We're Back! Yet Another Trip to Slovakia, Part 1

We are back in Slovakia! So, naturally, I thought it was time to hack away the weeds and wipe off the layers of dust and soot that have accumulated here and reactivate the blog.

I apologize profusely for neglecting the blog for so long. Mainly because of Covid, we weren't able to make it back to Slovakia until now, after more than two and a half years. But because Simon turned five in March this year, we were finally able to get him vaccinated for Covid, which we wanted to do before taking him on such a big trans-Atlantic trip. And now that that's done, here we are!

A lot has happened since our last trip in 2019. First, quite sadly, Terezia's father, Anton, died in late December, just days before Christmas. After a lifetime of heavy drinking and smoking, his lungs and heart finally gave out, though he'd been in steady decline for a while. He'd been having increased difficulty breathing for a few years, and was even diagnosed with obstructive pulmonary disease, but he stubbornly resisted getting medical help, and he never stopped smoking a pack a day. Terezia's mom and brother finally got him to go to the hospital when it was clear he could no longer even make it down the street, and that was the last time they saw him. Because of Covid, and with the Omicron variant spiking at that time, the hospital wouldn't let them come back to visit him in person in the days that followed, and he died a few nights later, the Sunday before Christmas.

Terezia wanted to book a last-minute flight to go back home that week, but due to the general insanity of the holidays and the rise of Omicron, it was difficult to find a flight, and when she told Simon she was thinking of going to Slovakia for a week and leave us at home over the holidays, he had a heart-wrenching meltdown because he couldn't bare to have her gone for Christmas. Terezia's family wound up having to have the funeral for Anton just a couple days after he died, and it's not clear if Terezia even would have been able to make it out there in time. So, she stayed home and we decided to come out together as soon as we could, which happened to be May.

 

At the "lovely" Tomášovce train station with Terezia's mom.

And, of course, a few weeks after we purchased our plane tickets for the trip, Putin made the appalling and horrific decision to invade Ukraine. We felt a little odd traveling to a country that borders a war zone, but ultimately we felt that any potential risks (i.e., that the Russians would use a nuclear bomb or shell another large nuclear power plant) were likely to be low, so we stuck to our plans. 

 

Russia's Horrifying and Totally Unjustified War in Ukraine

I was curious to talk to people in Slovakia about the war and get a sense of the general mood here. My British expat friend in Slovakia, James, noted in an email to me how "no one [in Slovakia] looking at those bombed-out panelaks in Ukraine can help but see those in Petržalka, Košice, or really any Slovak town." I would extend that to the bombed-out roads and houses in Ukraine's villages as well, as they look practically identical to the rural villages here in Slovakia. 

I think the war has some people here a little on edge. There's a feeling among some folks of "We could be next!" even though people probably know that's highly unlikely (Moldova is most likely to be next). But that mistrust of Russia runs deep for some.

However, Terezia has an uncle who, unfortunately, I'm told is very pro Russia with regard to the war. I'm not sure why, specifically, but back in the days of communism, when Czechoslovakia was still a thing, he worked for the ŠtB, which was the Czech version of the KGB, and which had a similar reputation for state-sponsored terror. Because of that, plus some of his views on certain social issues (some of which seem to align with Putin's), I suppose I'm not entirely surprised he's pro Putin. He's of an old-school communist generation, some of who have a kind of nostalgia for the USSR days, which sometimes translates to an affinity for present-day Russia. He's a nice and hospitable guy when you're a guest in his home, of course (he goes out of his way to make sure your glass is always full), but I don't agree with him on this issue. Fortunately, I've been told that his wife supports Ukraine.

But it's really not uncommon to encounter pro-Russian sentiment here in Slovakia, even now, as weird and disconcerting as that sounds. Prior to the war, more than half of Slovaks said they viewed Putin positively in a survey. Apparently, opinions have shifted somewhat since the invasion began, according to this article: https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2022/03/29/vladimir-putin-used-to-be-popular-in-slovakia-then-he-invaded-ukraine. Polls conducted at the end of February, at the start of the invasion, indicated that "around 62 percent of Slovaks said Russia was to blame for the war, [and] only around one-third said it was the fault of NATO." This may have even shifted further now that we're more than two months into the war.

Terezia's mom was getting a massage recently and got into a bit of argument with her massage therapist about the war. (Just the kind of relaxing discussion you want to be having while getting a massage, right?) The massage guy was pushing the argument that the war is entirely America's fault and that the blood was on Americans' hands, and when my mother-in-law told him that her son-in-law and grandson are American, he immediately yanked his hands away from her and let out a loud, melodramatic gasp!

Terezia's brother, Tony, happens to live right next door to an elderly Russian woman. While out in his backyard sometime in April, he overheard her gloating on the phone to someone about how she'd heard a news report claiming that the Russians destroyed a missile defense system that Slovakia sent to Ukraine*. She sounded absolutely giddy, saying she was proud of "our boys." Tony obviously found this pretty disturbing, and he's had a difficult time pretending to be friendly to her since then. He said he hears Russian news blasting on her TV all the time, and she seems to be totally buying the Kremlin's disturbing propaganda about the war and living entirely inside the Russian disinformation bubble.

[*Interestingly, Slovakia's defense minister disputed Russia's claim that it struck the missile defense system.]

To date, Slovakia has taken in over 363,940 Ukrainian refugees of the more than 5.3 million who have so far fled Ukraine since the war started, so I was naturally curious to hear any stories about the refugees and how they're doing.

Tony, who lives in a suburb outside Bratislava called Bernolákovo, says that since the war started, he's been hearing LOADS of Ukrainian spoken among the mothers and kids at the local playground that he takes his daughter to. He spoke to one mother from Mariupol who was so desperate to get out that she took an evacuation route into Russia. From there she fled to Estonia, and then eventually made her way down to Slovakia, where she had some contacts. The whole journey took her and her kids a full seven days, and they left with nothing but a couple of suitcases.  

Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová delivered an impassioned plea to Russians to stop the war.

Fortunately, Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger, from the ruling party in parliament, OL’aNO, seems to be fully on board with helping Ukraine, and according to this article, he stated, "The Ukrainian nation is bravely defending its sovereignty – and [ours] too. It is our duty to help, not to stay put and be ignorant to the loss of human lives under Russian aggression." The article says that in part because of Heger's willingness to be proactive, Slovakia has transferred its S-300 missile defense system to Ukraine, welcomed NATO's ramped-up presence in the country, and has also been welcoming of the influx of Ukrainian refugees.

Slovakia's president, Zuzana Čaputová, who's been a beacon of sanity in what has often been a clown car of a government, has also been vocal in her disgust with Russia's invasion, and she recently made this impassioned speech in a video in which she appealed directly to Russians, speaking in Russian, to stop the war. It will fall on deaf ears, of course, but at least it shows she's no fan of Putin or the war.

By contrast, the scandal-plagued former prime minister Robert Fico and his Smer party (currently the opposition party in parliament) have historically been quite cozy with Putin, and they've been making a stink about NATO (even though Slovakia is a member) and helping Ukraine. And remember the missile defense system Slovakia sent to Ukraine? According to this NY Times article, Fico actually "upended the [Slovak] government’s efforts to keep the delivery of the S-300 battery secret until it had safely arrived in Ukraine when he posted a video on his Facebook page ... that showed a train carrying the disassembled air-defense system on its way to Ukraine." I'd say we're all very lucky that Fico and Smer are not in power right now.

The Flight

 

Simon, being five now, did way better on the flight this time. While he certainly had his moments, it was easier to find things to keep him preoccupied. It was also awesome not to have to change a screaming toddler's poop-filled diaper in the cramped airplane bathrooms.

As for Covid restrictions, we're in somewhat of a confusing time. We were told by the airline's flight staff that we had to keep our masks on for the whole 11-hour flight from SFO to Munich (except when eating, obviously) because of Germany's mask mandate. But then when we arrived in Munich, the chief flight attendant announced that wearing masks at the Munich airport was suddenly optional. Indeed, maybe 50% of the people we saw at Munich's airport were wearing masks. Then, for the second leg - the roughly hour-long flight to Budapest - we were told we had to wear masks again because of Lufthansa's own mask mandate. But once we arrived in Budapest, masks were again no longer required. So, there are currently a lot of differing rules to navigate with international travel.

Tony picked us up at the Budapest airport and got us to Terezia's mom's house in under two hours.

Despite only sleeping three hours on the flight, Simon had a massive burst of energy once we got to Terezia's mom's place, and that same afternoon he helped Tony mow all the grass in the yard with a gas-powered lawn mower. Simon had a huge smile on his face the whole time, and he was deeply disappointed when they ran out of grass to cut. 

The Garden

The last time we were here, in September/October of 2019, it was early autumn and Terezia's mom's garden was incredibly lush, full, wild, and jungle-like. And in early autumn in 2018, a few of the apple trees were so weighed down with apples that some of their branches had to be propped up with long wooden poles. I'd forgotten how barren the garden and backyard can look in late April/early May, with the apple and plum trees having been freshly pruned, the grape vines stripped bare, and the garden just a long brown strip of exposed soil where all the vegetables and potatoes have just been planted.

The garden in early autumn, 2019.

The garden in spring, 2022.

However, a few apple and/or plum trees were cut down since our last visit. Apparently they were getting old and sickly, and they had to go, which makes the yard look even barer. However, at the time of writing, many of the trees in the village are explosions of white (and occasionally pink) blossoms, so things are very colorful.

Terezia's Dad: Anton Gašparík

One of the first things on our agenda was to visit the cemetery in the nearby village of Tomášovce where Terezia's dad's ashes were placed. Tomášovce is just south of Podrečany, and it's where Terezia's grandmother lived for a good deal of her life up until she died a few years ago. Since Terezia's mom's parents are buried at that cemetery, and since Terezia's dad always liked it in Tomášovce, they decided to place his remains at the cemetery there.

Having a communist family Christmas, late 70s.

Terezia's dad, Anton (Tono for short), was the star of his local soccer team when he was younger, and he was somewhat of a legend throughout the region. When he stopped playing, he coached a local team for several years. When I knew him, he would always take the train to some nearby village or town to check out a local game. Sometimes when we'd go out to run errands with him, random people he hadn't seen in years would recognize him on the street and stop to chat, and it was often people who remembered him from his soccer-playing days.

He also loved to sing. Whenever he'd get together with his few remaining sisters (he was the youngest of 13 siblings!), he would harmonize beautifully with them on traditional Slovak folks songs.

Tono with Simon in September, 2019.

He worked in a factory which, during communism, manufactured parts for Soviet tanks. After communism they transitioned to making parts for trains. He did that his entire adult life until retirement.

With Tono at Fiľakovo Castle, September 2018.

I never felt like I got to know the real Anton; in the time that I knew him, he was much more subdued and less talkative, likely due to all the drinking, and not the fun-loving, energetic, gregarious jokester he was known to be when he was younger. He'd always be sitting in his chair at the little table on their back porch overlooking their garden, quietly doing his crossword puzzles, shelling walnuts, or rolling his tobacco, with a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth and a portable radio at his side playing traditional Slovak tunes. Terezia's mom made a little shrine to him at his spot on the porch.

Terezia dancing with her dad at the post-ceremony party of her secondary school graduation.

His other favorite pastime was scouring the ground in the backyard for plums or bad apples, which he would use to make his yearly batches of homemade slivovice and jablkovica. That stuff was so potent that we used to refer to it as jet fuel, and the alcohol content was so high you could literally light it on fire. I actually don't miss drinking that stuff so much (the resulting heartburn was a nightmare), but it was kind of fun when Terezia's mom would step outside for a minute and he'd discretely usher us into the pantry for a quick shot of his gut rot.

Our friend Jeff Syrop holding a shot of Terezia's dad's homemade slivovice after setting it on fire.

 

But he was a genuinely friendly, nice, easy-going guy, and he is, of course, dearly missed. His absence is certainly felt when we're hanging around the house or piddling around in the garden. We just wish he'd taken better care of himself, and I know Terezia really wishes she could have seen him at least one more time.

The Next Day

On our first night, Simon conked out hard and slept through the whole night - a first for a guy who usually has a rough time getting over the jet lag. This seemed like a promising development, but then on the second night, Simon woke up just as we were going to bed, at 11:30 pm, and he stayed up until 3:30 in the morning (!), getting lots of screen time and stuffing his face because he was suddenly famished.

So, the next day was very mellow and unexciting. It involved going into Lučenec to pick up our rental car, hitting up our favorite ice cream joint (Záhradná zmrzlina), visiting Lučenec's main park for some time at the playground, some grocery shopping at Tesco, and more piddling around the house and village.

We also found this gem of a photo of Terezia in her mid teens:

Springtime in Podrečany.

 

The old, abandoned schoolhouse in Podrečany.

It's probably going to be a fairly mellow trip. I'm hoping to get to talk to more people here about the war in Ukraine, and I'm sure we'll be making it over to Bratislava at some point.

Click here to see the rest of the photos from the trip.