Archives for February, 2007

This one can only erase lead.

This week marks the 15th anniversary of a now infamous moment in Slovenian history: the removal of 18,000 people from Slovenia’s permanent registry of citizens. Back in 1992, with the country freshly divorced from Yugoslavia, the Slovenian government demanded that the roughly 100,000-strong community of Yugoslav residents (i.e. Croats, Serbs, etc…) register for citizenship. Back then I don’t think anyone imagined that the ensuing mess would take decades to sort out or lead to the chaos it is today. But here we are.

Here’s what we know: of the 100,000, eighteen thousand people were “erased” from the registry, effectively destroying their lives. Most of the erased insist that this was done to them despite the fact that they actually applied for citizenship as demanded of them. The government insists that this is not the case. A common public perception is that the erased were (at least passively) hoping for Yugoslavia to prevail, and that they got off relatively fairly in comparison with other loyalists in other Wars of Independence.

This week the major issue was compensation and this is where things get really ugly. The official Association of the Erased filed a draft compensation claim yesterday, and they promised to take it all the way to the European Court of Human Rights if they have to. (ETA: Ten years.) Public opinion is very squarely against compensation. In fact, a referendum on whether to restore the rights of the erased ended with 95% of voters against. (It should be noted, though, that there was a low turnout and that some people boycotted the vote.)

Chris Colin recently wrote up a lengthy and thought-provoking piece on the subject for Mother Jones. You can read it here. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for some of the characters that appear in his story. Anyone who has tangled with Slovenian municipal bureaucrats knows that it’s a near hopeless fight, especially the longer it goes.

And this is one fight that’s not going to end anytime soon.

Petra KerÄ?mar and Edi Pucer lose it during the nightly news.

And, no, I’m afraid I don’t know what set them off.

(Thanks Barbara!)

The Predjamska Castle. (source)

Jonson over at Metafilter recently put together a nice post about Slovenia’s predjamski castle, including a link to this great photoset on Flickr.

If you don’t know it, here is the wonderful story behind the castle and its besiegement.

And needless to say, Boštjan has tons of gorgeous panoramas from within its guts.

Somewhat related: A cave house in Turkey; A cave church in Germany.

—> Wine Gatherings in Slovenia
Know of a wine gathering? Send it in!

—> Pingu se ga naseka
An excerpt from the children’s show Pingu, except with vulgar Slovenian subtitles.

—> Ljubljana: The Projects (Part One, Part Two, Part Three)
Pictures of the architectural triumph of socialism in Ljubljana.

—> Slovenia’s Eurovision entry for 2007
Can Alenka continue the tradition and fail to qualify? I think so!

—> Makdonals that is gone
Tadeja, newly arrived in St. Petersburg, takes a picture of the local McDonald’s just a few hours before it explodes.

Traditional Slovenian medicine: Not available in pharmacies.

I’ve caught something. I’m not sure what. All I know is that I don’t want it.

Right now my symptoms are mild (sore throat, weak joints) but I have a feeling they might get worse. In the meantime, here are the suggestions I heard today from various people about how to get better, in the order in which I heard them: (Note that not one person was joking; these are all serious suggestions.)

1) “Gargle with pear schnapps.”
2) “Have of shot of slivovitz.”
3) “Cook some hot tea, then mix in some honey and slivovitz.”
4) “Drink a really cold beer.”
5) “Try some cooked whiskey.”

Notice a pattern? How come no one ever advises me to get some rest? Or to take some anti-flu medicine? I ended up trying option three, but it only made me feel worse.

At home I took a shot of Angal, a locally produced sore throat medicine. And you know what? It worked great.

Carnival time is fun for the whole family!

I’m not sure who exactly these guys are supposed to be. At first I thought they were all imitating me, but I then don’t have blonde hair. Maybe they’re trying to be “Michael, if he were blonde and with slightly smaller genitalia”?

Seriously, though. I grew up in notoriously rowdy New Orleans and saw many, many Mardi Gras parades but I don’t think I ever saw a penis parade before.

Hope everyone had a great karnival yesterday!

(Thanks Primož!)

Driving 299 km/h through Slovenia. Click to start, or go here.

At this speed, you could make it from from Ljubljana to Maribor in around 20 minutes. Or go from Ljubljana to Bratislava in an hour. That is, if there were no toll booths. Or police cars.

But now that you know how Slovenes drive, take a look at this video of a slightly slower drive through a Slovenian village by Justin, whose time here has come to a close.

Happy trails, Justin!

Gone in 23 seconds.

Will somebody please kill this beast? (source)

Kevin kindly sent along this AFP story about Slovenia’s plans to terminate 100 brown bears this year with extreme prejudice.

This isn’t the first time Slovenia has culled its bear population. And it always manages to anger plenty of people: From the International Bear Association to the European Commission, which rightly pointed out that:

“…Slovenia’s estimate of its brown bear population at between 400 and 700 is so vague that it suggests the welfare of the species is not being properly monitored.”

I’m also among the angry, but for an entirely different reason: I’m wondering why the government isn’t doing more to profit from this. There are web sites, for example, like this one, which offer bear hunts in the backwoods of Russia. Prices start at over $4,000. Surely the Slovenian government should be trying to get a piece of this action. And yet, a Google search reveals nothing.

Selected Google Searches and Their Results

1) “Hunt Bears in Slovenia” : Only turns up this forum discussion, where someone mentions that you can hunt bears in Slovenia. Interestingly, later one member mentions this blog. My linking back to that forum is proof that life, and everything in it, is circular.

2) “I want to travel to Slovenia and kill bears” : The first result is for Spanish brown bears.

3) “hunting” AND “bears” AND “Slovenia” AND “bazooka” : 433 results, believe it or not. But not one of them telling you how to actually go about doing it.

4) “Due to deep-rooted insecurities about my own masculinity, I would like to travel to Slovenia and have a guide take me to where a bear is, and I mean, literally take me to a field and point to it so that all I have to do is push a button and it dies, and then I want to have it stuffed so that it looks ferocious standing in the study of my villa in Germany and for this service I’m willing to pay serious money.” : No results. Can you believe it? That search string has probably been put into Google a thousand times by now.

5) “Shoot something that can’t shoot back” AND “Slovenia” : Even a general search comes up empty. The first result is for this: the lyrics to Love Shot by Mandy Moore.

There’s clearly a lot of unexplored economic potential here, my friends. A lot. Someone just has to step in and seize it with their bare (stupid pun intended) hands.

(Thanks Kevin!)

—> The current state of the web in Slovenia
Miha rips the Izidor web awards a new one. Phenomenal post.

—> Croatian vs. Slovenian Food (By a Croat)
“OK. They know how to make money but couldn’t the Slovenians demand just a little bit more from their restaurants?”

—> Lots and lots and lots of hamster sketches.
Lots. This one’s for you, Tanja.

—> Ormož: A Photo Essay
In English/German. More photos by the same author here.

—> Faces of Venice
Like Faces of Death, except that it’s a nice collage.

—> A recipe for Kaiserschmarrn (carski praženec)
Man, do I ever love this stuff. Not as much as baklava, but close.

—> Bolivia now has its own version of the si.blogs directory
¡Felicidades! You can see their version here.

—> Domen gives a speech on blogs; unleashes a shitstorm
(In Slovene only. Bring a flame-retardant suit to this one.)

—> The MeseÄ?nik Files, by Wes Eichenwald
“A Nalepka Noir Novelette… It’s a story of millennial-era Ljubljana, and one meseÄ?nica in particular.” Still in progress, but go give it a look!

Have a wonderful weekend!

A story from leading tabloid Slovenske Novice. Click to enlarge.

This one could hurt, because National Geographic has always been good to Slovenia. The country was included in their “50 Tours of a Lifetime” list. They also published a long feature by one adventurous couple, Hiking the Via Alpina, which included some beautiful photos and even a debate about which Slovenian beer is better. (The couple couldn’t agree.)

A Slovenian edition of the magazine hit newsstands last April and shortly thereafter they decided to release a Slovenian edition of National Geographic Traveler called National Geographic Popotnik. Their motto: Nobody Knows This World Better.

You know where this is going, right?

The editor of NGT, Keith Bellows, came to Ljubljana earlier this month to celebrate the launch of the new magazine and, apparently, to try to prove the motto wrong. Slovenske Novice claims the National Tourism Office also paid for his expenses. I should repeat that Slovenske Novice is a tabloid, and that it’s not exactly a beacon of quality journalism. Then again no Slovenian newspaper really is, so they’re pretty much as good as it gets.

SN writes that Mr. Bellows:

…expressed his satisfaction with the fact that he could be present at such an important milestone in publishing in Slovakia. The chief editor of the Slovenian edition of National Geographic, Miha KovaÄ?, who was sitting next to him, immediately whispered in his ear that they were in Slovenia. The American editor apologized unconvincingly and continued with his presentation.

I searched around a bit but found no other mention of this. RTV has an uneventful little story, and 24ur.com has a lousy search engine. I’m glad in a way. I don’t think I could handle it if were true anyway, so I suggest we all assume it’s a made-up story and leave it at that.

(Big thanks to Matty and Mare!)