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plant, the main employer in town, went bankrupt. The owner sold it to a private
investment fund, called Eco Invest, and built a family vault in a pink palace for the
money. He installed cameras next to the vault.
During communism, the authorities built a closed housing estate for doctors
on the outskirts of Rimavská, on Dúžavska Street. The estate included 150 flats
and a large garden for residents. The problem was that for the doctors it made no
sense to move to the peripheries of the city. The estate thus stood empty. In the
1990s members of the Roma community moved in. The place is now called “black
city”, descriptive of the burnt down apartments with holes in the windows and
the constant bonfires. It is better not to go there at night. If a TV crew comes, it
needs a police escort.
Today, Rimavská and the other surrounding cities make up the poorest parts
of Slovakia. After the fall of communism, the brothers Branislav and Ján Jr were
about 50 years old. They earned a modest income. In
fact, they both pay the same rent, as they live next to
door to each other in the Rimava district. From one
side, they have a view across the river, from the other
side, they can see over the tower of the local football
stadium. No one knows why the two families do not
visit each other. They do not even greet each other on
the street.
“Sometimes the postman would make a mistake and bring one of the brothers
a letter addressed to the other one,” says Michal, Branislav’s grandson. “And then
it would begin. The whole ritual. Leaving the house, shouting, and so that the oth-
er one would see him ripping up the letter with a smile on his face.”
The circus continues. Mirko, Branislav’s son, the one who survived the axe at-
tack as a child, cannot come to an agreement with his brother either. They have
not spoken for over ten years.The fireI am sitting with Michal in the Tatra café on the square, listening to the bells of
one of the churches. There are three churches in Rimavská: a Hungarian Calvinist
church, a Slovak Protestant and a Catholic one for both Hungarians and Slovaks.
There used to be a synagogue as well, but it was destroyed in the 1980s. Rimavská
has changed beyond recognition over the last 100 years. Ján, the cobbler, remem-
bered a historical high school building which štúrovcy – the members of the Slo-
vak national movement – attended towards the end of the 19th century. Today, itToday Rimavská
and the other
surrounding cities
make up the poorest
parts of Slovakia.Reports The curse of Ján Ľupták’s duck, Dariusz Kałan