„My job is easy because I’m Slovak. I already know most of the things my clients ask me about and if I don’t, I call someone and find out.“ „It’s hard because we’re always standing between everybody else. The Migration Office, the independent NGOs, and […]

Who are the people helping refugees in Slovakia? They are female, under 50 years old, and have spent several years abroad. This minimal definition accounts for virtually everyone active in public or voluntary refugee care. Take the staff of Mareena, the new-born civic association for […]

The candles are still burning in schools, dorms and public places, around the portraits of Jan Kuciak and Martina Kušnírová, the young couple whose murder shook the Slovak public one month ago and catapulted it onto news desks of media around the world in an […]

Knock knock. Hesitantly I open the door to my room in the hostel, the cheapest one in Žilina. It is 10 pm, freezing cold outside and the front door was locked – How did the person get into the building? In front of me: A […]

The community center is glowing with lights and a busy hustle; there are candles and lightning chains lining along walls and shelves; the promising scent of frying oil penetrates every corner of the half-parterre flat in the Bratislava center. Today is the Christmas celebration of […]

The sun barely penetrates the thick mist this early Thursday morning, but the spirits in a small blue minibus are light: Three activists, two musicians, a photographer and me are on a mission to the northernmost stretch of Slovakia, the Upper Orava region. „Azim dschan […]

So the European Court of Justice rejected the legal action of Slovakia and Hungary against the refugee redistribution quotas. According to this European Union policy, Slovakia is required to take in 902 refugees from overburdened Italy and Greece. How did the press react to this […]

A pessimistic definition of Slovakness on a T-shirt. (don’t know & don’t have &  not possible & no interest)   Slovakia is a country of 5 million inhabitants, located in the centre of central Europe and bordering with Czech Republic, Austria. Hungary, Ukraine, and Poland […]