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Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Maribor, Slovenia.
Portoroz, Slovenia.
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Maribor’s main square, from above.
One of the first words foreigners learn when they move to Slovenia is obÄ?ina, and shortly thereafter they wish they’d never heard it. The word literally means "municipality" but it’s basically the place you go to get any kind of important paper: from your driver’s license to your working visa. There really isn’t an American equivalent. The closest anyone has come to reproducing it is the Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel, who painted the interior of Maribor’s municipality back in 1562. Interestingly enough, if you go there today you can still some of the people in that painting. Look for the horse-riding skeleton just outside the office for foreigners, and give him my regards.
Given my traumatic experiences there, I was surprised to see what a pleasant page this is: The municipality’s page for spatial planning. If you don’t speak Slovene, here’s a quick way to navigate through it:
1) Click here.
2) Click on "VSTOP" ("enter")
3) In the top left corner, you’ll see some choices. First, pick an ulica (street). Some good ones for Maribor include: Grajski trg (castle square), glavni trg (main square), or just take a random one.
4) Now the important part: At the bottom left, click where it says "Pogled brez BDOF1" and change it to "Pogled z BDOF1".
5) Now you can freely move around the map using the hand and magnifying glass tool.
Obviously it will be more interesting if you’re familiar with the city. If you know anyone in Maribor, though, it might also be a good idea to zoom in on their house, take a screenshot, e-mail them the picture and write underneath (in all capitals) I’M WATCHING YOU!!!
(Thanks Katka!)
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To be percise. It is called ‘upravna enota‘ and not ‘obÄ?ina‘. ‘ObÄ?ina’ is a county and ‘upravna enota‘ ia a buro, that does what you explain.
True that. But in my experience obÄ?ina was always used as a catch-all phrase. It was always "bring these papers to the obÄ?ina" or "go spend a few days knocking on different doors in the obÄ?ina".Perhaps it’s a bit like people in the U.S. using "congress" when they actually mean the house of representatives. Don’t know.
Urgh, the obÄ?ina (and I agree with Michael above — that’s what everyone calls it in my experience, too). This is exactly the time of year when I always had to spend an infinity of hours dealing with various labyrinthine processes at the obÄ?ina to renew my visa etc. Although I was always doing exactly the same thing, the process and various documents required were never the same. This kept it interesting. Now I don’t have to jump through these hoops anymore, since I have an official EU spouse (though we did get married at the obÄ?ina, which in itself was like a Rubik’s cube for two foreigners). Thanks, Michael, for this stroll down memory lane.
Now, slovenian bureaucracy was redesigned in 1945. At that time, the communists pretty much purged all of the former yugoslav bureaucracy. The new bureaucratic system was unfortunately modeled after soviet stalinist bureaucracy, because in 1945 we were still friends with Stalin. Anyway, it still carries that legacy and Michael and any other foreigner in this country has felt it on their own butt. Anyway, just thinking about going to the obÄ?ina gives most poeple in this country stomack acid, but fortunately you don’t have to go all that often … once or twice annually. Foreigners get more of that hassle, unfortunately.
Historically rox couldn’t have been more off target. As far as bureaucracy is concerned Slovenia still modells itself after the good-ol’ Austro-Hungarian Empire, where bureaucrats were a social class of its own. The real estate maps for example have changed very little since early 20th century (offtopic: how do you say "katastrska obÄ?ina" in English?) . But as far as experience of going to "obÄ?ina" is concerned (the phrase - as Michael correctly put it - encompasses any and all dealing with state and local institutions) I can only advise to excersise extreme tolerance. The bureaucrat you are dealing with is the king of his own particular hill. This means that you must use a lot of phrases such as "I hope I’m not troubling you too much", "would you be as kind as to…", "I do hope you can help me…" et cetera. A lot of basic ass-kissing in general.And yes, do make sure you have ALL the form filled out (usually it takes just a phone call to find out which forms you need exactly), have them copied three times, signed and stamped. It is way better then to be sent to "room 3/XVI", where there are hordes of people waiting for the same form you are, and just when it’s your turn, the clerk has his/her coffee break/lunchtime/dentist appointement/very important phone call that lasts forever. And when you finally get the form, the office where you began your trek is already closed.But there is another option. Start yelling at everybody, demand to see his/her boss, use words such as "do you KNOW who I AM", "Gimme the phone, I’m calling the minister/mayor/Montenegrin mafia" and so on. But you have to decide which option will cost you less trouble
I love my local obcina. I’ve lived in Slovenia going on for twenty years now, made many visits to the offices of the local authorities for one reason or another (residence permits, marriage license, daughter’s birth certificate, car sales/purchases and registration, daughter’s passport, etc. etc.), first in Ljubljana when we lived there, now in Sezana, and the bureaucrats I’ve had dealings with have been helpful and efficient, even the frightening dragon lady (who turned out to be a creampuff really) I had to deal with in Ljubljana starting in 1987. I last saw her in 1992 with my infant daughter in my arms; she was valiantly trying to deal with all the non-Slovene Yugoslavs suddenly classified as foreigners, and still managed a smile and a personal touch (okay, it did take me a few years to get that smile; her demeanor was pretty intimidating at first). I’d love to know where she is and how she’s doing now. The people at the Sezana tax office and the Center for Social Work are also great–friendly, helpful, informative.Okay, the hassle I had to go through to temporarily import a variety of items (from car to toaster oven) was a time-consuming, nerve-wracking pain in the ass. But most of the other stuff was no problem. Slovene bureaucrats rock! Be nice to yours, today. They have to put up with a lot of shit from rude customers. Most of them do their best for you, often in less than ideal circumstances.
p.s. to last–sometimes common courtesy and treating the person on the other side of the desk as a sentient human being works better than yelling, stamping your foot, pounding your fist, and pretending you’re some VIP and they should count themselves lucky to be able to serve you.
I got a new drivers licence last week and it only took 10min (in Maribor). It would probably take me at least two visits and couple hours of standing in line if I did it in Ljubljana. Fortunately they weren’t open on a weekend when I tried it.
@Jean: I wasn’t serious about yelling and stuff. I must say I agree completely with what you said. They do have their little quirks, of course - many of those can be quite annoying. My best time with them was at the local tax office when it took just a simple phone call to delay a notice of outstanding parking ticket, so I didn’t have to pay the double fee.
Jean: That s very encouraging to hear. I have to admit that my experience is completely the opposite. Slovenian bureaucrats suck and USA clerks are much more accomodating and polite. I was as polite as could be every time.
I never had any trouble with Slovene birocracy (obÄ?ina or upravna enota). They are very kind and they also inform me in a letter when some document expires, so I don’t have to worry… Probably the size of an obÄ?ina or upravna enota is the key factor.As for Maribor, Slomškov trg is very nice to me. Made in a proper elipsis, a church encircled with nice trees (some sort of miniature beech I think) and a mini park next to it. The part has two huge gingkos, they become very nice deep-yellow in autumn. Interesting buildings next to it, like the post, university and theatre. Recently they also opened the church tower, so you can go and see Maribor from bird’s view.Nitpicking: ‘vstop’ means ‘entrance’, ‘enter’ (a command) would be ‘vstopi’ (sing). Also (vstopita/vstopite - dual/plur).
one link isn’t working. I had some similar experiences getting just the permit you need to be in Croatia in one case and to be in Bosnia -Hercegovina in another case. The run around the first time in the case of Bosnia-Hercegovina was awful, but once one knew where to go, no problem, it was one of three widely separated police stations.It seemed to change with each visit to Croatia just where in town one needed to go. Still all of that was really very nice compared to customs on entering Croatia! The police seemed very concerned about the fact that I have an Irish family name.
Pengovsky–actually I thought what you wrote was pretty funny. And there are occasions when your proposed strategy is definitely called for, and more effective than being nice (like dealing with Soviet authorities back when they still existed). It’s just I feel compelled to stick up for Slovene bureaucrats because I think they get a bad rap, and my own experience with them over two decades has been largely positive. I remember some years back watching Preverjeno! (I think) and seeing/hearing Ales Debeljak really slam the maticni urad because of all the rigamarole he allegedly had to go through because he was marrying a foreigner. He was really rude and abusive towards them (and if he had acted that way when he was in their office, I’m not surprised they didn’t bend over backwards to help him.) I’m an American who married a Slovene in Slovenia and honestly, it was no big deal. The most ridiculous requirement was the potrdilo o samskem stanju but it was a mere formality–you go to the US Embassy and get a sworn notarized affidavit that you’re not married, and that takes care of it. One area where I fear the uradniki may indeed have acted like petty little tyrants taking spiteful pleasure in thwarting the people they were supposed to help is in taking applications for and granting residence permits/citizenship to non-western foreigners. The Slovene state’s treatment of the izbrisani is scandalous and shameful.
I noticed some people mentioning problems at "obÄ?ina" while getting married. My story is totally different: my wife is (now) EU-country citizen, we just went there with her birth cert and passport plus my documents, they wrote everything down, set the date and time, had pleasant discussion with those nice old ladies (btw: I couldn’t believe that we have so many mixed weddings in MB!), then I "bought" my wife for 7K SIT + change, got nice booklet and that was it. No problems, nothing. Fortunately, I have similar stories with fixing stuff for foreigner at other governmental offices - like Social centre and even Tax(!) office. But it’s true that I always try to present myself as "special case" needing more attention and not having time - we live in Ljubljana but official address is in MB. I even sent Xmas card to old gals at Tax office.
Jean, are you sure you don’t live in Slovakia?
Why everything is called obÄ?ina/municipality:The municipalities in YU times were a bit too big, so a consequence was that they took over some state business, like issuing passports, and although this is now done by "administrative units" (as they are very immaginatively called, we still "go to the muicipality". It helps of course that all the offices (municipality, adm. unit, taxes,…) are still all in one building. Confusion is also caused by wedding regulations: it is now under jurisdiction of the state (admin. units) but admin. units can (and do) pass the authority to municipalities…
Oh and I also have only good experience with bureaucrats.
ipe: Thanks for clearing that up. I should say that I’ve also had very many good experiences with bureaucrats, but that my experience with the office for foreigners was hostile from start-to-finish, even though I did my best to remain kind and accomodating.I’ve also heard that some municipalities (notably in smaller towns) are much easier to deal with. I don’t know.