Here, you will find beggars, junkies, prostitutes and homeless people — but no Robin Hoods. Here, everybody steals off everybody. So begins one of Europe's less family-friendly walking tours. Provided by homeless organization Pragulic, these tours aren't your typical jaunts around Charles Bridge and the castle. They're an altogether darker affair, shepherding tourists around seedier, lesser-known crevices of the Czech capital.
Each of the nine employed guides is either homeless or has spent a large proportion of their lives on the streets, and their tours explore the triumvirate of homelessness, drugs, and prostitution—with a bit of police corruption and the occasional mafia killing thrown in along the way.
Our guide—the most popular of the lot, according to Pragulic—is Karim. A former male prostitute and heroin addict, he has spent 25 of his 40 years living and working on Prague's streets.
Dressed in a leather duster that sweeps theatrically around every corner, he wears a jumble of pendants and trinkets around his neck and his eyes are caked in thick eyeliner.
His hands—an inky mess of tattoos and elaborate gothic rings—don't stop moving throughout the tour, drawing attention to every crack den, brothel, or homeless hotspot he refers to. There was a balcony in the station where people used to have sex, and others just used the park.
