WASHINGTON 鈥� It was too good to resist, and as it turned out, it was too good to be true.
Last month, the Twitter account of the BBC TV show “QI” said that in D.C., 鈥渢he Slovakian and Slovenian embassies meet once a month to exchange wrongly addressed mail.鈥� It was liked 16,000 times and retweeted almost 6,900 times.
In Washington DC, the Slovakian and Slovenian embassies meet once a month to exchange wrongly addressed mail.
鈥� Quite Interesting (@qikipedia)
It turns out, that鈥檚 not the first time such a story has made the rounds of social media. And the idea of a monthly Slovenia-Slovakia mail-exchanging party, complete with copious amounts of Brinjevic and Tatratea, sounds like a lot of fun. But representatives from both embassies say it鈥檚 fake news.
Terezia Filipejova, a cultural and policy counselor at the Slovakian Embassy, told WTOP in an email, 鈥淭he true story is that we do meet with colleagues from Slovenian as well as other Embassies, but the reason is not that one. Even if the names of our two countries might look and/or sound similiar, as a matter of fact there has not been any mail so far to be exchanged.鈥�
Borut Zunic, a counselor at the Slovenian Embassy, agreed that it doesn鈥檛 happen. But he laughed when informed of the tweet and said it鈥檚 not exactly completely wrong.
鈥淚t was interesting to see that going around,鈥� he said, 鈥渂ecause we have had that before.鈥� Just not in D.C.
Somewhat similar
There was some truth to the rumor at one point: quoted an anonymous Slovenian ambassador 鈥渋n a European capital鈥� who said that the embassy staffs in that city did, in fact, exchange mail. And Zunic, who said he used to work in the Slovenian Embassy in London in the 1990s, said, 鈥淲e did get quite a bit of that.鈥� They鈥檇 gather the wrongly addressed mail in a big envelope and mail the letters to each other periodically.
The two Central European countries were formed by different processes: Slovenia was created in 1990 by breaking with the former Yugoslavia and holding out after a 10-day war in 1991; Slovakia broke away from the Czech Republic peacefully in 1993.
But the two countries are only about 150 miles apart; their D.C. embassies, about 3 miles: The Slovenian Embassy is on California Street Northwest, off Massachusetts Avenue; the Slovakian Embassy, on International Court Northwest, off Van Ness Street.
And a certain amount of confusion is understandable, Zunic said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 sometimes even for us confusing.鈥�
Zunic said both languages are Slav-based, but they have similar-sounding words that mean very different things 鈥� the word for “child” in Slovenian is the same as the word for “slave” in Slovak, which Zunic said made for an awkward situation when his boss, once ambassador to Slovakia, came to work in a car with a Slovene 鈥淐hild in Car鈥� sticker on it. The two languages even have the same name, in their respective languages.
鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 help that we have very similar flags, either,鈥� Zunic said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one thing that I don鈥檛 understand 鈥� why did we pick very similar flags? It has the same stripes, the same sort of symbol 鈥� very small difference.鈥�
How confusing? Take our quiz (scroll down each caption for the answer):
An insult?
Even now, Zunic said, sometimes one country鈥檚 president or prime minister will go to another country and be greeted with the wrong national anthem.
Early in his country鈥檚 existence, he said, there was even more confusion, and it was a sore point: 鈥淪ome people would even say Slovania, which doesn鈥檛 exist, or Slavonia, which is a region in Croatia.鈥�
They鈥檝e learned to live with it though, he said.
鈥淲e used to get very upset 鈥� because, a new country, you think everyone鈥檚 supposed to know you. But obviously they鈥檙e not.鈥�
He took the opportunity to plug Slovenia鈥檚 charms: Consistent high ranking in tourism surveys and a No. 3 ranking worldwide for women鈥檚 equality; Slovenian-Americans including first lady Melania Trump, Miami Heat guard Goran Dragic, U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minnesota. 鈥淣ot too many, [but] in a nation of only 2 million 鈥� we are pretty good.鈥�
For its part, Slovakia dwarfs Slovenia with about 5 million people, and Slovaks and Slovak-Americans include Foo Fighter Dave Grohl, screen icon Paul Newman, hockey player Zdeno Chara, Five for Fighting singer John Ondrasik, parachute inventor Stefan Banic and John Dopyera, inventor of the resonator guitar. (The best-known resonator guitar is called a dobro, which Dopyera and two brothers, along with other partners, produced at the American String Instrument Company, in California. Where did the name dobro come from? It’s Slovak for “good,” and it’s short for Dopyera Brothers.)
And if you鈥檙e still having trouble telling the difference between the names Slovenia and Slovakia, Zunic has a simple reminder:
鈥淲e have the word 鈥榣ove鈥� in it, and they don鈥檛. 鈥� We feel love. We feel Slovenia. Try to remember it that way.鈥�
