The first stop on our Danube river cruise is Bratislava, Slovakia. We disembarked here this morning, hopped on a big tour bus, and toured Bratislava Castle. Now we’re headed back down Castle Hill, on our way to see beautiful downtown Bratislava.
When we arrived we went straight to a restaurant where we were served a traditional Slovakian lunch. We had platefuls of roast beef with potatoes and gravy, bread, and sausage. They take lunch seriously in Slovakia!
Old Town, Bratislava
After lunch our guide turned us loose to wander around Old Town, Bratislava. Old Town looks like a village out of a Grimm’s fairly tale. Hansel and Gretel might have wandered off into the woods just outside of town. Rumpelstiltskin’s house might have been on the next street over.
Bronze sculptures are placed here and there around the Old Town. One is a statue of Hans Christian Anderson. I KNEW there had to be a fairy tale connection here somewhere! Hans Christian Anderson was Danish, but here he is in Old Town, Bratislava.
Another bronze statue here depicts a guy working underground who decided to take a break and come up for air. He has pushed a manhole cover aside, and he’s just relaxing, checking out the sights. He’s called “Man at Work.”
Like the other bronze statues around town, the style is reminiscent of old communist monuments. But the statues in Bratislava today are light-hearted – very unlike those from the communist days.
The Slovakian Countryside
After a walk around Old Town, we boarded the bus, happy and well-fed. We rode eighty miles through the Slovakian countryside to the little river town of Komárno, where we’d meet our ship.
The ride gave our guide an opportunity to tell us about life in Slovakia during the communist years. He was too young to experience it first-hand, but his parents weren’t, and he gave us all an eye-opening description of how bad it had been.
Most of the Slovakian countryside we saw was farmland – sprawling fields of corn and other crops. Occasionally we passed by dilapidated old buildings left over from the communist era.
Apparently, they don’t look much different now than they did when they were first built. Eastern Bloc Communist governments built identical buildings all over the eastern Europe.
The same design, same floor plan, same square feet of living space, same everything. The central planning authority had decided that these buildings provided the fairest, most efficient, and most economical housing for all comrades. No one would have it any better or worse than anyone else.
Oh, except for members of the central planning authority. They had it WAY better than everyone else.
The Nightmare
Most people lived in apartments like these. They got their news from the party newspaper. The central wage-setting authority set their wages. People could buy food only from government stores where prices were set by, well, you know….
Sounds depressing, and according to our guide, it was. But if you were smart, you didn’t complain. There was an abundance of regular police, and plenty of secret police to keep things running smoothly.
But that was then and this is now. Our guide was excited to tell us about the dramatic changes made after his country woke up from the nightmare, (as he put it), which wasn’t really that long ago.
To be continued…
Notes
Czechoslovakia was under Soviet control from 1948 to 1989 – 41 years.
Photo of Main Street, Old Town, Bratislava. Credit: e55evu/istockphoto
