Left wings in eastern Slovakia
Wednesday, July 24, 2025
I was here for the first time in May 2024. At that time, the whole world was talking about Slovakia: on May 15, on the Market Square in Handlowa, assassin Juraj Cintula shot at Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico with a firearm. The head of the Slovak government was transported to a clinical hospital in Banská Bystrica, 50 km away, in a critical condition. Fico fought for his life for several days, then underwent long rehabilitation, but eventually recovered.
I remember the first impression perfectly. It was a terrible housing estate. Marcin and I stood in an old parking lot made of cracked asphalt, right next to a lawn with more weeds than grass, and looked towards Cintula's balcony. The feeling that something was seriously wrong here was intensified by the fact that on the floor above, on another balcony, a Russian flag with the image of a roaring bear was flying.
“Scary place,” I said.
When I returned to Poland, I checked the comments under the videos we recorded in Levice and Banská Bystrica. It turned out that I wasn't the only one struck by the ugliness of this place. Readers pointed out that they had no idea how “neglected” Slovakia was.
The sight of the polyclinic in Banská Bystrica with its plaster falling off or the block of Juraj Cintula painted for the last time, perhaps during the times of Czechoslovakia, was surprising for many Poles.
With a view of Poland. Neighbors, Stalin's thumb, Czech debt and the KGBOnet
Workers set up scaffolding for the first time almost immediately after the attack
After less than a year, I went to Lewice again. And this time this place shocked me with its archaic nature. Russian flag? She continued to hang. The one from a year ago disappeared, but a Slovak supporter of Vladimir Putin replaced it with a one twice as large.
A Russian flag on the balcony of one of the apartments, in the stairwell where the attacker Juraj Cintula also lived before his arrestTomasz Mateusiak / Onet
The Slovak attacker's block is still ugly. I don't know if it's the ugliest in this country, but it would certainly be very high in such a shameful ranking. It looks like something will change after all. The authorities of the housing cooperative in Lewice have already started the renovation of this several hundred meters long building.
— Workers set up scaffolding here for the first time almost immediately after the attack, Zuzanna, who lives there, tells me.
— We laugh with our neighbors that something as monstrous as this attack ultimately brought something good to us. No one says it directly, but we have the impression that the Slovak authorities, just like us, were ashamed that TV stations from all over the world showed our shabby block of flats as an example of a Slovak housing estate. And suddenly the renovation and painting of the walls began. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but the building looks much, much nicer now that it's been renovated.
A block of flats made of prefabricated panels in Lewice, built during Czechoslovakia. Juraj Cintula lived in one of the cagesTomasz Mateusiak / Onet
However, not only apartment blocks but also private houses look different in Slovakia than in Poland
However, in Slovakia, the problem of ugly, neglected housing estates is an everyday occurrence in many cities and towns. I saw multi-family buildings in need of renovation in Podoliniec, Spišská Nová Ves, Levoča, Spišská Bela, Banská Bystrica and Ružomberok.
In Poland, the transformation of such places began about 15 years ago. Housing cooperatives and local governments have invested in thermal modernization. Styrofoam or glass wool was placed on the blocks and everything was covered with new plaster. Many cities decided to have colorful facades in pastel colors, which enlivened these places (although there are also critics of pastelism), and blocks of flats had parking lots made of paving stones, new sidewalks and playgrounds, sports fields and outdoor gyms.
This is simply not the case in Slovakia. There, the insulation of the block is really something that catches the eye and creates a “wow” effect. However, this also happens rarely.
Banská Bystrica. Cranes work on the construction site of the new headquarters of the local polyclinic. After the attack, this is where Prime Minister Robert Fico fought for his lifeTomasz Mateusiak / Onet
However, not only apartment blocks but also private houses look different in Slovakia than in Poland. The basic difference is that we have been experiencing a construction boom for years. Young people do not want to live with their parents, in villages many couples receive a plot of land from their parents shortly after getting married or buy it and start building their own house.
Old buildings are also undergoing a metamorphosis. They get new roofs and windows, and Styrofoam is put on the walls. Paving stones appear on the driveways and new fences are erected. Construction crews have their hands full. Everyone who has tried to find “on-the-spot” specialists in Poland in recent years knows this. In many places in our country this is simply impossible.
In Slovakia, people still live in houses that their grandparents built decades ago. Driving through villages, it is difficult to find new construction sites. There are isolated cases. Old houses are only renovated when necessary.
Insulating houses with Styrofoam in Slovak villages is not as popular as in Poland. Photovoltaics? Yes, you can see it, but these are rather large solar farms, i.e. complexes of solar panels located in fields. Nobody installs panels on the roofs of houses or in home gardens in Slovakia.
