Our people have always been working in Bohemia

Text: Michal Křivohlávek, Praha
Photographs: David Kumermann, Praha

Jožo Urgáš is 33 years old. He was born in Ochtalov, just two kilometers from the former border between Czechoslovakia and the USSR. Now Ochtalov is a part of Slovakia bordering on Ukraine. Not only have the names of countries changed, but also the rhythm of life. Ochtalov lost its industry; the large agricultural companies fell apart. Jožo never moved in his life, still living in the house of his parents who are already dead. He was trained as a livestock specialist, is single and has been going to the Czech Republic for work for three years now.

Photo gallery

In the Czech Republic
Here in Ochtalov, you would hardly find anyone who has not been !/wie/cms/images/300.jpg!in the Czech Republic! In the summer, all the people from the village are gone; it is in winter that people are home. Migrating to Bohemia for work has always been the case, even during communist times. The companies used to bring people wherever they could. Local men worked in Most, in Stříbro, you name it.
Even today, it functions the same way, only the middlemen are different. Today it is the “entrepreneurs“. If you have a good entrepreneur, he takes care of everything. Housing, paperwork, social department, insurance, just everything. However, there are some that just disappear with the money. One entrepreneur let his people sleep on the railway station in Prague without a penny in their pockets. You know what that must have been like? They did not even have money to get back home. They had been working for a month but the entrepreneur kept saying he cannot give them any money, he does not have it.

I have been with an entrepreneur for three years, from the start. The company is in Ostrava but they work everywhere. I work in runs, always 20 days in a single stretch and then 10 days off, on vacation. I worked in Most, Pelhřimov, Prague, in many places. I know Bohemia better than some Czechs do. The longest time I spent there was two and half months, then I came back. It was too much. I am trained as a livestock technician, used to work for a co-op. Ask everyone what his training is and you will see. Nobody works in the profession he has documents for. Slovaks are generally appreciated because they know how to do everything. At home they are used to working on their houses so they can do everything from the foundations to the roof.

I work as a steel fixer on construction sites. I like doing that. It is good work. And really hard, too! To carry 12-meter-long reinforcements as thick as your thumb in your hands! When I bought my cellphone, I pressed two keys at the same time, look at my hands! I learned how to read building plans. The foreman comes, Janek, here you are. I can see, this needs to be put here, this there. I tell the guys: you take this and take it over there, you carry this. Then it goes fast, we work ahead of time. You have to make sure that it is placed correctly, if not, the statics specialist comes and you have to redo it. Sometimes he does not make it, then the concrete is poured and it is done. We are a group of four, all from eastern Slovakia. On the construction site, most people are Slovak, Ukrainian, and Gypsies. Ukrainians carry things, they do the rough work. The Gypsies – when you turn around, they run away.

I work by the hour and make 75 CZK net, over 100 CZK gross. I work 12 hours straight, from seven to seven, also on the weekends. I have one hour break for lunch; sometimes you can stretch it a bit if it is not too strict. You can make 20,000, 30,000 a month. I have been with the same entrepreneur for three years. That is long, a lot of guys left. Not because of the money, they went to work with wood. Iron is hard work.

In Prague
The workers’ hostel is at Vysočanská. It is good that the metro stop is near so you can get home quickly. When we used to work in Chodov, the guys who took the car needed an hour to get there. I say, take the bus, then the metro and I am there in a short time. They were so mad that it took them so long, I took a shower in the meantime and rested on my bed. The metro is better; you can speak with people, watch the girls. I get home around seven. Before I have taken a shower and eaten, it is late. Sometimes I can still go to the pub for two, three beers. But then I have to go to sleep since I start at seven. I hardly ever go to the centre. I do not have weekends off. But when we do have time, for instance when the construction site is standing idle because of some problem, we go out with my clique. To Wenceslas Square or we get out of the metro somewhere and go to one bar after another in that area. That’s cool! Then we go, like, where are we now? But when we find the nearest metro then we know our way. I know Prague, really, especially along the metro lines. How much money I spend in Prague depends on who I go out with. If I have a crew-member who does not drink, than it is cheap. But once I had a crew-member and that was something! Almost every night in the bar.

Work in Slovakia?
You can get work in eastern Slovakia but it is not well paid. You will work for six or eight thousand Slovak crowns a month. And what can you buy for that? And once you have children? It is impossible. If you go further, to Snina or Humenné, you find well paid work but it is hard. To commute for an hour every day, to be gone from morning to evening? What for?
There are some people here who get 1,600 crowns from social welfare. If you work for the community you can make another 1,600. It is called “activation” bonuses. These “activation” jobs are not hard; you work just two days a week. This way, our village got a pond, tennis courts, and a stage in the stadium. Then these people work illegally, they chop a cartload of wood and get 2,000. I live alone in my parents’ house. Two rooms, a summer kitchen. I have no wife or family. So what? When I make some money, I will redo the house. I have bought furniture.
In the past, people had their homesteads, they had a cow, a pig, kept chickens. Everyone had a garden behind their house and a field further away from the village. A couple of lines with potatoes, some corn and grain. Not anymore. In Tesco, you can get potatoes for five crowns a kilo. Ten chickens eat two centner of grain during the winter and one centner costs 500 crowns! It used to be so much work just to get basic food. It is not worth it. Everywhere people used to cut grass with a scythe since everyone needed hay. Nowadays, nobody wants hay so the meadows get mowed only so that they do not overgrow. You can see the changes in the landscape – the parts that used to be mowed overgrow with forests now. In the winter, animals used to come to the village gardens to search for food. They do not come anymore, there is nothing in the gardens. We are alone, only fugitives sometimes wander into the village. House and car, those are the only things people are interested in nowadays.

Episodes:

Guiding the Illegal Immigrants across the Border

The border with Ukraine is not far from here. The border is like a waterfall – something always keeps flowing across it, it only matters to which side. Some people bring gas, cigarettes, alcohol and chocolate over the border. You are allowed to take one tank of gas, one pack of cigarettes and one litre of vodka per day, so they just go back and forth. For sweets there is no limit. There is always a line of several hours at the border, so they can cross two or three times a day. You see those cars with just one person: that’s them. A couple of years ago, illegal border crossings were a booming business. The illegals were fugitives from somewhere far in Asia, some did not even speak Russian. During the night the group had to be picked up behind the border on the Ukrainian side. Then you would walk through the forest for a couple hours, bring them to cars on this side. Usually 15, 20 people, once even 35. Children. Even in winter. So they bought a backpack full of food and gave it to them. The fugitives were hungry. Sometimes they carried the smallest ones.

It stopped when Slovakia entered the European Union. It is too risky, it is not worth it. In the past, you could end up in detention for two months, today the penalty is eight years. My neighbor is doing his time. He made a mistake – he confessed. Guys always came running from the forest and directly into the pub. They drank several shots and policemen came right after them. “How long have you been here?” “All night long, these guys can testify that”. The friends supported them, this is how it worked. The police could not catch them – how could they? Everyone grew up in these woods. They know every stone, every tree.
The bravest made up to 300,000 a night; 100,000 was normal. Everyone went. If you walk through the village you can see it on the houses. But easy come easy go. Only a few saved some money, bought tractors, harvesters. Some have nothing today, it is over. There is no Mafia here, just the police. The police know about a lot of things, you have to co-operate.

Josef the Entrepreneur, Ochtalov

“There is no sense in wasting your time on things that do not make money,” says Josef, the local producer of fireplace-inserts and the only entrepreneur in Ochtalov. “People waste their time with work that does not bring them any further, leaves them in the same spot.” When it is necessary to chop up wood for winter, something that everyone here needs to do, Josef prefers to get help. He would rather pay some boys a couple of hundred crowns than waste his time.
Josef worked in the Czech Republic for six years. He had a job in a small private factory that was producing machine tools. He was getting better, improving his position in the firm, learning and making money. He started thinking about opening a small workshop at home in Ochtalov. From his savings, he started to buy older machines and after six years opened production. First he had a workshop behind his house, in a few years he built a small new hall. “Everyone has something to offer,” says Josef. “In the past there were a lot of companies around here and people used to help each other. Maybe you had discs for saws at your work, and I could bring you something else. People traded things. As most companies went bankrupt it got hard to get the things that people need. For instance a ring for a circular saw that used to cost nothing is impossible to get. You can buy it in Snina but it costs 150 crowns. I can make the ring almost for free. I give you the ring for a circular saw and since you have a tractor, you help me to get wood. If you have nothing that could be useful you have to pay or help by work.”
About the labour migrants to the west, he says: “They are slaves of small money. They make 20,000, bring 15,000 home, give it to the family. The house and car also cost something. They have nothing left to improve their situation. In a week, they leave for work again.”