Archives for January, 2004

As Bruce “the Boss” Springsteen might say, Slovenia’s “going down, down, down, down, down.” At least when it comes to population demographics.

From Facts About Slovenia, 5th Edition:

Slovenia‘s population is slowly declining. Sadly, Slovenia is the country with one of the lowest birth-rates in Europe. Just as in other modern societies, the average number of people per household is decreasing (in the last census in 2002 it was only 2.8) and the number of marriages is also falling, whilst the average age of mothers having their first child is increasing; it was 26.7 in 2002. In 2001, Slovenian women had on average only 1.2 children.

Of course, not everything is falling. The average age is going up, up and away as the country gets older, grayer, and starts having more problems with its back. According to the UN:

Among developed countries, 17 are expected to have a median age of 50 years or more, with Japan, Latvia and Slovenia (each with a median age of about 53 years) … leading the list.

The UN also estimates that by 2050, Slovenia’s total population will fall by about 400.000 people, to around 1.5 million.

This man is being interviewed by Croatian television. Everything is going well. He’s talking about something interesting. I’m not sure what. Maybe about retirees who like to dress like soldiers.

Then, out of nowhere, a Renault twingo comes flying off the street. And, I mean, really flying. It crashes into the field behind him, rolls a bit, and then comes to a smoky stop.

I hate it when this happens

What would your reaction be? Something full of curse words, probably. Or maybe an appeal to God.

This is what he says:

Jebi, ovo nas sad prekida. (Fuck, now this interrupts us.)

This is the strangest life I’ve ever known.

Watch the video here: Ovo nas sad prekida! (Quicktime)

This picture was taken in 1999, during my first visit to Slovenia. It’s still one of my favorites. That’s me on the right, trying to decide if I should go to Log or go to Log. (After careful thought, I finally decided for Log.)

Usually when you read a story about future EU members, like Slovenia or the other eastern European countries, you’ll come across the adjectives “poor” or “mostly poor” or “predominantly poor” or just plain “poorer.” Like in this article from the Economist, for example.

“They are still poor,” it says, “but the EU’s future members from central and eastern Europe are becoming givers of aid.” The article also has a nice graph about the future members, entitled “Poor, but on the way.” (As opposed to “Poor, but lost in a Roman wilderness of pain.”¹)

To be fair, the Economist makes an important qualifier: It says the East is very poor “by EU standards.” And that’s true. Very true. GDP per capita in Luxembourg is something like quadruple that of Poland.

But the constant stories about the “rich” EU expanding into the “very poor” East, which is “poor”, and doesn’t have money like the “rich” west, which is “awesomely rich,” and much, much, much, much richer than the “poor” East, which is “predominantly poor” — all that stuff starts to skewer your sense of perception.

The average Slovene makes about 13.260 Euros/year, or roughly $17.223.²

The average Luxembourger, of course, laughs at such an amount. “Ha, ha!” they say. For them, that’s what one spends on two scoops of ice cream in downtown Luxembourg city.³

But taken globally, it’s an enormous sum. In fact, the average Slovene is in the top 11% worldwide. To put it another way: the average Slovene is wealthier than 90% of the world, or about 5.297.736.093 people. That’s a lot of people.

So, all this stuff about “wealthy” and “poor” needs to be taken into perspective. The average Luxembourger is, in fact, wealthier than the average Slovene, but so is the guy who drives a Lamborghini Gallardo compared to the poor guy driving an Audi A4.

If you would like to see where you stand globally, go check out The Global Rich List. Just type in your annual salary and hit go.

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1) Doors, the. Track 11, “The End,” 1967.

2) I used government statistics found here, which puts the average monthly earnings in Slovenia at about 270.294 SIT/month. Using the exchange rate 1 Euro=238 SIT, I came to the number you see. To convert to dollars, I used the trusty Bank Of Canada site. But are you actually reading this? Good Lord! What’s the matter with you?

3) No, not really.

An advertisement for Windows in Sarajevo. (Thanks Dejan!)

If you like techno/industrial music, or just fascist uniforms, you probably know the Slovenian group Laibach. They started up in 1980, in the industrial town of Trbovlje, and became one of the few Eastern European bands to “make it” in the west. They also released a new album recently, WAT, featuring the head-pounding single “Tanz mit Laibach.” (Dance with Laibach)

Joel Veitch, of rathergood.com, has made an unofficial video to accompany the song, using only marching kittens in uniform. The result is amusing. And hypnotic.

See it here:
Fear the Kittens!

Writing about a country or culture is always a ticklish affair. The potential to insult someone is always so close, so dangerously close, that it’s often best not to say anything of consequence. I suppose a lot of travel writing is sterile for this precise reason. Is there a country of Earth that doesn’t have a “proud culture” or “rich history” with a “friendly people”? Do a search on Google for “land of contrasts” (the king of travel cliches) and you’ll get close to 10,000 results, with countries like Thailand, Brazil, Guinea, China, India, South Africa, Turkey… basically, most of the world.

My hope is to avoid such pointless insights about the Republic of Slovenia, however tempting they may be. And may God strike me down if I ever refer to the capital, Ljubljana, as “the Paris of the Balkans” or something similar. Just to give you an idea of how overused that phrase is, here are a list of some of the cities that claim to be the Paris of their respective regions:

* Bucharest: the Paris of the East
* Martinique: the Paris of the West Indies
* Irkutsk: the Paris of Siberia
* Beirut: the Paris of the Middle East
* Shanghai: the Paris of Asia
* Tromso: The Paris of the North

And the list goes on forever. I should add that the title “Paris of the East” is hotly disputed, with Bucharest, Budapest, Prague, Warsaw and Istanbul all laying claim to it. And that’s just in Europe. There are also some “Paris of the East”-cities in Asia.

At any rate, I hope that this weblog will avoid such generalities in favor of more interesting details. And I hope that it will be of interest to people both outside of Slovenia and within. In the end, this is a labor of love, and the purpose is to humbly offer a snapshot of the daily life of a small, freshly independent Alpine republic, making its way in this big world of contrasts.

Thanks for reading.