What is happening to the countryside at a time when life and work are increasingly concentrated in large cities? People and entire communities are leaving to seek livelihoods elsewhere, and their original homes are undergoing significant changes. Traditionally rural areas are becoming so-called “turbo-countryside”—distant peripheries of metropolises that remain half-empty for most of the year, while their inhabitants live and work elsewhere. In his lecture, social anthropologist Radan Haluzík will present the results of long-term research of this phenomenon across nearly twenty countries. He will show how wealthy metropolises in a globalized world shape the architecture, public space, and urbanism of places thousands of kilometers away—and how this is transforming the relationship between cities and their rural hinterlands. The evening will also include the launch of the book Turbo-venkov (Turbo-Rural).