52 in Slovakia - footnotes about Slovak culture

I've recently come across a blog (actually, I was sought out; I am one of the website administrators for the Colorado Slovaks yahoo group -- not to be mistaken with the official Colorado Slovak Society website) that I'd like to make mention of here. While the topic matter of the blog is not about my family's experiences living near London or observations about England, it is relevant in that it is written from the point of view of an American living abroad. And the location, Slovakia, scores points for me with respect to my own Slovak family heritage.

52 Weeks In Slovakia is by Allan Stevo, a writer from Chicago living in Bratislava. He chronicles traditions taking place in Slovak culture, giving a bit of history, color and commentary to the oft under-appreciated region. Much is said on the topics of Christmas, food, dancing and music, just to name a few. I fancy him an aspiring Bill Bryson-esque character. Below is an excerpt from his "about the blog" page.

But first, let me wish everyone out there, especially family and friends, a very happy and healthy new year. Can you believe it? We're well into a new decade already. I'm happy to be out of the "naughties".


Each time I read an un-insightful and tiring article about Slovakia with dateline Prague or Vienna, or each time I read an article by an overly critical “expert” who was “just passing through,” my desire to put together a weekly column like this was strengthened. In that respect, this website is the realization of a mutli-year dream.

Each week, something fantastic happens with a regularity in Bratislava and in many cases throughout Slovakia. On this website, I will spend 52 weeks highlighting some of those regular traditions that take place in Slovak culture. I will try to avoid the cheap joke – they’re always easy to make, especially after a person has had a bad day in a foreign culture. Instead I will try my best to approach this topic with a desire to understand.

Please make your way through some of the topics that might be interesting to you, and let me know what you think. I welcome you to sign up for the email newsletter on the right to learn more or to visit my own homepage www.allanstevo.com to read more of my writing. ...

Lastly, a few books on the topic of Slovakia that you might enjoy:

Family Picnic

Today and tomorrow marks the celebration of the annual Trojanovich family picnic in Calhan, CO (well, in recent years, held at the American Legion hall in nearby Ramah). Picture yourself and a hundred of your close, somewhat distant, and "i had nooo idea we were even related!" kinfolk gathered together for the weekend. Sometimes there's a game of horseshoes going on, sometimes guitar and singing, crafts, tug-o-war, a hay ride, a Christian devotional, and of course, plenty of eating and socializing. As long as I can remember, we've been having these picnics -- we've been having them a lot longer than I have years on this planet. These family picnics were always a happy and special event for my dad. There you would find him in his element. Time to step away from the computer; do some manual labor; catch up with family. He was always one of the "organizers", very involved.

Since Erin and I and the girls can't make the trip home to Colorado from London, we decided to make a Google Earth video instead that links, figuratively, Calhan with London. It's not a video in the sense of getting to stick your tongue out at the video camera and sneak rabbit ears onto the person next to you. Rather, it is a "geo tour" that zooms from place to place. If you'd like to see it, and learn about some of the places we've traveled in England so far, have a gander (18M .kmz file, install Google Earth if needed).

Thank goodness for technology (and Google)! The geo tour condenses nearly all of our tours around the UK in the span of just a few minutes. The original plan was to blog about each one of them separately. We may still do that, but events of the current day (World Cup, my new Brompton, future travel plans, a bump on the way) make for pretty interesting fodder in their own right.

So for now, we bid adieu and wish a Happy Fourth of our July our countrymen, from the land of our colonial forebearers.