Milan Kazarka
Here you can see things that I find, interesting links, videos and also photos from my life.
From my heart I can say that I lost my culture.
And furthermore I would like to say that I lost faith in any culture.
When I was nineteen I escaped our small town in Slovakia and started traveling. Somehow I realised that I can do some software development, so I never really needed to work any low level job. This is in contrast to so many unemployed young people in Europe.
When I arrived in Bratislava I realised that you can be a stinky ugly bald guy, but once you drive a Maserati the prettiest girls would drop their panties.
This was the image of this city some years ago and it still is.
I started thinking of my life then in a structured way.
I wanted to buy an apartment, I was dating young and successful girls and I thought that I would progress in my career.
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BUT
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But there was something creeping in the back of my head. After attending every party and after sitting on every sofa of my friends, talking about senseless things, movies, the happenings and money I felt more empty than satisfied.
I was hearing words of my friends and my girlfriend, but however hard I tried to analyse them I couldn’t find a meaning in it. I couldn’t find a meaning in their struggles to buy a better car, to buy a better apartment and to advance in their jobs.
In a country where half of the people make five hundred dollars we were making ten times as much, but once I arrived at that point I lost track of why at all I was there.
I started asking why?
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Whenever I went to a party I felt like I just need to escape the world by listening to the music and it all felt like noise rather than something with a meaning. I didn’t continue dating nice girls and trying to play nice in my job.
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A stopped thinking of the nice little life with a nice little career, having children similar to me and every night doing nice little sex.
I began questioning this life and I started asking myself why my life should look like this and if this isn’t just something put into my head by constant, constant bombardment of the expectations of my surrounding.
My mom like every other wanted to have grandkids, she wanted me to have a nice stable job and be a nice fucking citizen.
But I was depressed by these outlooks and I couldn’t find a meaning in such a life.
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I quit my job and I started traveling.
I started traveling and dressing up like I wanted. Whenever I come back to Bratislava I meet people who tell me that they despise me for what I did and they make fun of my dyed hair and how I dress. They make fun of me constantly. In no city did I experience people being so rude to me.
All I wanted is to find myself and what I really wanted in life.
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I chose differently and I didn’t want others deciding for me on how I should live and thus I’m ridiculed and hated.
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In any case. Breaking free from my culture and from people’s expectations helped me in a way, but is pushing me down whenever I come home paradoxically. The later thing still breaks my heart. Why don’t my parents and my surroundings accept my decisions and respect how I chose?
Nevertheless I did the best decision for me.
Blindly accepting culture ties you up. People try to break your will. Fight that. Fight it with all of your strength.
I refused to fill the void of my life with bullshit.
I’ve been working on my laptop at the castle today. It’s good to live so near to the castle. The one thing I hate are these site seeing people that form groups with these ladies that shout into the mic. So annoying when I just want to have my free Sunday ;_; It’s also rude when a tourist takes pictures of me as if I was an attraction..
Pizza at Primo Amore Bratislava. Renato is the best.
In Central Slovakia in my home town the rental for a space for a restaurant is under one thousand euro per month. I know one owner that pays tree hundred euro for space that can serve thirty people at a time.
In Bratislava I know restaurants that can serve twenty people at a time and pay three thousand euro a month for rent.
The difference in the price of the pizza is fifty cent! In Bratislava it’s fifty cent more expensive.
In Ziar the restaurant owners buy themselves expensive cars, the waitresses are always bitchy and they simply know that the people in the town don’t have any choice, so they simply eat crap.
In Bratislava if you don’t compete and don’t bring quality for a reasonable price then you go down. Except for the high street. On the high street on the Michalska you always have customers, because there are a lot of tourists. Imagine. You get a customer and you don’t need to worry that he doesn’t come back! Off course he doesn’t! He goes back to Korea or the UK in two days!
On the high street in Bratislava there is an Irish pub!
Fuck me! If I’d come from Watford or Manchester or whatever and if I’d come to Bratislava then the very last thing I’d like to see is a fucking pub!
And what’s around the corner?
A sweets shop, cakes in a setting where you have Sisi on the wall. Sacher’s cake and Mozart? If I’d come from Vienna “I actually live in Vienna, but I’m Slovak and I’m traveling a lot to Bratislava” then the last thing I want to see is Sisi!
No wonder we’re a fucking joke when it comes to dining!
No Michelin star in Bratislava? Well I’m fucking amazed!
I’ve went to a restaurant two days ago. The former Metropol Russian restaurant. It’s been on the second floor and to be honest served more as a money wash “yea, everyone knows”, but the food was good.
Now I come there and I see Chinese interior and this small crap like pots with Chinese signs. The owner serves organic food. No advertisement at the front. 12:30 during lunch time on the oposite of a hospital on the “American square” right next to a busy tram stop and no customers.
Ding dong.
Who is it?
REALITY!
Reality tells you that you’re loosing 50k a year on this place.
Now I violently want to murder 50% of all Slovak restaurant owners.
To all you Brits, Americans, Austrians - do not go on the main streets / high street in Bratislava to eat local food. Forget the Michalska street. Go to the Hviezdoslavovo square. Further more - pommels isn’t Slovak food. When you see a restaurant with a sign “Slovak restaurant” and you see images of food in the front with chips, then please run away!
And please. I really beg you.
Tell the owners. Tell the waiters if something is fucked up. Give all food you don’t liek back. Don’t pay if it’s disgusting. Otherwise what’s gonna change?
What’s Slovak food?
Search for food with poppy seeds. Search for food with cheese, not Eidam, sheep cheese. Search for dumplings, or since many people don’t like them search for “Brindzove pirohy”. I’m attaching an image of them.
If you didn’t have food that looked something like this, then you’ve wasted your jurney.
If you had someone guide you, then they’re an idiot.
I seriously do not know what happened to Downtown Backpackers, but the food is now rubbish and it was great just two years ago.
It’s standard crap now. http://www.backpackers.sk/
Renato’s Primo Amore is still great http://primoamore.webnode.sk/ - the only Pizzeria I go to in Bratislava. He’s from Napoli the guy!
Paparazzi - I remember that there was some more “extras” - some more innovation a few months ago. When I ordered lasagne then there was this… difference. Roasted zucchini placed on top of the lasagne was the kind of difference I wanted. Now it’s gone. http://www.paparazzi.sk/corporate/load_en.html
The Lemon Tree’s service wasn’t what I wanted.
What I really like is the revitalised beer brewery / restaurant http://dunajska.mestianskypivovar.sk/ Staromestiansky pivovar on the Dunajska street. I like the beer. You can’t see through it. Real low volume brewery. Bitter. Nice flavour.
Go there!
Are you offered a drive on one of those red old looking train kind of mini busses? Tour through the town? Don’t do it! Waste of time. Just get lost in the city. It’s small.
I’m always taking a piss out of tourist in those horribly awkward looking red mini busses.
What is authentic on that. What? If you believe that this is how people in Bratislava got transported a century ago, then your out of order.
It’s some kind of twisted minds invention to just make a fucking engine of a Skoda Octavia look like a red tin can.
To half of the Slovak restaurant owners:
“Go buy another fucking BMW and forget the quality if you don’t care about the image of your town or country! I’m sick of you!
You might have aswel open a brothel! The end result would be the same! The girls might at least tried to seduce a Michelin star out of someone!
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Milan Kazarka
the anti bullshit aliance
My friend Michaela ‘my X’ has just finished college ‘Finances & Taxes’. She’s living in Bratislava, I’m living in Vienna.
The situation in Bratislava is that you can rent a one room apartment for about 400-500 euros, depending on the location. The average brutto pay in our region is about 1.400 euros, which is about 1.000 netto. I think it’s awful that the house owners are so greedy. How on earth is it fair to pay 50% of your income for an apartment.
Michaela will get 950 euros brutto, which is about 700 netto in IBM. She would live with a friend of hers, so she’ll only be paying about 200 a month for housing. Add 250 for food and she’s stuck with 200 for the rest.
Why do people think that IBM is such a great company?
Why is there such a difference in wages?
Why do the smaller companies in Bratislava pay more than the international / large ones. For example a local IT company in Bratislava would pay her 1.500-2.000 euros. That’s if the owners are Slovak.
