Every other answer to questions I asked started with the same preface. How did this bill get negotiated? Why does the drummer in the most popular Slovak band also have to work as a lawyer?
“It’s a small country, Jordan.”
With about 5.5 million citizens, and its capital Bratislava with at under 500k souls, Slovakia is small. A ‘transition’ country, its GDP per capita clocks in at a little under $20k.
Twice Slovaks asked me, “But why are you here it’s the most random place?” Well, I was in Slovakia to research the government’s open data policy. It’s not very good but might get better soon. What follows are my notes.
History
Slovakia had their first shot at independent nationhood for about fifty years in the 800s. The ‘Great Moravian Empire,’ that at its height controlled bits of modern day Hungary, Austria, and Germany. In 903, it was, according to a medieval Bulgarian monk with an axe to grind, “punished by God for their lawlessness and heresy, for the banishment of the orthodox fathers, and for the torments inflicted on the latter by the heretics with whom they acquiesced. In a few years the Magyars came, a people of Peonia, sacked their land and devastated it.”
It took over a thousand years for the Slovaks to get another state.
The most popular national hero is Ľudovít Štúr, “Slovakia’s first hipster” (check the beard). As a teenager in the 1820s, he got into linguistics, praising/codifying/inventing the language. He patterned himself as a Romantic hero, alternately writing articles and losing battles. There’s a chain of coffee shops named after him that writes their menu in his original spelling for the language — today it reads as ‘pirate Slovak.’
During the Munich Conference in 1938, Chamberlain gifted Hitler Czechoslovakia. To weaken the Czechs and guarantee a suppliant state on the Reich’s border, he gave Christian nationalist leader and former Catholic priest Jozef Tiso the hard sell (declare independence or we’ll either invade or give you to the hated Hungarians). He declared Slovakia a state in March 1939, contributed forces and served as an armaments base for the Reich. Not the most inspiring of national rebirth stories.
In the first few years of the war he deported over 50,000 Jews to Poland. Hitler got a kick out of it…in 1942 he said “It is interesting how this little Catholic priest Tiso is sending us the Jews!” Once the Slovak Papal Nuncio let him know that he was sending Jews to death camps in 1942, he stopped deportations for the final 25,000 still in Slovakia. After the Germans crushed the Slovak Uprising in 1944 and occupied the country, the remaining Jews’ fate was sealed. In Trnava, one synagogue is run down and the other has been turned into a cafe and art museum that charges an ungodly $10 for admission. I was asked if Jews have golden calves in their synagogues.
Slovak food has plenty of eerie echoes in Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine. There was even a Bamba (Israeli peanut puffs)-equivalent, Chrumky.
Czechs and Slovaks each blame each other for bringing on/being more pro-Communist. After the fall of the USSR, Czechoslovakia had a rough two years of independence. No national parties emerged — a combination of right-wing Czech leaders unwilling to devolve power and Slovak nationalists clamoring for independence led to the split on Jan 1, 1993. Only 5% of Slovaks supported the ‘Velvet Divorce’ at the time. A unified political elite, however, can pretty much always get its way.
Culture — “We’re Insecure”
I haven’t come across a country that is both really insecure and really open about it. “We feel like every country owes us something” — the Germans for WWII, the Austrians for the Hapsburg empire, the Hungarians for centuries of Magyar control, the Czechs for not respecting them. Czechs refer to Slovaks as their “little brothers,” the backward, over-religious, poor neighbors who need coaxing and coaching to develop.
Slovakia has the biggest gender gap of attractiveness I’ve ever seen. One ad for the domestic slovak lager joked that “Marrying a Slovak woman? That’s English, Italian, Austrian, UAE. Marrying a Slovak man? That’s Slovak.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bF_x4C0pT8)
Another joke: “How do you tell a Slovak from an Austrian? Austrians swerve when they drive drunk. Slovaks drive straight when wasted— when they’re sober they’re swerving to dodge all the potholes.”
Street harassment is a big thing. One female friend, asleep on the grass at a music festival, was unable to shoo away a couple of boys who woke her up and then tried to hit on her. A Czech guy ended up intervening.
I did not once see a Slovak woman over fourteen without at least half an hour’s worth of makeup on. One said going across the street to a grocery store was the furthest she could make it outside without makeup. “It’s like hygiene.” Girls start dying their hair at 14. Grandmas commonly rock purple.
The literal translation of cotton swab in Slovak is face tampon.
Chain smoking is widespread. So are chainsmokers who are scandalized by weed.
The soft drink of choice is Kofola, originally introduced in communist times. Served on draft in bars and restaurants, it’s less sweet and more caffinated than coke. I approve.
English quality is very high. Old people speak German, not Russian, as a second language. People were very friendly and helpful.
Movies are subtitled in Czech, and Czechs outsource their tech support to Slovakia. Only kids movies get dubbed in Slovak.
Slovakia is a hockey country, and rollerskating is still very much a thing. On Friday nights in Bratislava a bank shuts down major streets and shepherds over a thousand skaters on a miles-long track through the city.
Eastern Slovaks get a bad rap. They’re poor and speak funny. The leader of the rollerskating outfit kept calling anyone who didn’t follow his directions an easterner.
One reality show features an inverted hick-shaming dating setup — one farmer woman tries to prove herself to a handful of male farmers to convince one of them to marry her.
Slovak chickens, I guess like all EU non-antibiotic chickens, are very small.
POHODA: The World’s Greatest Music Festival
After a two hour train ride outside Bratislava, I arrived in Trencín for the annual Pohoda (relax) music festival. Pohoda was founded in 1997 by two friends who were in a hardcore band under communist rule. They initially hoped to compensate for the slashed cultural budget following Slovakia’s independence. The festival has since grown to a weekend-long event for 30,000.
Since its inception Pohoda has targeted every age demographic. Strollers and grandmothers populated the repurposed airport. The festival featured an entire children’s zone complete with bouncy castles, puppet shows, a Christian orchestra, and even a man-powered basket merry-go-round.
Other Pohoda activites? Free canvas and paint. Literary readings. NGO-hosted panels. A foosball tournament (Slovaks are very good at foosball.) Human foosball. Air hockey. Plastic ice hockey I haven’t seen since Lazer Park birthdays.
Dance Class
My favorite tent was dedicated entirely to teaching people dance steps.
Each day they featured a “Clip Dance,” where a dance-leader would teach the crowd a few moves from one of that night’s headliner’s singles. The festival’s organizers pick twenty good dancers from the crowd, and with the band’s management’s nod, surprise the singers onstage with a whole troupe of backup dancers. Two Door Cinema Club was reportedly stupefied.
The Romanian dance group got the most love. After teaching a crowd of over five hundred ranging from tweens to grandparents how to circle dance. One set piece featured a ‘Coke and Pepsi’ Bar Mitzvah split of the room between boys and girls, where each side took turns showing off their moves in a back and forth that tugged the dancers across the floor. After they went off stage, the crowd began stamping out the rhythm we had been listening to for the past hour — the calls for an encore dance number were the loudest I heard all weekend.
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I’m conflicted whether or not this could ever fly in the states. On the east coast at least, I think people would be too self-conscious to generate the critical mass required for everyone to feel ok.
I asked a few people why they were so comfortable looking uncoordinated in front of strangers. Familiarity with traditional dancing, a progressive audience, racial and religious uniformity I suggested? Maybe, but also, “We’re just drunk.”
Performances
A Curacao-based band (Kuenta I Tambu) had another great set. With male and female lead singers, a dj playing dance beats and two drummers rocking African drums, they played an fusion of edm, trap, and island music.
One of their riffs was how no one in Slovakia had heard of Curacao but after tonight they’ll never forget it. “I love the flag-waving!” said the lead singer. Someone in the crowd passed her a Czech flag that she displayed with abandon. A roadie quickly took it out of her hands.
The water the festival staff handed out at the front of the EDM sets was sparkling. Food options ranged from Hungarian langos (sort of gross fried dough with cheese) to potato pancakes as big as your head served up by grandmas.
I tweeted at RL Grime to play a song I wanted, saying I was the only America at the festival. He favorited and did.
Welcoming the Sun
Slovakia is the whitest country I’ve ever visited. I guess given other opportunities in Europe, Slovakia doesn’t compare well for African, Middle Eastern, and Asian immigrants. But unlike in South Korea, even Slovakia has a ‘racial underclass’ of sorts. Most construction workers were ethnic Roma. A friend who had thrown music events in the past noted that whenever they book Roma acts, a big sticking point was always having to provide full transportation, housing, and meals .And I did not see one Roma out of the tens of thousands of attendees.
Yet a Roma band made the most magical moment of the weekend. Starting at 5am ‘Sendreiovci Le Orchestroha’ came on stage for a “welcoming of the sun” concert. The vibe of the two thousand who had stayed up all night wasn’t drugged but just completely blissed out. I’ve never been around in a group of people all so exhausted, mellow, and in their own way ecstatic.
By 7:30am the Sunday morning ecumenical service on the festival stage that Baauer and Hudson Mohawke had rocked only 24hrs before had started. Over five hundred of all ages attended.
Said one friend, “Pohoda is how I wish Slovakia would be.”
Bratislava
Of all the major European cities, Bratislava is the most likely for tourists to stay in just for one night. Communists built over most of the old city, but what remains is filled with open air restaurants and beer halls, winding medieval streets, churches, and a town square. South of the river are malls and block apartments, inhabited by a “the bridge and tunnel crowd” who ruin the nightlife.
Bratislava’s castle game is a little underwhelming. The main one in the city is pretty (but sort of empty) and was rebuilt from scratch in the 1950s. Thirty minutes outside the city they have a more impressive castle, Devin, at the junction of two rivers ala Mt. Vernon…until Napoleon decided to blow it up. It does have a great princess jail built on an rocky outcropping though.
Bratislava features surprisingly strong nightlife. A rooftop ‘Culture Center’ featured old-school board games and 70s music. My “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” karaoke rendition won alot of points.
America
I ran into a British kid drunk on July 4th and started to give him some shit. My slovak friend then asked me if I hated Brits. Also on the 4th I saw a young Slovak guy in a USA bro tank. I said something but he had no idea what I was talking about.
Plenty of English-speaking Slovaks have used the J-1 Work-Travel program to make it to the states for the summer. Amusement parks and farmers’ markets were common professions, all seemed to really enjoy it even if they were stuck in rural Vermont at the top of a waterside. Kids watch Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Girls, The Walking Dead…etc.
It’s really striking to go all around the world and hear the same iphone ringtones coming out of pockets.
I saw one white power t shirt. One well-educated IT professional couldn’t help but mentioning this “hysterical” racist song he’d come across recently riffing off affirmative action.
Government
The Ministry of Finance had a dumbwaiter-type elevator that didn’t stop moving — you had to hop on and off. The Transportation Ministry is the only other building in Slovakia with one and the Finance people were pretty proud that the only people who have gotten injured of late have been Transportation employees.
I had a meeting at the Presidential Palace in Bratislava. Wearing my suit I was picked up at the gate by a guy in a polo and jeans. “The president’s on vacation,” he said. In the office everyone seemed to have brought their toddler to work. My interviewee said that before they moved in, they had no idea there was a chapel in the building.
There are lots of development projects with big signs saying “paid for by the EU development fund” like it was USAID or JBIC.
I bonded with one NGO worker about blowing off coursera R classes.
Austria Notes
Central Vienna has next to zero street harassment. One friend was really surprised and flattered when a guy walked up to her, told her she was beautiful, and asked for her number. He did the same thing to her two months later.
One Vienna club had gondola cabins in lieu of a smoking section.
A friend was starting an eco-friendly online clothing store had a sale out of her apartment. I got sunglasses made out of recycled computers from disabled Danes. Even selling to family members, she was writing up receipts so she could correctly file her taxes.
Poles serve the schnitzel.