Jan Eskymo Welzl - Zabreh, Czech Republic
Posted by: 
Anneke
N 49° 52.369 E 016° 53.209
33U E 635575 N 5526197
A statue of Czech traveller Jan Welzl (1868-1948) in his native town Zabreh.
Waymark Code: WM6ARJ
Location: Olomoucký kraj, Czechia
Date Posted: 05/04/2009
Views: 137
Jan Welzl was a Czech traveller, adventurer, hunter, gold-digger, Eskimo chief and Chief Justice in New Siberia and later story-teller and writer. Although he had little education, he travelled all over the world and when he came back to Czechoslovakia in the 1920's, he had his adventures described in several books by journalists Rudolf Tesnohlídek, Bedrich Golombek and Edvard Valenta. The book "Tricet let na zlatém severu" (literally "Thirty Years in the Golden North") was a great success in Czechoslovakia and also abroad, where people suspected that "Eskymo Welzl" did not exist and that the real author was Karel Capek who wrote the preface to foreign editions.He is known under the pseudonym Eskymo Welzl or the nickname Arctic Bismarck.
The statue was made by sculptor Stanislav Lach and it was installed near Zabreh railway station in 1998.
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