Going for the top in Bratislava
Panalák, Petržalka, Bratislava
Finally, I’ve got aboard the UFO! Yes, the Oldies made a return visit to Bratislava, and this time they did take me up the UFO tower on the SNP Bridge. Cool! I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. So imagine my surprise when I heard that it was opened back in 1972. A 50-year-old flying saucer-like observation platform atop a tower on a suspension bridge. Now, that’s what I call futuristic!
At a mere 95m high, the UFO tower is one of the least ‘great’ of the World Federation of Great Towers, but even so, it has knock-out views, thanks to the fact that it is slap bang in the centre of the city. What a panorama! And as the topography is relatively flat, you can see for miles all round. In fact, with Austria and Hungary just a stone’s throw away, you can gaze into three countries at once from up there. I reckon that makes it a pretty Great Tower alright!
Apart from Bratislava Castle, numerous churches and other landmark buildings, the feature of the city that’s just far too big to overlook – even from this height – is the phenomenal panalák, the massive complex of concrete apartment blocks in the Petržalka district. I’d thought that the Nowa Huta development outside Krakow was big, but this complex is enormous! But it was only when the Wingless Wonders decided to have a good poke around the area when we were back on solid ground that the scale of it truly hit me. I can well believe the population of the area is over 100,000.
I’ve heard that many locals would rather have seen the back of this gigantic reminder of the past. Indeed, similar Socialist Modernist complexes in the former Soviet bloc have been demolished. I can only imagine that it was the sheer scale of the development that ensured its survival. Demolishing all this would have been nigh on impossible!
These blocks of apartments appear to have been made of pre-fabricated concrete sections, simply glued and screwed together. I couldn’t get the image of giant Lego blocks out of my head as we wandered through the district. Whatever you might think of the building methods though, these apartments certainly appear to have stood the test of time. They’re certainly rock solid. And with the modern double-glazed windows and newly insulated and colourful facades, I find the blocks don’t look half bad. I’m glad, though, that the Slovaks didn’t follow the Albanian example and cover their facades with giant spots. On this scale, half the city would have gone dotty!
You have to say that the planners certainly knew how to make these enormous estates liveable. Many of the apartment blocks have shops on the ground floors. There are also plenty of cafés, restaurants, kindergartens, schools and playgrounds within the complexes too, and there’s no shortage of green areas in between.
For some strange reason, most of the ground floors have been left in their original state. The contrast between old and new is certainly … let’s say, dramatic. If I were moving in here, I’d definitely be going for the top floor!
