Notes from Bratislava

Bratislava is just as instagrammable and selfie-worthy as any other European city

January 05, 2019 04:15 pm | Updated 04:15 pm IST

At first look, Bratislava seems like a city of lost opportunities, near misses and unfair depictions. Standing in the Hviezdoslav Square, facing the Neo-Renaissance Slovak National theatre building, Silvia Augustinova, a history enthusiast-turned-tour guide tells me that the non-violent student protests called Velvet Revolution, originally started in Bratislava. The beginnings of the revolution is widely accredited to Prague and it effectively brought the communist government down in 1989 and split Czechoslovakia into Czech Republic and Slovakia — poetically referred to as the Velvet Divorce.

“They’ll tell you in Prague that they started it. They didn't. We started it on a small scale here one day earlier in the Czech Republic,” says Silvia. She is right. Bratislava’s candle demonstrations started in 1988, one year earlier, and may as well have sowed seeds to the growing student demonstration movement in Prague that eventually came to be called the Velvet Revolution.

Much like any other neighbours who never had a good relationship when they were together, the Slovaks and the Czechs don’t see eye to eye after the split. Evidently, there is no love lost between the neighbours. “We were treated like their poor neighbours and we felt like their poor neighbours. We realised we could live without them,” says Silvia.

Coming together

This year, Bratislava came close to yet another velvet revolution-like situation, triggered by a pressing need to stand up for democratic values, where press freedom was already eroding. In February this year, a young investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée were hacked to death for investigating into the mafia links of the Prime Minister’s associates. Thousands of citizens took to the streets in protest in Bratislava, said to be the largest gathering since 1989 when communism fell, and the ensuing protests forced the country’s Prime Minister Robert Fico to step down.

With its pedestrian-only streets, typically European squares surrounded by cathedrals-turned-museums and shops peddling Slovak souvenirs, Bratislava is just as instagrammable and selfie-worthy as any other European city. The renovated Bratislava castle recently opened and offers views of the Danube, which is bordered by birch trees crowned with a tinge of autumn shades. Across the Danube, a quirky communist era glass viewing tower called UFO tower peeps out into the horizon.

In the early 2000s, Hollywood with its unglamorous portrayal, has left the city out in the cold, depicting it either as a laughing stock or a city where horrifying crimes take place. The backpacker romp Eurotrip referred to Bratislava as a despondent Eastern European city whose streets are strewn with litter, while uncouth residents throw trash out of their balcony, take bucket-baths in public and street-dogs snack on severed human hands.

Hellish portrayal

Another movie Hostel squarely portrayed the city as hellish where unsuspecting western tourists are abducted, tortured and killed by rich, psychopathic businessmen for their sadistic pleasure. Turns out, blatant as they are, these stereotypes can have a lasting impact on the city’s image, affecting its tourism potential.

Additionally, “these movies were not even filmed in Bratislava,” says a frustrated Silvia, who also says the movie, Hostel , has been particularly responsible for a drop in the number of tourists to the city. Though I couldn’t verify that claim, I can see why anyone would want to stay away from Bratislava, while other Hollywood-endorsed safe cities like Vienna and Budapest are so close.

Slovakians want to be considered Central Europeans and the country is one of the largest producers of cars in the world. One report states that the “country produces more cars per capita than any other country on earth — over one million cars a year in a country of 5.4 million people.”

Setting aside Hollywood’s misleading broad strokes with which it portrayed the city, Bratislava still cannot convince its neighbours in the European Union of its economic potential or liveability. Late last year, when the EU picked new locations for the European Medicines Agency (EMA), to be relocated from London after Brexit, Bratislava made a promising bid but lost eventually.

To convince the agency to move from London to Bratislava may have been a long shot, but there’s still grounds for optimism. Even if it’s not reinforced by a strong economy or firm political action, it lingers in people’s hearts. “If you come back in 10 years, I’m sure you’ll see change. Now I don’t know for sure what will change but I’m confident certain things will,” adds Silvia optimistically. Affected by her enthusiasm, I find myself nodding in agreement.

This Stuttgart-based writer is as happy on the road as he is tending to his houseplants, which often breed fruit flies.

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