I will never forget how I saw and photographed Váleček for the first time – still in our old pavilion – when spring turned to summer in 2011. Either I was lucky or Váleček favoured me: he broke through the dark water and posed for me on the bank. Since our first moment together, it was clear that this young, the offspring of famous parentage would win extraordinary popularity for himself. And this was exactly what happened.

So Váleček couldn´t go just to some ordinary place. The New Afrykarium in Wroclaw Zoo, with its exhibition pool of 750 cubic meters, offers him excellent conditions. And on top of that, Váleček is like at home here. Indeed Wroclaw, formerly Vratislav, had belonged to the Czech Kingdom for centuries. Along with Prague, it had even been for a long time one of the land´s two main capitals. The stunning Gothic-Renaissance Wroclaw town hall is not the only reminder of these times.

In Wroclaw, history is present at each step, including in the Zoo, which was founded in 1865 and still holds many buildings that date back more than a century. I would love to write that Váleček lives in the oldest Czech zoo, but it is, unfortunately, impossible. By 1865 Wroclaw, then called Breslau, had belonged to the Kingdom of Prussia for 123 years.

Váleček lives in Afrykarium together with two hippo females, Rumba and her daughter Salsa. Based on impressions from my short visit, Váleček will be celebrity number one in Wroclaw – and perhaps the biggest attraction of Afrykarium. Although I am not 100% sure of that for the competition is strong. Pools holding sixty penguins, six sea lions and also manatees, and a tunnel going through a large aquarium, may overshadow him a little bit. But only temporarily. As soon as the first hippo baby is born in Afrykarium, not Váleček but his offspring will sweep up everybody´s attention!

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