"One should do what fulfills him," says Ivana Kečkešová

If you’d met Ondřej Zháněl when he was eighteen and told him he’d one day become a winemaker, he’d probably have tapped his forehead in disbelief. The son of an artistic blacksmith, growing up in Břeclav, he had a field behind his house where, at most, beetroot and potatoes were grown. Wine? That certainly didn’t feature in his plans back then.

Rudolf Jakubík joined MND by chance in 1977. After his military service, he worked in a bank, where, during a tour, he met the head of the information systems department at the MND in Hodonín among the visitors. One thing led to another, a job offer came along, and even a higher salary. Although the promised computers remained more of a dream for the time being, Ruda took a step that changed his life for the next 49 years.

When we hear the term "chief energy officer," most of us imagine a person surrounded by tables and graphs, checking whether the numbers add up and consumption matches the plan. In the case of Tomáš Báborský, MND's new chief energy officer, however, the reality is much more colourful.

Václav Kratochvil works as an operator on the gas storage facility in Uhřice. In addition, he farms a two-hectare vineyard, where he takes care of about ten thousand heads of vines. When he goes to work, he walks - the journey takes him fifteen minutes. Just walk up the hill, walk through his vineyard and there he is. On the way back, he sees what needs to be done. "I really enjoy working on the hopper. But working in the vineyard, that's what fulfills me. I could be here all day and be happy. It clears your head," he says.

MND Germany GmbH has established itself as a respected drilling contractor in the German market over the past few years. Thanks to its emphasis on quality, safety and flexibility, MND Germany has managed to establish a strong position amongst its competitors and is currently successfully completing a one-year drilling campaign for one of the country's largest operators, Harbour Energy, with 40 rigs, building on the activities of the former Wintershall Dea.

This report brings you the first part of the interesting winemakers who work in our group. We start in Čejkovice, where father and son, Jiří and Petr Št'avík, cultivate their lines. Petr works in MND as the head of the mechanical department and Jiří is the manager of the Dambořice storage facility.

During the day he looks underground and works on dynamic models of bearings, after work he takes his camera and looks up at the stars. In his spare time, MND bearing engineer Milan Pagáč is an astrophotographer. He combines two hobbies: photography and his interest in space observation, which has been with him since childhood. His pictures are well known to many MND employees - they have appeared in the calendars of Drilling, where Milan's wife also works.

Miroslav Konečný will retire at the end of the year. He started at MND in 1975 as an apprentice and will finish in 2025, bringing to an end an incredible 50 years at MND.

Do you know what to do if you meet a bear in the countryside? What can you cure with slivovitz? If you go with colleagues from MND in Hodonín on regular leisure trips organized by Zuzka Oršulová, you will learn a lot. And most importantly, you will have a lot of fun, get a little exercise and see the beauty of South Moravia, or even discover interesting places just over the border.

Someone has a cellar full of preserves, another has a cellar full of wine. Štěpán Vican, a sales dispatcher from MND Energy Storage, grows mushrooms in his cellar. Specifically SCOBY, which he then uses to make special tea drinks or kombucha in combination with herbs. He calls them Herbucha and now he is opening an e-shop: kombuchazmoravy.cz. He wants to show people that kombucha can be very tasty, because most people are fixated that it's healthy, but not always good.