Today I hired a private tour guide in Bratislava and her personal story was as interesting as the sights she showed. Eva is a couple years younger than I am and has lived in Slovakia, though it had different names, all her life. I have felt kind of a pall over me while in Bratislava and I wondered whether any of it has to do with remnants of the communist way of life. I was curious whether Eva’s life had changed much with the Velvet Revolution. She would have been about 30 when it happened.
(The Velvet Revolution, or the Gentle Revolution, took place in November and December of 1989. What began as some student protests quickly evolved into mass protests of 200,000 and then 500,000 people in Czechoslovakia, and a general strike by all workers, ending with the resignation of the communist party leaders November 1989 and immediate appointment of a parliamentary government. The legislature then deleted portions of the constitution that gave the communist party controlling power. Vaclav Havel, a writer and dissident, was appointed President and was elected to the office during the first democratic elections in over 45 years held the following June.)
Eva said she had always grown up with communism and didn’t know any differently. She said her parents were very, very angry about the communist government because they had lived in non-communist times. Still, Eva was angry about the disrespect the communist party showed for Slovakian traditions and culture.
Slovakians are rightfully proud of their beautiful buildings. As we were driving through Bratislava, Eva said “I will show you how much the communists respected our architecture. Do you see those ugly plain cubes?”
They were very ugly indeed, concrete cubes that reminded me of some prisons I have seen pictures of.
Eva continued. “That is what they built. That is what they thought people should live in. Who wants to live in that? They took down all the decorative features on our buildings because simplicity was the only important thing. We are still restoring from what they did to us.”
Then a while later she said “I will show you how much the communists respected our religion and culture. Do you see that thing? That ugly brown building?”
Actually it kind of looked Seattle-ish, angular, dark brown wood. She might not like Seattle modern architecture.
“That is the cultural center they built. We were all supposed to go to it. Do you see that it is right next to the Catholic church? They put it there to try to make people come to the cultural center instead of the church. They wanted to tell us how to spend all of our time.”
Eva said that people were allowed to go to church, but it was frowned upon by the communist leaders. “Oh yes, you could go to church, but there was always someone there monitoring who went in. If you ever needed anything from the government, you better not go to church. ‘Oh, your son is ready to begin school? Oh, I see you went to church. Too bad, there are no openings for him in school.’ We have a very religious culture, and that is how they respected our culture. Many people wanted to go to church, but they were afraid.”
One of the stops on the tour was to a small porcelain making firm. Slovakia is known for its beautiful hand painted porcelain. Eva said that during communism, no one was allowed to have their own business, so all the porcelain makers and painters had to work for government companies. I asked if the quality of the work suffered. She said no, the quality remained high, but the problem was the communists did nothing to market the products. And so all their markets dried up and they have been rebuilding them since 1990.
I asked Eva if her life changed at all because of the Velvet Revolution.
“Oh yes, I immediately quit my job. I enrolled in English language classes and knew that from that time on, whatever I worked would have something to do with English.”
Eva had gotten a degree in Geology. I don’t know what she wanted to study, but she said she could not get into the university that she wanted because her family had no political connections with the Communist party. She said it was connections, not academic excellence or even money that determined where you could go to university. Her father was a geologist so he suggested she go into it too.
“It was not my cup of tea, I hated it, but I had no choice. So when the revolution came, I immediately stood up and quit.”
She met her husband, also a geologist, while in university, and they have two grown sons. After the revolution, Eva took English courses for a year, and then she got a job teaching English at the same school while she attended her second year. She then began working as a technical translator for scientific firms. Much later, she went to school to become a guide and does freelance guide work and translation work.
Eva’s husband got a great job as a Director of something for the Swedish firm Skanska, working in Bratislava after the revolution. He did very well there, until Skanska had to drastically reduce its Slovakian workforce. The reason was that Skanska’s main business in Slovakia was government contracts. However, the new post-revolution government operated mainly by bribery. Skanska has a policy that it will not bribe, period. And so Skanska’s business dried up as they were never awarded any new contracts. He got another Directorship at another company, and the same story played out.
Then her husband spent 5 years doing contract work in Libya – he would work 12 hours per day for 28 days midnight-noon, and then the next 28 days he would work noon-midnight. Then, after 56 straight days of work, he would get 28 days off and would come home. She begged him to stop, but he was making big money and wanted to stash some away.
Finally, lately, he got a job working in the construction firm of one of his long-time friends from high school. Eva is worried about him and the firm – she wants them to do well, but this firm, too, refuses to bribe. So they have no Slovakian government contracts. So far they are doing well with work in the Czech Republic and Austria, both nearby. She is hoping he can keep his job for six years. I don’t know if they have something akin to Social Security, but she said “he has to work six more years because he’s 56.”
She said “We complain so much about our politicians, but at least now we can do that without being afraid.”