Category: Ljubljana

The Ljubljana Escalator building site (source)

The infamous Ljubljana Escalator will officially start operating tommorrow. The project started way back in 2001 when then Mayor Viktorija Potočnik during one of her fits of grandeur announced that Ljubljana will get an escalator to the Castle hill. The project costs were initially estimated at around SIT 600 million (€ 2,1 million). For various reasons (including the fact that she was ultimately responsible for the fiasco of SIB Bank and the fact that she promised a new football stadium and repeatedly failed to deliver) Vika Potočnik lost the elections of 2002 to Danica Simšič, who put the escalator project on the back burner.

As going got tough for Mayor Simšič she revived the project, hoping that it would be finished in time for the elections. Of course it wasn’t and the fact that the costs now soared to SIT 1,7 billion (€ 7 million) might have contributed to the fact that she lost the elections of 2006 to the incumbent mayor Zoran Janković.

Thus “Zoki” as he is popularly know will preside over tommorows official unveiling of the escalator, hopefully bringning to a more-or-less sucessfull end someone’s pet project. A couple of thought on the issue:

Ljubljana doesn’t really need an escalator to the Castle hill. While I agree that the capital city must have some sort of glamour, the escalator will hardly achieve that. Despite the fact that it is apparently high-tech (and has already broken down during a test run, trapping people inside) it is not a landmark and I cannot imagine scores of tourists barging down on Ljubljana just to take the 2,5 € ride to the top of the Castle hill. Especially not when Ljubljana sports a lovely (even somewhat mooshy) train service from the Triple Bridges (Tromostovje) to the Castle – that is to say from one landmark to another.

But now that we’ve got it, there is no use bitching about it. Sure, we could use a couple of more apartement buildings, but hey, they decided to spend the money… Ah, therein lies the rub… If this project fails (i.e.: doesn’t create profit), heads will roll. One of the most prominent heads on display (should an unfortunate chain of events occur) will most definitely be the head of Darko Brlek, general manager of Festival Ljubljana. This city-owned company won (or – some say – lost) the tender to manage both the Castle and the escalator. And should there not be enough fat German tourists to fill the city coffers, the manager of the Castle might face decapitation – in a political sence, at least.

Nothing like that is obviously going to happen to Mayor Janković, of course. Not only is he still in his bullet-proof stage, when little can hurt him, but he also made sure that people remember who is actually responsible for the project. Despite the fact that he maintans his anti-political facade, he acted in the shrewdest political manner, as he invited both former mayors to the grand opening, sacrificing a litlle limelight just to make sure people remembered who concocted the whole thing. Cunning little bastard…

Oh, and if you want to see how the thing looked like just before the opening, check out Jonas’ post.

Foto by Stane Jeršič, www.ljubljana.si

And thus it begins… Ljubljana City Council convened for its first (and second) extraordinary session yesterday. The substance wasn’t all that much interesting unless you count raising parking fees from 100 SIT per hour to 0.60 € (SIT 144) per hour or if you hold a keen interest in City of Ljubljana filing an appeal with the Constitutional Court to strike down the ammended Law on Financing Municipalities which in effect reduces Ljubljana expected income by some 11 bln SIT (45,6 million €).

The fun part was watching the three-times-Maganer-of-the-year-award-winner Zoran Janković trying to control 45 people whom he can’t fire. He boldly announced that both sessions will take three hours altogehter, but instead the debate raged on for seven hours.

Janković learned a couple of things: Procedure is the basis of democracy. On at least two occassions he blatantly violated Rules of Procedure: If the Rules stipulate that a decree comes into effect a day after being published in the Official Gazzette, that means precisely that and cannot be read any other way. Zoran Janković however rammed through a decision (obviously invalid) that this particural decision – on forming a Committee for Sports – becomes valid upon its confirmation in the Council. From a legal point of view Ljubljana City Council now doesn’t have a Committee on Sports and its members are holding their positions illegally.

Secondly: If Rules allow a broad debate then the Councilors will use every millimeter of this broadness. That’s what democracy is for. The Rules stipulate that a Councilor must stick to the issue on debate, but the nature of a Councilor’s debate is entirely up to him/her. As is the length of the debate. As expected, Miha Jazbinšek took full advantage of this, contributing at least an hour and a half of a seven-hour session.

Thirdly: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. Janković apparently takes great many things personally. He will have to let certain things go, otherwise he will keep getting involved in a pointless exchange of words, whose only aim is to throw the Mayor off guard. Yesterday several Councilors succeeded in doing that.

Janković will have to learn these things by heart since he has set out to complete his twenty-two projects in four years. Yesterday’s session lasted for seven hours. I wonder how long the budgetary session will take? And even if he manages to ammend the Rules, imposing a time-limit on debate, he will have to brace himself for a fiery hell when he will try to ram a decision through the Council. And I see no way of limiting the sessions to below five-to-six hours. Not with all the projects he has set out to complete.

Sunshine made a comment about how nice the Castle looks in December. She also promised to post photos of it. I’m sure her photos will be much better than mine is.

…not the best photo in the world (blame it on the photographer and the camera), but you get the general idea.

It’s that time of the year, again…. 😀

Ljubljana on a December night (source)

From December 3rd to January 2nd Ljubljana’s Old City will be filled with fast food joints, čevapdžinicas, makeshift bars and stands selling generally useless stuff. Except for slippers, which are highly useful, especially if one has – like Pengovsky – only recenlty moved into his new appartement and has yet to buy slippers (or copati) for visitors and has to, when people come to see him, utter the sentence “no, please, don’t take your shoes off” thus defying decades of tradition and upbringing, whilst every fibre in his body reacts with utmost disgust and shame, yelling “is THAT how mother taught you???”

But upbringing aside, December is arguably one of the best months to see Ljubljana. Not just because the city centre is so lovely lit that people should actually be issued an emergency supply of insuline upon arrival, just to cope with the mooshines Ljubljana in December tends to bring up in an unsuspecting individual, but people in general go a bit bananas. Not in the Ausländer-raus-kind-of-way, but just beeing predominantly in a good mood and generaly drunk, with honney schnapps and kuhano vino being everybody’s favourite. (Yes, I still don’t know the English expession for “kuhano vino”… Michael, help!!!).

The lights will be officially switched on by Mayor Janković tomorrow at 17.30, and then the fun begins, so take a look at the programme and decide what’s your pleasure.

BTW: it has been unofficially confirmed to Pengovsky that Zoki has had a major say in the final outcome of the programme. Apparently he decided that Danijela, Petar Grašo, Gibonni and Oliver Dragojević should give performances, and so they will. For better or for worse 😉

I will try to report on the events in the Old City as they are within earshot of the Firm™, but don’t hold it against me if I don’t since I just might end up like on the bottom picture…

Pengovsky in his natural state – seriously drunk

Huda je županska, huda… Pretekli četrtek je Zoki zaprisegel kot župan Ljubljane, dan kasneje, se pravi v petek (17. novembra), pa se je zgodila tudi primopredaja poslov – po domače: Danica se je izselila iz Magistrata, Zoran pa je pritekel v Hribarjevo sobo. No, bolj privlekel, kot je razvidno iz teh fotk

Prva županska noč je očitno pustila posledice…Malo po deveti zjutraj v petek je Zoki komaj gledal.. 🙂

No, res je tudi, da Zoran ni bil edini, ki je imel za seboj težko noč. Če je bilo soditi po glasu Janija Möderndorferja, je človek prejšnjo noč skadil dosti več kot škatlico cigaret, hehe
V primerjavi z Zoranom je Danica prav blestela. Kako tudi ne bi, saj bo zdaj še tri mesece vlekla župansko plačo, ki ni majhna. Če bi bil jaz na njenem mestu, bi šel za mesec dni nekam v tople kraje

Pred dnevi se je Nimfa rolala okoli džamije, Pengovsky pa je v funkciji tezgarjenja za Firmo(tm) izvedel, da se bo lokacija džamije verjetno spremenila. Nämlich: Kot vse kaže, je Miha Jazbinšek pri novem županu zlobiral, da bo džamija stala na križišču Kurilniške in Parmove (za stolpnico časnika Delo).

Saj je prav…. Bližje ko je centru, bolje bo.

P.S.: Fotomontaža novega objekta bo objavljenja, samo odplazit se moram do Bavarca, da fotografiram tisti predel.

Jutri je petek, kar pomeni, da bom objavil nekaj za fantke….