally recognized things.

    And once I moved here, I kept finding out more of the things I knew were also czech (koh-i-noor)

    For its population and size there is a big reason this country has such a high development rating even among EU countries. Czechs are really innovative. My Irish roots just produce shit things like Guinness, Primark, and the occasional eurozone collapse from tax havens.

    I mean hell, I thought of Czechia from brands and famous people way more often than I ever thought of or saw brands from Portugal or Spain in the US- I definitely didn’t think of Austrian products as often there either (yes Austria has a lot, but not in the same iconically international sense that you guys do)

    Czechia, or Bohemia, has managed to be at the center of europes major events for hundreds of years, literary, business, sport, and for fucks sake the number of massive European conflicts which shaped modern Europe have originated here, going back 600 years.

    Y’all have a ton of achievements, it’s no surprise there are lots of brands too, I definitely didn’t list all the brands here.

    Also. Dont forget pervitin- kidding of course, I meant of course the classic czech dishes like gulaš and trdelnik

    (I am so sorry for that last paragraph, but y’all have a lot, it makes it even more ironic that those last two are seen as czech)

Leave a Reply