Having started out very early today I managed to arrive in Vienna by late morning. Having already been in Vienna a number of times in the past for both pleasure and business, I decided to bypass the historical centre and stay on the bike trail that passes through the new city and carries on directly to Preßburg . The historical centre is a marvel and the new city is its modern, heinous and disturbing counterpart. I don’t know the specifics but it seems to be one of those planned residential-commercial-business agglomerations of the 60s or 70s, such as Barbican or Brasilia. At this point I have been on the bike nearly two weeks and been surrounded for those two weeks by constant beauty. The sheer ugliness of this crime in concrete and steel is having a psychological effect on me and when I am out of it after an hour I can begin to breathe again. There is so much construction from history that we still marvel today, the historic centre of Vienna or the Piazza Volta in Como for example. I often wonder what it is that we have constructed in the modern era that will be so treasured in hundreds of years in the future. Not much comes to mind.
Mid-afternoon I am in the last town in Austria before crossing the border to Slovakia. It would have been interesting to see how the life was in these “frontier towns” during the period of the cold war – how it was to be on the edge of the Western world. It would have been even more interesting to experience how life was for those in the last towns on the edge of the eastern world. If you look at a map you can see that the border passes directly behind a number of small towns. The people there were probably able to see across the border and witness the changes taking place in the west, being so close and yet so far away. Anyway, tempi passati. Everything is as one now and whether that is good or bad can be intensely debated.
Crossing to the East is quite exciting. Things will change; the journey will become more challenging and probably even more interesting. There is a little apprehension as I cross into Slovakia.
Two years ago I had volunteered legal services to an NGO based in Bratislava and though that never materialized, this spring I was contacted by it because it was looking for a general counsel for European and Asian operations and asked me if I wanted to apply. Tomorrow we have an informal meeting in its offices about this and so that I don’t turn up completely disheveled, I have reserved a room in a hostel for tonight. By 1700 I am checked in. I must still shower, shave, wash clothes in the little bathroom sink, wash my plates and cooking equipment, find the office for the meeting, find food and look around the old town. The thing is that I can hardly move.
Later in the evening I manage to get myself together and visit the old town. In 2005 I had spent a day there and remember it being very small and indeed, in one hour I had seen the old town, which is splendid, and then found some wonderful food and local beer.
Preßburg has a fascinating history. Most of the world today calls it Bratislava, as it was officially named in 1919 when the country of Czechoslovakia was created. At that time it was made up of 42% Germans, 41% Hungarians and 15% Slovaks. For centuries the city was part of Hungary, having been integrated into the Kingdom of Hungary in the 10th century and holding an important position as a key economic and administrative centre on the kingdom's frontier. In 1526 the Kingdom of Hungary was defeated by Ottoman Turks, who besieged but did not conquer Preßburg. Because most of Hungary remained under Ottoman control, in 1536 Preßburg was designated the new capital of Hungary. It thus became the seat of kings and nobility and between 1536 and 1830 eleven Hungarian kings and queens were crowned there.
During the 18th century it developed into the largest and most important town in Hungary. Later however, as the union between Austria and Hungary strengthened the city lost relevance as power shifted to Vienna and Budapest. After World War I Czechoslovakia was created and this included Preßburg. The German and Hungarian people of the city were not too pleased about that and tried to have it declared a free and independent city. This was not accepted and they then moved to protesting Czechoslovak occupation. It is said that Czechoslovak forces opened fire on the demonstrators and put down the protests. In 1919, without any protection many Hungarians and Germans fled or were expelled. In the course of World War II the city was occupied by Soviet forces and later became part of the Eastern bloc. In 1968 an attempt by the people to liberalise the authoritarian regime was but down by Warsaw Pact countries and the city was occupied. In 1993, the city became the capital of the newly-formed Slovak Republic.
The next morning I went for coffee in the old town and then to the meeting. It went well and the people were very friendly and the job is quite interesting, but very badly paid. Remuneration is not at the top of my list as far as job requirements are concerned, but my major life goal is to buy a sailboat and sail around the world for 3 to 5 years and to do this I will need £££££, not loads, but some solid reserves. At the moment those reserves don’t exist, so once I begin to work again it must be in a capacity that pays well.
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