The Foreigner's Guide to Slovakia

Often times I am asked for some good ideas Americans can bring as gifts when going to Slovakia to visit relatives. I have also been asked for wedding gift ideas when attending a Slovak wedding, and once I was asked what would be a good souvenir to give a Slovak exchange student in the US who was leaving for home in a few weeks.

It’s difficult to advise people on what are good gifts. Everyone has their own ideas of what’s appropriate for their intended recipients. But for the sake of sharing my own thoughts on this, and some ideas that have worked (or not worked) in the past for gift giving things from America to my Slovak relatives, I thought I’d post.

And please, I’d love comments from people with suggestions of their own.

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Slovaks are utterly shocked when they learn that I had never heard of Winnetou until I moved to Slovakia.

How can that be?! How can it be that I’m not familiar with the Native American hero, the Apache Indian who with his friend Old Shatterhand helped keep the peace between Indians and white settlers? What about Winnetou’s famous horse, Iltschi, or Hatatitla, Old Shatterhand’s horse? Nope. Didn’t ring any bells.

Winnetou and his story are the creation of the German author Karl May. His books became extremely popular and fundamental reading for children all across Europe. In the 1960’s a series of Winnetou films were made, making the popularity of the characters even greater.

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• Tags:art

Cherry season is almost here (though it might be delayed due to all the heavy rain). Cherry trees can be found all across Slovakia. In fact, you have to know two words: čerešňa – cherry, and višňa – black cherry or sour cherry. I remember the first year I was teaching and students would bring me large bags of cherries. My teacher roommate and I could never finish them, even after making cherry cobblers and pies.

There are many recipes for koláč using cherries. I posted a basic fruit cake recipe here in the past. Of course you can always eat cherries as they are, freshly picked, but if you reach for a glass of water don’t be surprised if a Slovak vigorously warns you against taking a drink.

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• Tags:food_and_drink

Where is this?

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• Tags:Kde_jekde_je

We’re back home in California after 7 weeks in Slovakia. We had a wonderful time, but of course it’s always nice to come back home.

We didn’t do much, really. Mostly it was visiting relatives (most of my husband’s immediate family of parents, grandparents, and aunt and uncle live within a few blocks next to each other), chatting, and eating a lot. I gained a few pounds but it was worth those second servings of duck with knedle and kapusta. Not to mention the countless slices of nut-roll koláč. I have no regrets.

I didn’t bring too many things home this time. I brought more medovniky to give as gifts. I hadn’t seen red ones before, like this one pictured. They are beautiful. And being that they are light weight and durable, I bought several with none cracking or getting destroyed along the journey.

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• Tags:food_and_drink

Last week I was in Bratislava for the day, checking out many of the new changes to the city, visiting friends, and doing a little shopping. Since I was coming from another town by bus, I took public transportation all day and realized that it can be a little daunting if you are a foreigner and don’t know what to do.

Each of the larger cities in Slovakia have their own system for taking public transportation. I’m writing specifically about Bratislava in this post.

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• Tags:travel

Spring is definitely here in Slovakia. Fields have been planted with whatever it is that will be grown, and it’s possible to see many fields with sprouts or shoots already. Just outside of my small town there is a newly planted field that we pass every time we walk to visit grandpa in the next village over. The tractor marks were fresh the first time we crossed, so I knew the field had been done all at once and planted with the same crop. I therefore created an image of a single owner in my imagination, having the responsibility of being overseer. That is not the case here and probably not the case with many large pieces of land across Slovakia.

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• Tags:czechiaCzechialawtraditions

My husband’s grandpa gave him a bottle of homemade palenka. I wasn’t sure exactly how to describe palenka so I looked it up in Wikipedia:

Pálenka denotes any kind of distillate, but especially fruit distillate, in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It is also often used as a generic word for all kinds of liquors, including vodka, gin, borovička, etc. The word derives from the Slavonic stem “páliť”, to burn.

This palenka is of mixed fruit. From what I have learned, aged palenka is better. This stuff comes from 1964, which I suppose must mean it’s pretty good.

Now I have to figure out what to do with it. Should we try and bring it home to California or leave it behind? Hmmm.

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• Tags:food_and_drink

I like living in a block of flats—most of the time. Sure, it can be a bit noisy, and sometimes you may feel you are a bit too close for comfort, such as when you hear your neighbor sneeze or blow their nose, but overall I like having neighbors close by. Most of our neighbors are very nice people who always greet you in the hall way. Blocks are getting older and some hold up better than others but no matter what it looks like on the outside, inside people take care of their homes.

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I took a picture of the breakfast I ate this morning—my favorite: a rožok with salami and soft cheese, along with tomato, Edam, and Slovak mustard. I usually drink šipkovy čaj – rose hip tea, along with everything.

I don’t eat this every day. Usually I have cereal.

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• Tags:food_and_drink

After only a few days back in Slovakia I’ve realized that I’ve changed.

I went into a shop with the intention of looking for a small wallet—I needed something with a pocket to carry all my euro coins. The store was empty except for the woman behind the register and another woman, also a shop assistant, who was leaning against the counter chatting with her. Since the wallets were under glass in the counter, I would have to ask the woman sitting behind to show me what she had. A few years ago this would have been a scenario that would have turned me into an anxious and uncomfortable person, or even sent me from the shop without having asked for a thing. But instead, I walked up to the counter, stared boldly at the woman behind the counter until she made eye contact with me, and then without any hesitations told her what I was looking for and asked her to show me what she had.

This time I didn’t care that my Slovak grammar was not perfect. I didn’t care that I probably had an accent and that I stuck out as a foreigner. I didn’t care that the other shop assistant was probably staring at me. I just didn’t care. And it felt great.

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It takes a while to get over jet lag—many days, in fact. So, as I was laying awake in my bed at 4am feeling hunger pangs since my body thinks it is dinner time back at home, I started to pay attention to what I heard, waiting for signs that the morning was coming. It went something like this:

4:14am A car starts and the engine revs for a minute or two before pulling out.

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I’ll be in Slovakia for the next several weeks, visiting the in-laws and as many friends as I can arrange it with. I’m very excited. It’s been more than two years since I was last in Slovakia.

I’ll also be taking the time to update the book and think about future book possibilities, as well as get re-energized for providing information and posts that foreigners to Slovakia might find interesting or useful.

Additionally, I hope this trip will remind me of some of the many things I found interesting and noteworthy as a foreigner in a country so different than my own.

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• What are the most obvious and famous physical land marks?
• How is the population dispersed?
• Where do most people live?
• How is the east different from the west? North and south? – geographically – culturally
• Are there regional characteristics?
  
  

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• Tags:genealogyhistory

Are the Czech and Slovak languages similar enough to be mutually intelligible? Well, I think it depends on who you ask. If you ask me, I’d say, definitely not.

From the time I moved to Slovakia and over the four to five years I lived there, many times Slovaks would insist that Czech is so similar to Slovak, that once you knew one language, you’d have little difficulty understanding the other. Well, I thought, that sure would be cool. I’d learn Slovak and then I’d be able to automatically understand Czech.

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• Tags:czechiaCzechialanguage

My father-in-law is staying with us for a few months longer. He understands little to no English and so watching American TV holds little interest. Thankfully, my husband is very computer-savvy and has hooked up the internet to our TV. There he connects to the Slovak TV station Markíza and my father-in-law can watch all the Slovak TV he wants with just a click of a mouse.

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• Tags:advicelanguage

Now here is a gorgeous picture. I didn’t take this one but found it through Wikipedia.

Where is it?

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• Tags:Kde_jekde_je

Those of you who have traveled and shopped in other parts of the world where the systems of measurements and units are different know that you sometimes have a double challenge: asking for what you want in the local language and knowing how much to ask for. Converting the different kinds of measurements can take some getting used to, but obviously this gets easier with time and practice. Slovakia utilizes the metric system, the same as other European countries.

Here are a couple of things I learned about using numbers in Slovakia that are different from what I was previously used to at home in the US:

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So here’s a scenario I hear about often (and have experienced myself):

You are moving to Slovakia or some other country that is new for you. You are so excited about the move and are distracted about all the details of settling in, such as finding a place to live and getting all your stuff packed and moved, finding a decent job that’s going to pay the bills with some left over to travel a bit, getting acquainted with some of the locals and getting exposure to the culture and cuisine, becoming familiar with your new neighborhood, traffic and comfortable with the public transportation system, experimenting with foods and becoming familiar with products in your local grocery store, and adjusting to a new currency.

And then all of a sudden it hits—A feeling of depression, or self doubt that you’ve done the right thing in making the big change. Or possibly a sadness because you miss your family, your home, or “your people” back in your home country. You get home-sick, sometimes bad enough that it makes you consider cutting and running.

What do you do? Try to ignore it? Wait for these feelings to go away? What is culture shock, anyway? Can anything be done to help minimize the negative feelings associated with it?

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• Tags:advice

It’s a little less than 2 weeks before Christmas and time to start planning for the Christmas baking. You might think it’s too early to start, but in my family of Slovak in-laws, since there are so many different kinds of cookies to make and they tend to have a long shelf life, a week before Christmas is just fine to begin. The most common cookies in our family are:

• medovniky – honey cookies
• vanilkové rožky – vanilla-roll cookies
• linecké kolieska – Linzer cookies
  
  

Armed with my grandma-in-law’s recipes and having the experience of helping with these in the past, here’s how to bake them.

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• Tags:food_and_drinkholidaysrecipes

For many of us, genealogy is fascinating. It allows us to get in touch with our own personal histories and to pass it along to others. For some, visiting the land where their ancestors lived becomes part of the genealogy experience. Walking the land where ancestors lived and visiting cemeteries may bring one closer to family than a piece of paper ever could. And if there is still living family to meet and visit, the experience can be extremely exciting and emotional.

Of course, when looking for information about family in a far-away country, it is often necessary to have professional help.

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Currently, I have in-laws visiting us from Slovakia. They’ll be here until January or so. Since this is their first trip out to California and the US, it’s been interesting to note their observations as to what stands out as different from what they are accustomed to at home. Here are a few notes:

Let’s see how that garbage disposal works
The very first day my in-laws arrived, they stood in front of the kitchen sink and asked my husband to demonstrate how the garbage disposal works. Here’s a snippet of our conversation while looking at the bottom of the sink:

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Over the moths I’ve received some additional questions about living and teaching in Slovakia. I’m posting some of these questions and my answers below them:

Did you have any experience with the language before arriving in Slovakia? From my understanding, apart from Bratislava, English is not a well-known language, so of course it is probably very difficult to get around without knowing at least the basics. Did you take any classes to learn Slovak or did you have any difficulties getting around without knowing much of the language?

I didn’t have any experience with the Slovak language when I moved there, other than a handful of words I learned on my own ahead of time. If you eventually find a teaching job in Bratislava, then yes, it is possible to take Slovak language classes and I totally recommend them. I took some myself and they were very helpful. They are mostly offered by the university for foreign students who come from different parts of the world. If you end up in a smaller town where you won’t be able to take a class, then your other option is to self study or get your own personal tutor :) There are pros and cons to being in Bratislava versus being in a small country town. You’ll have to decide what you would like to do.

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• Tags:teaching_english

Here I go again, posting another picture with a statue. This one has quite a story.

If you can figure out who the statue depicts, you probably can figure out were it’s located.

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• Tags:Kde_jekde_je

Nut-roll koláč is probably the most commonly-known Slovak dessert. For me it had become a mountain to climb and conquer. Why? Making good koláč is not easy, at least it’s not easy for me. To get the dough just right you have to know what you are doing and that takes experience. Additionally, any time you are dealing with yeast things get exponentially more complicated. For me the risk that my entire attempt may be sabotaged by uncooperative yeast always looms.

Since my Slovak in-laws are visiting, I asked my aunt-in-law to show me how to make koláč, working in my kitchen, using American ingredients. This has probably been the best learning experience with Slovak baking thus far.

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• Tags:food_and_drinkrecipes

Jan Kocur – A Story of Slovak Pride, American Patriotism, & the Golden Age of the Slovak League of America
by Richard Kocur, Jr
Available from Amazon.com

One hundred years ago in 1909, a 22-year old Slovak left his village and traveled to America, beginning a new life in Pennsylvania. The story of Jan Kocur, written by his grandson Richard Kocur, chronicles Jan’s life through a fascinating time in European and American history, the early part of the 20th century.

Richard Kocur describes in depth the complicated landscape of Europe that Jan Kocur left behind; countries entering treaties, agreements, and alliances to isolate rivals while dealing with their many national identities. The multi-ethnic Austria-Hungary, which included the area that would be Slovakia, was ready to be torn apart when WWI started a few years later.

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• Tags:art

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the beginning of World War II, a fight against Nazism and totalitarianism that cost the lives of more than 50 million and destroyed the lives of many millions more. A ceremony took place earlier in the day in Poland to mark the date and remember. For most people, remembering WWII also means remembering the ethnic Jewish population in Europe that was all but decimated within those five and a half years.

I’m not Jewish. As a matter of fact, before I moved to Europe I had little reason to ever think about Jewish life or the Jewish people. But over the few years I lived in Central Europe I couldn’t help to become interested in the story of the Jews. Why? Because at times it’s possible to actually feel the void of an ethnic group who once inhabited Europe, and who are overwhelmingly gone.

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• Tags:history

Relatives are coming from Slovakia next month to visit us here in California and have asked us what would we like them to bring. Of course this is something I’ve had to think about for a while. Though I have something of a wish list, I haven’t decided what I’m going to request in the end. Here’s my list so far:

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• Tags:food_and_drink

July 5 is a public holiday in Slovakia (and Czechia). It is Sviatok svätého Cyrila a Metoda, the day to commemorate Saints Cyril and Methodius. These two saints are significant in Slavic lands and indeed are called the “Apostles to the Slavs”. As far as I know, in Slovakia it’s not celebrated any specific way aside from the church that honors them. Still, they are vastly important.

Why are they so special to the Slavic people and what specific connection does Slovakia play?

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• Tags:eurohistorylegends

In which town can you find this famous square?

If you are thinking that the obelisk that is the Soviet war memorial is unique to this town and could therefore narrow down the possibilities, it probably wouldn’t help. Soviet war memorials can be found in many towns across Slovakia.

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• Tags:Kde_jekde_je

A few weeks ago I received a question from a person who wants to obtain health insurance for a set period of time in Slovakia.

Since health care is provided to everyone through the social system, if you will be working for a Slovak company or an international organization/company that legally employs people in Slovakia, then your company will automatically take care of arranging coverage for you.

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• Tags:law

I recently came across a very interesting website called Czech Folks. There’s quite a lot to read and navigate through, but the centerpiece is the collection of articles they have on topical events happening in Czechia and sometimes in Slovakia too. All articles are written in English but have Czech translations connected. This can be of interest to those who may know some Czech and wish to brush up their skills.

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• Tags:czechiaCzechia

Many people have read the post on Slovak Surnames and have left comments about their own Slovak surnames. Sometimes people leave questions asking for suggestions on how to find more information about their names. Because I’ve gotten so many comments and there seems to be an genuine interest by people who are interested in their Slovak roots, I’d like to demonstrate a few ways that I have done basic searches for Slovak surnames.

Note: Research I have done in the past has been for informational purposes only. I have no professional experience in doing genealogy research. I have never made contact with any people I have found through my results and I would not recommend doing so to anyone.

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Art is not doing its job unless it gets an emotional response from you. I’ve heard that said once and if that is indeed the definition of art, then the sculpture to be officially revealed later this week in Brussels, done by a Czech artist in honor of the rotating Czech presidency, is a great success.

The problem is that the Czech government has been put in a prickly situation and has some explaining to do after the sculpture, called Entropa, was put up on Tuesday created angry responses from some of the countries it represents.

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• Tags:artczechiaCzechia

Well, this is certainly interesting… an award-winning “luxury” vodka made in Slovakia but as of its release this past September 2008, is sold only in the U.S. in limited distribution. It’s not even sold in Slovakia! It’s called Double Cross Vodka and is the only product of a company called Old Nassau Imports, distributed exclusively through Southern Wine & Spirits of New York and Allied Beverage Group in New Jersey.

What’s so special about it? Here’s a list of its highlights:

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• Tags:food_and_drink

Now that the euro currency is in use in Slovakia, Slovaks now have the task of adjusting to prices and what typical items cost in euros versus crowns. SME newspaper created this small guide to help people recognize benchmark food items such as a bread roll, potatoes, or flour. This is just a portion. Click the image to enlarge.

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• Tags:food_and_drink

I recently found this picture online and thought it was beautiful. The camera must have been set at a high exposure to let in so much light and detail for an evening setting.

The Christmas lights are still up.

Where is it?

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• Tags:Kde_jekde_je

This year, my husband and I are staying in California for Christmas. For my Slovak husband, this will be his first Christmas in the US.

We’ve decided that we would like to keep as many Slovak Christmas traditions as possible for the Christmas season and while I am going to be responsible for the traditional Christmas dinner of kapustnica – cabbage soup, kapor – carp (though we may go with trout instead), and zemiakový šalát – potato salad, my husband is going to be responsible for the Christmas tree and its decorations.

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• Tags:food_and_drinkholidaystraditions

I didn’t take this picture. It’s definitely a lot older than I am. I don’t know when it was taken but I like seeing photos of places that have changed over the years.

Where is this?

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• Tags:Kde_jekde_je

December 6 is the feast of Mikuláš. It’s not a holiday but it’s ranked high by most children in Slovakia as a special day to look forward to. Children often wake up to finding a chocolate figure or some other small gifts in their shoes that have been cleaned the night before. It’s also common to receive peanuts or tangerines if they are available in stores. If someone has not been a good boy or girl they might receive a potato or a wooden spoon in place of the good stuff. Traditions vary from region to region.

Actually festivities begin the night fall before, on December 5. I remember when I lived in my small town in Slovakia seeing two teenagers dressed as an angel and the other as a devil. They walked down neighborhood streets to remind children the consequences of being good or bad. It’s also possible that children dress up as angels or devils on the 6th.

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• Tags:holidaystraditions

It’s that time of year when the Christmas markets around Europe are starting. In the five years I lived in Slovakia, I’ve visited vianočné trhy – Christmas markets in Bratislava and Nitra but almost all the larger towns and cities will have one, usually from the weekend beginning with Advent until December 24th.

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• Tags:Bratislavabratislavafood_and_drinkholidaysplaces_of_interest

In just a few days U.S. law is going to change that will effect Slovaks. On November 17 the U.S. is ending travel visa requirements for citizens of Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, and South Korea. After this date Slovaks will be able to travel to the U.S. without having to apply for a visa first.

This is huge news for my Slovak husband and I because finally his family will be able to come visit us without having to go through the hassle that obtaining a U.S. visa currently is.

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• Tags:law

Today is Veterans Day. If you know a bit about the history of Veterans Day, you may know that its purpose is to raise awareness of the past and continuing contributions of those who have served in the Armed Forces. Veterans Day originally came from Armistice Day, which was the signing of the Versailles Treaty by the Central Powers (including Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Ottoman Turkey) and the Entente Powers (including Britain, France, the U.S. and Russia), which took place on the 11th day of the 11th month in 1918. This Veterans Day marks the 90th anniversary of the end of World War I.

In my quest to find out what the Slovaks’ role was in World War I, I’ve come across some pretty interesting information about the story of the “Czecho-Slovak” army. Though it seems there were no major battles fought on present day Czech and Slovak lands, the contributions of its many soldiers is important, not only in determining the outcome of the war but also in laying the groundwork for the recognition of Czechoslovakia as an independent country at the end of the war in 1918.

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• Tags:czechiaCzechiahistory

Fellow blogger Captain Oddsocks recently published a post about the fact that the most famous Czechs in history are of German descent, such as Sigmund Freud, Oskar Schindler, and Franz Kafka. At the end of his post he asked, “If someone asked you to name five famous Czechs, which names would spring first to your mind?” Some people responded with famous Czech sport players like Jaromír Jágr or Martina Navrátilová, others named Tomáš Baťa – founder of the Baťa shoe company, Václav Havel – playwright and politician, Alfons Mucha – Art-Nouveau painter, Antonín Dvořák – composer, and Ivana Trump – socialite.

I thought about this question too, and also thought about who are the most famous Slovaks?

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Have you ever been surfing the Web and come across a site in another language than your own, and wanted to understand what it was saying? Google provides an online service that can translate pieces of text or even whole Web pages. It’s called Google Translate. At first the service proved translation between a handful of languages such as German, French, Spanish, and English, but over the years, they’ve applied their machine-learning algorithm to other languages. Just in this past week or so, Google has added Slovak to its translation service.

This means that it is now possible to translate Slovak text and Websites to English and vice versa. Take a look at the Google Translate page, with a small piece of translated text:

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• Tags:recipes

Since I learned Slovak “on the fly”, so to speak, I often learned phrases and expressions even without knowing their literal translation. Sometimes I knew what phrase to say based simply on a feeling or a situation.

Here are a couple of the phrases that I hear the most often:
(Note: For a guide on pronunciation of Slovak accent marks, see Reading and Pronouncing Slovak Diacritics

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• Tags:language

Here it is. Finally. My list of the top 10 castles in Slovakia.

It was a difficult task for me to pick what I thought were the best in Slovakia. First off, I haven’t seen every castle or ruin in the country, and secondly, opinions are subjective.

My rankings are based on a few things: some are prominent Slovak symbols (Bratislava and Devín Castles), some have significant value to Slovak history (Nitra, Devín, and Trenčín Castles), some are just plain gorgeous to look at, inside and out (Bojnice and Orava Castles), and others are popular by word of mouth (Spiš, Krásna Hôrka, and Čachtice Castles).

My thanks to those who provided feedback on my initial query on the best castles in Slovakia.

A collection of pictures is at the end of this post.

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• Tags:places_of_interesttourism

Exactly 40 years ago to the day, on August 21, 1968, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia in a concerted effort to put down Prague Spring – a period of political liberalization. When the tanks came into Bratislava Ladislav Bielik, a newspaper photographer was there taking pictures.

Mr. Bielik’s photos are extremely important because they serve as a stark reminder of the face of aggression, past and present. I had seen one of his photographs before. It’s probably his most famous from the series—the picture of the man baring his chest to a tank gun.

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• Tags:artBratislavabratislavahistory

This week, the state mint located in Kremnica began minting Slovak euro coins.

Slovaks are overwhelmingly pleased to be adopting the euro as it symbolizes permanence and continued integration into the EU, but I can imagine that there are those who will be a little sad to say goodbye to their current currency, the Slovak koruna, the first currency of truly independent Slovakia.

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• Tags:euro

When it comes to the Olympics and tallying up medals by country, it all depends on your perspective. Is it the total number of medals won? Or the number of golds won? Or if medals were points, such as bronze one point, silver is two, and gold is three, the total point count? Or is it another method entirely?

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