Owing to the generosity of President Václav Havel, our visitors could admire a pearl nativity scene, which was in the President’s personal possession, every Christmas from 2005 to 2009. Václav Havel received this particular nativity scene as a gift from Yasser Arafat during his visit to Palestine.
The nativity scene was kept in an olive wood box adorned with two reliefs carved from mother-of-pearl. One depicted the Nativity of Jesus Christ and the other the Last Supper of the Lord. The whole cabinet was then also lined with mother-of-pearl on the front.