Trip to Slovakia, 2023: Part 1—Village Life, a Slovak Massage, Divín, and Slovak Views on Ukraine

We are back in Slovakia, yet again. Now that Simon is in public school, having just finished kindergarten, we are sadly confined to traveling abroad (or anywhere for any meaningful length of time) only during his summer vacation and winter break. It sucks because airfare typically costs more at those times, but it's not like we can just stop going. (I don't have anything really new and riveting to report yet, so feel free to go straight to my photos of this trip here, which I'll be adding to throughout the trip.)

Unlike the last three trips, when we flew in to Budapest and took a taxi straight to Terezia's mom's house in Podrečany, this time we flew to Vienna, where Terezia's brother, Tony, kindly picked us up and brought us to his house in Bernolákovo, just outside Bratislava. For some reason, this year flying to Budapest would have cost us $1,000 more (!) than usual, so Vienna it was.

After spending our first night exhausted at Tony's, Simon got up very early the next morning to play with his cousin/Tony's daughter, Tea (pronounced like Tay-ah), but also, we all got to meet—for the first time—Timotaj, Tony and Silvia's nine-month old son! He is devastatingly cute, but the poor kid has already been through hell and back on this dumpster fire of a planet, having caught both RSV and COVID over the winter. He recovered, but ever since he has had issues with his lungs with lingering bronchitis-type symptoms, which has meant numerous trips to the hospital and all sorts of medication and whatnot. Poor kid! The doctors say it will get better with time, but still, the experience was traumatizing for the whole family. I mean, imagine seeing your baby in the hospital hooked up to all sorts of tubes and breathing apparatuses.

Simon had a blast playing with Tea—they played together incredibly well, bouncing off the walls and darting around Tony's back yard and mellow neighborhood street out in front. Simon had said before the trip that he really missed his cousins (he even cried once about our near-total lack of family back in the States) and that he was very much looking forward to seeing them again.

We had to abandon our usual mafia-run (reportedly) car rental place in Lučenec because despite Terezia reserving a specific car from them online well ahead of time (an automatic Škoda Fabia wagon), they called a week before our trip to say they would only have stick shifts available, and Terezia really doesn't want to drive a stick (though she's totally capable of it). We managed to find a reputable place in Bratislava instead, which made more sense anyhow since this time we were going to Terezia's mom's place from there, but also, this agency had the added bonus of providing a free service where they brought the car to us, at Tony's house.

Back to Podrečany

We headed out for Podrečany at about 10:30 Saturday morning and made it to Terezia's mom's house in roughly two hours. The new stretches of freeway (er, dual carriageway) between Zvolen and Podrečany really help to cut the travel time down. 

Terezia's mom was, of course, overjoyed to see us, and she had lunch ready on the stove when we arrived, like most Slovak mothers would. It always feels like coming home here rather than being away.

By afternoon, Simon was already playing with Adamko, an autistic boy I mentioned from our last trip who lives next door and comes over to play. Simon and Adamko were racing up and down the street, with Simon on some child's bike that Tony found for him, and Adamko riding a scooter. The next day Simon met two more neighborhood boys, including Mirko from just down the street, whom Simon got on with instantly and played with every afternoon until he was completely wiped out. Mirko is a couple years older than Simon, but he seems like a really sweet kid, and he speaks English, so he and Simon can communicate pretty well!

We asked Mirko why we didn't see him around last year, and his response was really kind of sad: He said that last year he had a phone and that he was playing games on it all the time, but his dad had to take the phone to a pawn shop, so now he has to play outside. Sigh... You gotta remember these are some hardscrabble villages out here in this part of the country.

Mirko also thought we had just moved to Podrečany, like, to live here, and he was very sad to learn we're just visiting and we'll be gone in less than a month.

Unfortunately, in these first several days of the trip, I really have nothing exciting, different, or new to report. We've done the same sorts of things that we did at this point on the last few trips, so it's going to seem like déjà vu if I go through every stupid little thing in detail. So, I'll try to summarize this stuff in broad strokes.

Waiting for the train in Podrečany.

 

Ice cream at Záhradná.

Lunch in Lučenec.

Simon in the park in Lučenec.

We've already been to nearby Lučenec multiple times to go grocery shopping at Tesco and to make necessary stops at the great Záhradná ice cream shop. We took the local train to see Terezia's dad's headstone at the cemetery in nearby Tomášovce, after which we got a loaf of that sublime, just-out-of-the-oven "tomorrow's bread" from the inconspicuous bakery there (which I first wrote about here). They're still not letting anyone inside their little shop (something they stopped doing back when COVID hit), but the two older ladies there happily let Simon come in, and he walked out of the place with six extra slices of fresh bread, in addition to our loaf, so it seems he was able to use his cuteness to his advantage. We had an hour to kill before the next train back to Podrečany, so we went to a pub that Terezia frequented as a teenager and had a beer while waiting for the train.

Waiting for the train at the still-breathtaking marvel of civil engineering that is the Tomášovce train station.

Simon outside the charmingly inconspicuous bakery in Tomášovce.

 

The view of the surrounding countryside seen from the cemetery when standing by Terezia's dad's headstone.

Killing time at a pub in Tomášovce.

I've also been getting my daily village walks in. There's not much news to report in Podrečany. The village's oldest building continues to crumble to dust unabated. Some of the locals still stubbornly refuse to use the sidewalks that were installed along the main street a few years ago. Sadly, one of Terezia's dad's old friends, named Ivo, who always used to say hello to me when I'd see him around the village, died in his sleep several weeks ago. A new stretch of freeway (er, dual carriageway) was completed since our last visit. Its exit by Podrečany is located just past the village if you're coming from the West. Fortunately, there seems to be just enough distance from the village that you can't really hear it, at least from Terezia's mom's street.

 

 

In the distance, you can see a section of the new freeway (sorry, dual carriageway) that runs by Podrečany.

Speaking of noise, on Tuesday morning we awoke at 6:15 to what sounded like a mad chorus of buzzing chainsaws not too far off in the distance. "Why in the hell are people operating chainsaws at 6:15 in the goddamn morning?" was my first thought. It wasn't until several hours later, when we were heading out to see the Divín castle ruin, that we saw three shirtless guys carrying weed whackers over their shoulders, walking away from the newly shorn grassy slope beneath the village's kultúrny dom that I realized it was, of course, weed whackers and not chainsaws, and they were likely trying to get it all done before the weather warmed up. Still, were we out-of-towners the only ones in the village who found doing this at 6:15 am puzzling? Chalk it up to village life, I guess.

I Got a Slovak Massage

My neck has been killing me for about nine months at the time of writing this. It's a sharp pain in the back of my neck at the base of my skull on the left side, and I feel it whenever I turn my head in either direction. I've already wasted money on a chiropractor back home, who did nothing to alleviate it, and I saw my doctor, who referred me for acupuncture, but they're so backed up that they had no appointments available until after our Slovakia trip. 

So, Terezia's mom suggested I go see her massage therapist in Lučenec, but there was a catch. You might recall from this post from our last trip that I mentioned Terezia's mom was getting massages from a guy in Lučenec who is very pro-Russia/Putin and anti-Ukraine/US/The West with regard to Russia's horrifying war on Ukraine. He believed that America somehow baited Russia into war (a BS argument that some people nevertheless buy into), and when Terezia's mom mentioned that her son-in-law and grandson were American, he let out a loud gasp and yanked his hands away in horror.

Anyhow, given that anecdote, I asked if this guy would really be OK with seeing me, and Terezia's mom said she talked to the guy and she insisted it would be fine. She scheduled back-to-back half-hour sessions for herself, me, and Terezia for our first Monday afternoon there. I was a wee bit nervous when entering the oppressively drab, communist-era multi-story office building, but the guy seemed to have no problem with me and was friendly and totally professional.

The communist-era building where the massage therapist has his office.

This massage guy is blind, and if it weren't for the milky coloring of his eyes, you'd never guess it, since he navigates his small office with ease. He is a big, beefy older fellow, with a low, booming voice and a slightly intimidating presence. First he had me take my shirt off and sit on his massage table with my back to him, and the second he laid his thick fingers on my shoulders, he let out a "Jesus!" (pronounced in Slovak like Yay-jheesh), because they felt so tight. He went to work on the muscles in my shoulders and around my shoulder blades, and gradually worked his way up. It felt great! For the second half of the session, he had me lie down on my back with my head resting on one of his knees, and he kneaded the problem areas in the back of my neck. Again, it felt awesome. 

Fortunately, the subject of the war in Ukraine never came up.

He strongly urged me to come back for more sessions, because he said the problem was severe enough that one session wouldn't be enough. I came back two days later and he focused more on my back and shoulders, saying I was insanely tight and that I had a terrible knot in my right shoulder above the collar bone. And the best part? The sessions cost a total of €10 each. No, that's not a typo—it's really ten euros.

Divín

The road to Divín.

We made our by-now obligatory trip to nearby Divín castle, the evocative castle ruin I've mentioned here before, which overlooks the picturesque village of the same name, and the Ružiná reservoir and village just off in the distance. Each year as Simon gets older, he appreciates these kinds of things more and more and really takes them in, so it's worth returning to these places because of that. Plus, it's just a fun place to tromp around when there's not much else to do.

 

 

This time they had one of the more intact rooms made up vaguely like a dungeon, with a wooden table with iron shackles for the wrists, waist, and ankles, and a grate in the floor which, if you peered down into it with your iPhone's flashlight on, revealed a skeleton dangling from a string. EU-funded reconstruction work has been ongoing with this ruin for years, but this was the first time we actually saw a crew of workers onsite. This friendly woman who appeared to be their boss told us we were still free to roam the place and walk around the workers, but just to be careful. 

 

 

I've written about Divín and its history multiple times, so I'll spare you the repetition, but the ruins themselves and the views from atop the hill never get old for us. It really is a beautiful area and a nicer-than-average village.

 

 The Slovak People's Sadly Declining Support for Ukraine

Unfortunately, Russia's horrifying war against Ukraine rages on, but despite continued support from most countries throughout Europe to help Ukraine win, support in Slovakia has been slipping among its citizens.

Slovakia's government showed unwavering support throughout 2022, as its sensible, level-headed, and Western-oriented president, Zuzana Čaputová, and then-prime minister, Eduard Heger, were quite vocal about their desire to help Ukraine, and Slovakia took in hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees. Slovakia also supplied what military aid it could to Ukraine; though peanuts compared to the US or UK, what they did provide was nevertheless a case of quality over quantity, including S-300 air defense systems and MiG-29 fighter jets, among other things.

However, the socially conservative Euro-skeptic Smer party, which perplexingly remains one of the most popular political parties in the country, has been highly critical of Western aid to Ukraine, and of NATO, from the get-go. Smer's leader, disgraced former prime minister Robert Fico, has long been known to have friendly ties with Vladimir Putin, and he has consistently spread disinformation and lies to make Slovaks wary of helping Ukraine. He has hammered out a message that the war is raising the costs of food and gas, that Ukrainian refugees are sucking up all the resources that should be going to Slovaks, and that helping Ukraine will somehow drag Slovakia directly into the war. This is all either misleading or outright bullshit, but that hasn't stopped a growing number of misinformed voters from buying into it.

According to Balkan Insight, "Among the [Slovaks] who expressed the most support for Russia in [a controversial 2022] survey were those who remain unvaccinated, support far-right parties or the former ruling party Smer, and are less educated," which is not at all surprising.

From the same article, information security expert Tomáš Kriššák said he is "not surprised by the declining support for Ukraine in such a polarized society as Slovakia's. The Slovak information space has been under the control of Russian propaganda spreaders for a long time, he noted."

Slovakia is said to be especially susceptible to the spread of Kremlin-propagated disinformation, as President Čaputová discusses in this interesting piece by Politico. Smer has also been playing the Trump card by claiming that the upcoming parliamentary election will be rigged by the state to keep Smer out of power, even though, as reported recently in the Slovak Spectator, "three top constitutional officials received intelligence which indicates that Russia harbors plans to manipulate elections in Slovakia to benefit Robert Fico's Smer party."

Compounding the situation, Slovakia's pro-Ukraine government collapsed in a no-confidence vote last fall, and while PM Heger continued to serve in a care-taking capacity until they hold elections, he resigned in May for reasons too complicated to get into here (no wrongdoing on his part, just a lot of strange, politically in-the-weeds circumstances). This has weakened the voice of pro-Ukrainian sentiment from the government, and Fico has been loudly filling the vacuum with Kremlin-approved propaganda ahead of the upcoming election.

The election is scheduled for September, and polls show Smer poised to make a comeback. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll win enough seats to form a ruling government coalition, but if they do, the fear is they will take a turn toward increased authoritarianism and kleptocracy, like Hungary's Viktor Orban, and cut off aid to Ukraine and realign the country with Putin/Russia.

Fico is a lot like Trump in that he is wildly corrupt and has a penchant for making inflammatory and brazenly dishonest statements. His party tends to be more about simply attaining and maintaining political power, and as such, they've never really had any coherent domestic or foreign policy, but they tend to be quite conservative on most political and social issues (pandering to their voter base), such as immigration, the EU, and now Ukraine.

Fico fell from power back in 2018, when thousands of Slovaks protested in the streets, demanding justice for the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee, Martina Kušnírová, as well as consequences for Fico and his party due to their inability to find and convict the murderer(s), and for their ties to the world of organized crime that Kuciak was investigating at the time of his murder. Yet, now, if the polls are to be believed, Fico and Smer are well-positioned for a comeback. Slovaks seem to have an infuriatingly short political memory. And like Trump, Fico just won't go away, and so far he has faced no legal consequences (he avoided going to jail after Slovakia's parliament in 2022 failed to approve a motion to suspend his immunity while he was under investigation for organized crime charges.)

We'll see what happens, but as is often the case in Slovak politics, there is ample reason to be pessimistic, and if things don't actually turn out for the worst, it'll be a surprise that no one saw coming. 

See all photos taken from the trip so far here.