When you live in Slovakia you often run into women from Austria, Hungaria, Romania. Also from Poland, Ukraine and the Czech Republic and even Croatia, but I don’t want to focus on Slavic women right now. Slavic women are fairly similar, except that Slovak women are the most limited and predictable in their thinking. They are prettier than their Czech, Polish, and Slovenian sisters. Meaning they are prettier than their Germanized Slavic sisters. The less Slavic women are the less pretty they become. Except when you go to Latin-America you won’t find prettier women than in the purest Slavic countries, in the following order and no, Slovakia does NOT have the most beautiful women, that title goes to:
1. Ukraine
2. Serbia
3. Russia
4. Croatia
5. Slovakia
6. Bulgaria
7. Poland
8. The Czech Republic
9. Bosnia
10. Macedonia
But if you rank these countries according to the intellectual vapidness and conversational predictability and limited sense of humor Slovakia easily jumps to number one. Closely followed by Poland. (Am suspecting the culprit is the pulpit of the Catholic Church).
This becomes so, so painfully obvious when you bump into women from Romania, Hungary or Austria.
All of a sudden you are talking to women who:
- know some history
- read books
- aren’t sexually repressed
- have black humor
- aren’t Skoda driving hockey mums (the Slovak equivalent of volvo-driving soccer mums)
- aren’t entirely baby-obsessed
- dress a lot less sexy, but don’t make sex into a super big deal either
- invest less than 50 percent of their salary in clothes and make-up
- don’t confuse culture with wedding ceremonies
- And the most important point: they show initiative and are much more interactive
It’s like Slovak women come in two shapes: 1. super gentle spiritually idealistic porcelain- like Saints and 2. stone-faced cold-hearted materialistic hot-looking bitches. Usually seen behind the wheel of giant expensive cars driving from their manicure to the tanning salon and milking some guy to maintain this life-style.
This becomes blatantly obvious when you interact with Romanian, Hungarian or Austrian women.
It can’t be a coincidence that all the women I have met here from those countries are funny, show initiative, talk about more interesting topics, don’t repeat the same old clichés and are not limited to being house-wives, they also tend to be experts in certain fields, especially the Austrian ones are incredibly well-educated.
Then you start to think the big old cliché is true.
Slovakia doesn’t have women that belong to a strong urbanized middle-class, there are only village girls in Slovakia who take their village mentality with them everywhere they go, whether they live in Bratislava -which is the most hated place in Slovakia- or any of the smaller cities.
I don’t know if Slovakia will ever develop this intellectual middle-class. It exist even now, I do meet some women who belong to it, but it’s so small that it’s almost invisible.
I think this will not change until Slovaks start to appreciate their capital city of Bratislava.
Every weekend there’s an exodus here. People run away to the villages. You can’t have a Paris or a London or even an Amsterdam if nobody wants to stay in the city at the weekend.
Slovaks see Bratislava as this soulless urban hell-hole where you only go to make money and get out the first chance you get.
And that’s sad, because I think a capital city or at least some other city in a country should be the intellectual, cultural cradle. Bratislava has a population that doesn’t want to be here and other than Bratislava there’s no city of any real significance to take up the role of cultural hotbed. And so Slovakia develops materially, but is stagnant in its ideas and outlook on life.
The biggest instigators of change are the Slovaks that live some time abroad and come back after a couple of years. Those are often much more vibrant and interactive and open than the ones who never leave.
If you are a super sociable person then Slovakia is almost like a prison of the human soul, as it’s full of people who are so, so reluctant to really befriend others. They are invariably sweet people, but they have built thick walls around themselves and aren’t even aware of them.
Slovaks are risk-averse, love stereotypes and adore routine and traditions. This does kill adventure.
Do you consider Bratislava as your home? I dont mean permanent residence status, but home. I m not often in Bratislava, and I dont miss it at all. I know people, who were nice and polite, and after studies in BA they turned into alcoholics and smokers.
Honestly, what kind of adventure you expect in Bratislava? If you are intellectually based person. Yes few exhibitions, or maybe some cute book cafe places.
Of course people run from that city somewhere else. It is normal, people want to refill batteries or more important, to see and visit their families living often in ohter parts of slovakia.
This is not problem of leaving BA and not valuing this city. Its huge gap, mostly economical between BA and rest of Slovakia. More you go east, more visible this is. So lets firstly fix this and then our spiritual life. 🙂
I also wish that I would have female friends who read books, so we can talk about it, instead of dirty diapers and how much costs Nutrilon right now. Sad? Yes.
So you need group with people who have same interests as you. I would say you need look a bit harder for this, as in other countries, but nothing impossible.
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Yes, Bratislava is my home. I live here. I bought an apartment here. My only connection to Belgium is that my mother lives there and that I own a house there with lots of possessions that have some emotional value and that I have a Belgian identity card. Other than that there’s nothing there for me. The only thing I miss, apart from my mum, are Belgian French Fries, but those aren’t healthy anyway. There was nothing for me in Belgium. So yes, Bratislava is my home. My life is boring and unimportant, and unless I work damn hard to build something it will only get less and less interesting.
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Yes, but for a lot people Bratislava isnt home. Its just place where they work or study.
And they do not work there, because they admire panel houses or this incredible traffic. Simply, salaries cant be even compare to rest of slovakia.
Its not about Bratislava itself as city, but about economical gap for them. For example, if i would come to BA to work, I would rent some small flat, came after work there and then what? I would be alone there. Alone in city. Of course I would run from there to home during weekends to get some energy.
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Well, isn’t that what I said in the article? People only come here to make money which screws up the atmosphere
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The weekend is my favorite time in Bratislava. Most of the Slovaks are gone and it’s so peaceful and quiet, you can cross abandoned roads that are otherwise jammed and lethally dangerous, shops are empty so you don’t lose too much time there, it’s a wonderful place at the weekend
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But if you expect develop in some intellectual level, you cant want people staying in BA in same time and enjoying quiet city.
It wont be Paris neither London, unless you earn half less just 100 km from Bratislava.
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If they would be interesting people I’d love them to stay. Now I just need the peacefulness of a large urban zone (I don’t like nature, am not Slovak). The truth is that as a teenager and later at university I was a coward and didn’t have the courage to move to London or the United States or even Amsterdam or Rotterdam. Plus, I think, to be honest, I would find a reason to be dissapointed, because the fundamental problem is that I feel not good enough. So I would take that self-loathing feeling with me and lash out at the world around me. Not that I think my observations are wrong, but I will more easily spot negative trends than positive trends. And I think too much of course
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Why so harsh again about Slovak women?
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Lately I met a lot of women from the four countries mentioned in this post and I just couldn’t fail to notice the difference. I suppose my wife has her genes from somewhere else…
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I agree with the criticism on the lack of intellectual culture though. Of course Bratislava cannot compete with big cities like London, Paris or maybe even Prague? My way of coping is trying to focus on the few good things that are here. I can still go to the theatre, buy a good book or go to an interesting event. Also I can see that Bratislava is more lively than it was few years ago, so I have some hopes for the future.
And I agree it is unfortunate that many people who work and live in Bratislava do not like the place. I think it’s a ‘curse’ of the capital city. Many people come here because of work or studies but their heart stays in the home town or home village. On the other hand, I have met also some people who became Bratislava patriots even though they didn’t grow up here.
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I like Bratislava. The only problems are 1. the horrible traffic, I don’t feel safe as a pedestrian, I feel like I have to have 50 eyes 2. all those people who are here because they feel they have to and are burdened down by money worries. When I lived in Gent it was so much easier to meet people, people had time and they were there during the weekend. Like you can’t organize an activity or event on a Friday here, because you can count on it that half of them won’t even be here…. Other than that I do exactly what you do. It’s just that I feel quite isolated. Except for some of my students who are absolutely wonderful there is not really anybody to have a normal conversation with. I mean, no matter how wonderful my students are, am still their teacher, so it’s different. And I have already married one of them, I think it would be illegal in this countries to marry one more.
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I don’t know. I would agree that Slovak people aren’t usually passionately interested in intellectual topics or discussions, but I would say that Slovak women are quite smart. What I see as an obstacle is the presence of gender stereotypes in our culture and in the children’s upbringing. That ties the women down. But I think that future generations will be different.
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Horrible traffic – I can totally relate to that! 😀 And actually, I never cross the road unless I see that the cars approaching started to slow down. Sometimes that means that all of my friends or colleagues are already on the other side of the road while I am still waiting to cross it. I just want to do it safely.
But overall, yes, I like Bratislava too. And I am from here. 🙂
I have noticed that people who are originally from other countries are often the biggest Bratislava enthusiasts. I have met people from all around the world who really enjoy living in Bratislava. And I do like hanging out with expats in general. Sometimes I go to the language meetups, that’s the easiest way to meet them. Yes, the conversations are often random but few people I met there belong to my best friends now. 🙂
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I agree they are smart, just not interested in all that many things, very preoccupied with the same things. Maybe it’s because they are so burdened down by responsibilities. A lot of them look hard and cold, maybe because they have to be…
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I have the same experience, expats usually like living in Bratislava
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In Nov you say your life is boring & unimportant?? When did your attitude change, timewise?
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It always depends on what kind of women are in the picture
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sounds rather superficial
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yup, that’s me
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I’m sorry I said that. I guess I just can’t relate since I haven’t had many men in my life.
Sent from my iPhone Janice Combs
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that’s ok, I am
pretty shallow, I guess 🙂
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You are a therapist so I’m sure you aren’t.
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maybe am
not, just in some situations
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