In Slovakia, fans lit candles for their star player Pavol Demitra, while Czechs paid similar respects in the Old Town Square in Prague to honour their three compatriots killed in the crash: Josef Vasicek, Karel Rachunek and Jan Marek.

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Some properties are hard to value, notably a palace on Prague's Old Town Square that now houses part of the Czech national gallery.

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And the lobby of the Venetian hotel where 007 and Bond girl Vesper Lynd stay is actually Prague's National Museum on Wenceslas Square, currently closed for reconstruction and scheduled to reopen in June 2016.

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This may explain why the stand-in Czech prime minister, Jan Fischer, seemed to be trying to square a circle when he said today in Prague that his technocratic government would take his demand for a footnote to the October summit only if they had a promise of no more funny business from the president.

ECONOMIST: European politics