08/09/2026
Our Board member Vit Horejs today at 11 am-1 pm in EL JARDÍN DEL PARAISO, 309-311 East 4th Street (between Avenues C-D), Manhattan
Czech Puppet Maestro will shatter Guinness records Sunday on East Fourth Street, braiding the world's largest pomlazka: a whip made from willow branches
On Sunday Aug 9, 2026 (betw the hours 11:00 AM and 1:00 PM) Master Folk Tradition Bearer and Itinerant Marionetteer Vit Horejs, Artistic director of Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre, will set a world record in braiding a "pomlazka," a whip used in a (harmless, except for your dignity) traditional Czech pre-Christian fertility ceremony. The whip, braided from 4 to 12 freshly sprouted willow twigs, is used for ceremonially whipping women and girls to rejuvenate them. The women pay for the privilege with elaborately painted eggs, another fertility symbol.
The pomlazka is an old-world tradition, you don't argue with it. It's now celebrated on Easter Monday but probably predates the arrival of Christianity in Czech lands. Young men of a village walk house-to-house with long, flexible whips made out of woven willow twigs, often decorated with colorful ribbons, and s***k the girls with them on their behinds. The ritual prevents the women from “drying up” during the rest of the year. Upon receiving the s***king, the girls say “thank you” and return the favor by giving the boys elaborately decorated eggs and a belt of Slivovitz. It all takes about 20 seconds. Vit Horejs says when he was a boy, it was an obligation for him to s***k his grandmother and his aunts.
While pomlazka is an Easter tradition, it requires an abundance of long willow twigs, which must be stripped of leaves to be woven. That's why Horejs is making his whip now. The calendar doesn't dictate when a suitable willow limb is going to drop into your back yard. His arrived last week.
This past Easter, Horejs was aiming for more than doubling this record and establishing a Guinness Book Record, but despite his 192 cm (6’4”) height, he couldn’t reach enough long twigs on two upstate willow trees he was sourcing from. The project stalled until August 5, a day of intense rain, when a major branch broke from a willow tree in El Jardín Del Paraiso, next to his residence. (He lives in a 100-year old tenement on East 4th Street, in what was a Czech and Slovak neighborhood until the second half of the 19th Century when its members moved uptown, leaving the Alphabet Avenues to their Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish neighbors.) The tree had been designated a "great tree of New York" by the Parks Department. Representing over a third of this mighty willow, this branch provided enough extremely long twigs for what promises to become "The mother of all Easter Whips."
Horejs, born and raised in Prague in 1950s, is a self-taught pomlazka maker who often broke the limits of the craft, braiding way over the standard maximum of twelve willow twigs, eventually reaching as many as 28 in a lethal-looking giant pomlazka, braided in 1963, coinciding with the first steps of what was to become known as the "Prague Spring."
Since the Guinness Book of Records so far ignored the application for inclusion of this milestone achievement, the record may become a crowning jewel in "The Hitchiker's Guide to the Southern Cross Constellation Record Book" instead.
Mr. Horejs, an émigré from Prague, founded Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre (CAMT) in 1990, utilizing century- old Czech puppets discovered at Jan Hus Church on East 74th Street. His trademark is using puppets of many sizes, from six-inch toy marionettes to twelve-foot rod puppets. He has translated, written, adapted, and directed over two dozen marionette plays for CAMT, is a resident artist at La MaMa Theater and honored to also be a frequent artist at Theater for the New City. He has performed on stage, film, and TV. Published works: Twelve Iron Sandals (1985); Pig and Bear (1989); and Faust (1993). He starred in an Onur Tukel feature film, "Scenes From an Empty Church" (2021) and "Wooden Hearts" (2026), and Carnegie Hall/Centro Primo Levi film The Scandal of the Imagination.
He co-produced “Faust on a String,” an award-winning documentary about Czech puppetry, and wrote the lead essay for Czechoslovak-American Puppetry (GOH Productions, 1994). He has received commission grants from Henson Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Foundation for Jewish Culture, Columbia University & New York Foundation for the Arts. In 2018, he received the SVU Award in recognition of a lifetime achievement in fostering the art of Czech and Slovak puppetry.
Spořilov, his family’s Prague neighborhood, is the only urban area outside the U.S. that features American style numbered streets. Vit grew up on North-West 4th St, with his family moving to N-W 2nd Street when he started braiding "pomlázkas" at the tender age of 7. He says this anomalous urban planning fact predisposed him to overseas emigration in 1979.
