Sunday, January 29, 2006

OPBH (Oblastní podnik bytového hospodářství – District Enterprise for Apartment Management).

This communist-era institution was responsible for managing the country’s large number of state-owned apartments, particularly the prefabricated apartment blocs known as paneláky. Denizens had to visit OPBH whenever they required any maintenance on their flats – whether leaky roofs, broken windows, or stalled furances. The organization was famed for its laziness and corruption, so that repairs would take weeks unless a requisite bribe was offered. Because of this corruption, many claimed that the abbreviation OPBH stood for “Odevzdej Peníze, Bydlíš Hned” or “Hand over your money and you can live right away.”

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