Renáta and Bohumil Kubánkovi, U Opavice 3, August 7 and November 11, 2018
“When we hear the sirens at noon every first Wednesday of the month, we know today we go to the U Jabloní pub.”
The Kubánek family moved to their three-room apartment in U Opavice 3 in 1965 and they raised a daughter and two sons here (one of the sons has subsequently died of cancer). At the time of their arrival to U Opavice, Mr. Kubánek worked as a coal miner, first in the Petřvald mine and later at the Vítězný únor mine in Ostrava. After eighteen months at this job he found work at the public bus company ČSAD and later at the local Opava construction firm; he retired in 2000 from a job at a marketing company. Mrs. Kubánková worked from 1960 until her retirement in 1997 in the savings bank, including serving as a chief accountant. In the interview they recall the communal work involving the building of the coop garages. Mr. Kubánek, who was employed at the time at the bus company, borrowed the company’s truck at almost no cost to transport the bricks, sand and gravel needed for the construction of the garages. The couple appreciate cooperative living, and they talk about monthly meetings of neighbors at the U Jabloní pub, originally organized by Vojtěch Kostka, which are today frequented even by some of the former U Opavice tenants who have since moved out of the apartments.
