Sidlisko Living

The view from our balcony

As I have mentioned, we are living in one of the “sidliskos”, which are complexes of apartment buildings, or flats, clustered together. These places were the great Soviet answer to many philosophical and practical issues- none of which,as it turns out, they wound up solving. In 1962, the government began construction in the hills above Kosice of the "Lunik" ("Lunar") I-IX housing projects, named for the Soviet lunar probes of the time.They were originally created to house steel workers of the new steel mill outside the city, which is now the home of U.S. Steel (Lenin would be turning over in his grave). In other words, progress! The area where we live,Terasa, incorporates several of these blocs. Lunik IX is currently an infamous Roma ghetto. It's also interesting to note that George's great-uncle, whose brother was the mayor of Kosice, owned quite a lot of the land on which Terasa sits, before it was confiscated in the name of said progress.

Coming in our driveway

The original plan was for the buildings to stand for 30 years and then be torn down. Obviously, they didn’t get that far and a large percentage of Slovaks, especially in cities (but not exclusively) live in these blocs. The population of Terasa is now 40,000- all living in sidliskos.There is no social stigma to it, although a lot of more affluent people have moved to houses. That said, people are used to them and, while they are shockingly drab and even creepy to those who were not raised here, they do have their interesting features. It’s just a different lifestyle, one which I am happy with for a period of time as part of the change of scenery. It’s a bit of a “Rear Window” experience, observing neighborhood life in a setting so different from my home.

A section of one the buildings in our complex

Entering the parking lot from the street, you are surrounded on three sides by large blocs which are eight stories high. As he drove us here the first time, our friend Piki (who owns the flat) said in his thick Slovak accent, “The Bronx, Kosice.” Piki does not speak a lot of English, but when he does, it’s always a funny comment that makes me laugh. This leads me to believe that he may know more English than he lets on. Piki also writes Slovak phrases for me in my little notebook which I carry around, and corrects the ones I have attempted on my own. But, I digress.

As you enter our building at the far end of the complex, you need to step around the precarious "parallel"

 rails, which are an attempt to provide “access” for strollers or wheelchairs by going from the ground to the top stair of the outside entry. I don’t know what you would do if you really needed them because they are very steep, don't appear to actually be completely parallel, and mostly seem to just get in the way of trying to get around the broken stairs on the right. Once you enter the building, you head to the right and begin climbing.

Our flat is in the center: 4th windows up

We live on the fourth floor (if you count like a European) or the fifth floor (if you count like an American). Either way, it is 72 stairs to our front door. There is an elevator, but I have only used it twice and both times involved the chore of getting a heavy suitcase up to our flat.These lifts are truly frightening to me. A picture tells a story, so maybe these will help you see why I avoid this at all costs.

If you are brave enough, after you call the elevator, you open the outside door, then step in and manually close the two inside doors before proceeding. At least ours has an inside door. I have been in lifts which skip this luxury, leading mothers to clutch their children’s hands in theirs for the duration of the ride, keeping little fingers safe from the floors passing inches from the passengers. When you step into it, the floor of the thing sinks an inch or two under your weight, while the cable groans slightly, leading me to be convinced that this would be the very moment that something would finally give out, sending me crashing down unceremoniously to the basement. The cabin was constructed in 1965, as substantiated by a plaque inside. I take the stairs. Besides, I figure it’s a good way to offset some of the beer and sausage.

POZOR means "Danger"- You get the idea!

One thing that sounds like a good idea in this country is that lights in common areas tend to be on timers. It sounds like a good idea, but it seems that it often is not, because the timers are invariably set to too short a time to accomplish the desired task, such as climbing the stairs or finding the next light-switch in the dark public bathroom. We have learned that, as you climb the stories, you need to hit the light switch each time you pass one, to reset the timer and keep the light on. The first time we came home in the dark and forgot this trick of sidlisko living, we found ourselves in utter darkness between the third and fourth floors, with no idea how to get to and into our door. That was a time I was glad that George always has a lighter in his pocket.

Once you enter, there is always a central hallway for the removal of shoes and the putting on of the slippers (remember the slippers?)- Sort of a Slovak mudroom. Our bathroom is located to the right, and is somewhat unusual in that we do not have a separate “water closet” (a small room with just the toilet in it), which is common in Slovakia. As odd as the WC seems, it actually makes a lot of sense, especially since there is always only one bathroom. I have already described a bit about the bathroom in previous rants about the shower, but I should add that I have now learned to leave the drain hose (which goes from the washing machine into the tub) in the tub at all times after I forgot to replace it following a shower last week. You guessed it; I flooded the bathroom, the large central hallway, and part of Piki’s old bedroom (please don’t tell him). This brings me to a unique feature of homes here; they have internal thresholds between rooms. They are approximately equivalent to a one-by-four lying in the doorway. They can “catch” your toes when you are not used to them, but I am pretty sure they helped in our little crisis by creating little dams at two places. Otherwise, it certainly would have been worse. We spent more than an hour sopping up about an inch of water with every towel we could find (wring and repeat) and another day drying the carpets which were soaked. We haven’t heard any complaints of water stains from downstairs, so we think we got away with it.

We have three bedrooms across the back. Each one has a window and the central one has the balcony. They have improved these in recent years by adding sliding glass doors, so it feels more like a room. We have a nice view from the balcony of other flats, a small roller hockey court (they train them for hockey very young here), and lots of trees. It’s really very pleasant.

We have a large chestnut tree just below our balcony, and it was fun to people watch for several weeks, as someone left a hefty board on the ground, which people would use to throw into the tree to knock down the edible chestnuts and then to knock open the prickly outer pod. Old people, young people, school kids- everyone stopped and used the stick and everyone always left it there for others to use- interesting. I think it’s still there! We also have black squirrels, which totally caught me by surprise. The first time I saw one, I thought I was imagining things, but they are apparently common here.

In the front of our flat, there are two more windows where the living room and kitchen look out. The kitchen is nearer to the center of the U shape formed by the three buildings, which surround the large parking lot. In the very center is a children’s playground. Nearer to our entrance is one set of six dumpsters. This is where lots of Roma people pass through each day, stopping to check for useful items. Some people are thoughtful enough to leave items such as clothing right on top, where they are quickly snatched up. The topic of the Roma is a complex one, and I am not going to attempt to explore it any further here. In my version of “Kitchen Window” people watching, I have noticed a couple of interesting characters.
 
Lots of people have dogs here, and so there is endless dog walking, since all of our neighbors are obviously apartment-dwellers. However, I really did a double-take when I first noticed that one of the animals being walked on a leash was actually a cat! The cat lady shows up quite often, and her kitty reminds me a bit of Turbo. It doesn’t seem to know it’s a cat and doesn’t mind the leash, or the dogs that approach when the lady stops to chat with dog-walkers. Funny! Another character is a gentleman in the next building, which sits at a right angle in front of our living-room window. I call him The Pacer. He always wears the same black pants and blue vest, and he literally spends hours pacing in front of his building. I have passed him several times and he seems harmless, but it seems sad that he has nothing better to do. I find myself wondering what his life is like and making up possibilities for his predicament in my head. Oh well, enough of that, Mrs. Kravitz!

One of the things that take some adjustment here is the sounds from the hallway and the other apartments, especially the one above us. These buildings are pre-fab, panel construction with concrete and rebar and not much else. Sound carries in the oddest way so that, every time someone calls the elevator, you can hear it moving all the way through our front door, the central hallway, and into the living room. Also, conversations in the stairwell are very audible, as well as those upstairs. I have learned to tune them out, but it would probably not be so easy if I actually understood what they were saying! There is something strange about the way the sound carries into the bathroom, so that I would swear the people above us are watching television in their bathroom, but let’s hope not. What I do know is that they watch or listen to Mass regularly, sometimes several times a day, and the first one tends to be at five a.m. It’s sort of a first-hand experience, almost like you are there, including the liturgy accompanied by a very loud organ. I mean, good for you, but can I please choose when and if to participate? I’m sure we pass our own sounds down, as our floors creak incessantly. It would pay to live on the top floor, as George’s family did, but then there are those stairs…