Heads you win, tails you lose. That is how it must have felt to the inhabitants of Veľké Slemence and Mali Selmentsi. Their lives were decided by the geopolitical equivalent of a coin flip. Since 1946, when the border officially went into effect, those who lived in Veľké Slemence on the Slovakia/Czechoslovakia side of the border have generally been better off than those in Mali Selmentsi on the Ukraine/Soviet Union side. Whether the governments they lived under were totalitarian communist or democratic capitalist this was the case. Slovakia’s accession to the European Union continued this trend. Those living in Mali Selmentsi seemed to be out of luck. This was not the first time.
Most of those who live in the village are ancestors of ethnic Hungarians orphaned from their homeland by the Treaty of Trianon. Hungarians in Ukraine are the poorest of those left in the lost lands beyond Hungary’s borders. Ukraine – war or no war with Russia – is economically underdeveloped compared to European Union member states. Earning a living has never been easy in Ukraine no matter the economic and political system. Ethnic Hungarians had an economic lifeline when the Hungarian government began issuing them passports after the current ruling government came to power in 2010. This gave them access to the rest of Europe. Many of them left Ukraine. Some of those who did not in Mali Selmentsi became involved in an improbable lucrative enterprise selling consumer goods at a deep discount. For the first time in forever, a small fortune could be made in Mali Selmentsi. The village turned into a shopping outlet for the remoter reaches of Eastern Europe.
Going shopping – Pedestrian border crossing between Slovakia and Ukraine in Veľké Slemence (Credit: barrysborderpoints)
Fathomless Vanity – Shop Til You Drop
One of the more lamentable evolutions of the American consumer experience was from shopping malls to outlet malls. The latter are basically super-sterilized shopping malls consisting of standalone outlet stores selling brand name goods at bargain prices. In America, outlet malls attract two types of consumers. One is the shop until you droppers who spend small fortunes just because they can. Their passion is bags full of merchandise destined to be tucked away in the corners of walk-in closets. The second type are those engaged in an exercise to satisfy their fathomless vanity. Name brands act as calling cards. Getting these at a discount outlet allows the mediocre to move up in the world of subpar fashion while having plenty of spare credit card debt to spend on ever more materialism. When the history of America is written after its decline and fall, I am certain that there will be a section on outlet malls to represent just how vapid American consumerism had become. This crass materialism is something that America has exported to the rest of the world. It has seeped into all corners of the globe, including the remotest reaches of Eastern Europe. That outlet stores would turn out to be a force for good in Mali Selmentsi is just as improbable as it is incredible.
Mali Selmentsi’s bad fortune began in 1946, when it was cut off from Veľké Slemence by the Soviet Union- Czechoslovakia border. Being part of the Stalinist Soviet Union with an almost entirely ethnic Hungarian population was one of the worst positions any place could find itself in. The best that the few hundred inhabitants of Mali Selmentsi could do was lay low, hope to go unnoticed, and eventually be reconnected with its sister village across the border in Czechoslovakia. That dream took a long time to become reality. The two villages were divided by a wall, menacing border guards, and byzantine bureaucracy for sixty-one years. Finally in 2005, the border was breached by a crossing for pedestrians and cyclists. A decade after that an unprecedented opportunity arose due to of all things, Russia’s war on the other side of Ukraine. This would lead Mali Selmentsi down the path of capitalism. For once, being on the wrong side of the border turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Material world – Outlet store in Mali Selmentsi (Credit: Kamil Czainski)
Profit Margins – The Material World
In 2014, Russia began its war against Ukraine by occupying Crimea and supporting separatist forces in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. This sent inflation skyrocketing in Ukraine and made life more difficult for Ukraine’s already economically embattled citizens. At the same time, this made most things in Ukraine cheap for foreigners. I learned this through first-hand experience. In December 2014, I spent a couple of nights at the historic Hotel George in Lviv’s city center for the equivalent of fifty dollars. I was even given a full breakfast to go when I left for an early departure on my final morning in the city. My meals and transport on that journey were ridiculously cheap by western standards. I could hardly believe the difference in prices when compared with a visit I had made to Lviv just four years earlier.
Some entrepreneurial types in Mali Selmentsi spied an opportunity with the skyrocketing inflation in Ukraine. It made consumer products there much cheaper than they were across the border in Slovakia or anywhere else in Europe. The area in Mali Selmentsi, just past the border checkpoint, soon became lined with shops selling some of the most fashionable name brand goods found in the west. The Slovak who wanted to wear Prada was in luck. They found affordable Gucci handbags, and other world-famous fashion brands available at the deepest of discounts. Shopping trips to the border suddenly became popular. The sleepy border crossing between Veľké Slemence and Mali Selmentsi, where previously less than a hundred people passed through each day, now had a thousand people pouring over the border to sate their appetite for gaudy and glamorous consumer products. Mali Selmentsi had as many as 70 outlet stores offering everything from high end perfumes, wedding dresses, and that ultimate guilty pleasure, cigarettes.
At a discount – Ukraine sign at border checkpoint to enter Mali Selmentsi
(Credit: barrysborderpoints)
Selling Out – The Vagaries of War
Some enterprising Slovaks and other foreigners who traveled to Mali Selmentsi had their own profit motives in mind. They could purchase high end products inexpensively and sell them further west at a considerable markup. Meanwhile, the merchants in Mali Selmentsi made their own small fortunes. This was the first time since the early 20th century that anything approaching prosperity came to the village. The outlet mania has now subsided. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 turned everyone’s focus fully to the war. Ukraine is now in survival rather than sales mode. One day the war will end, and shoppers could return to cross the border. It does not seem likely, but neither did Mali Selmentsi becoming a minor mecca of outlet shopping.
Click here for: Waking The Dead – My Life On The Slovakia-Ukraine Border (The Lost Lands #23)
Europe Between East And West 