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Sovietski!

By Howard Hunt

We are in the snow near the Czech/Slovak border, looking up at the mountains and hissing steam with excitement. The air is murderously cold, facilitating a dialogue balloon landscape of excitable steam, as we stand around Dusan's Skoda XL and watch the three Honzas attack the front tires. Boy, is it cold! The Slovak roads have not yet been plowed so it's definitely time to affix snow chains to tires, and the reason we're so excited is that we've acquired the very latest in snow chain technology but have absolutely no clue how this technology works. Before we left Prague, we stopped off at TESCO (where Honza P and Vitek work in public relations) to purchase consumables and upgrade our equipment, and the German-made snow chains were just too funny to resist, packaged as they were in industrial rubber, the color and texture of a basketball squashed flat. Big, goateed Libor (whose boutique agency handles TESCO, Ikea, Globus and Carrefour - the new French hypermarket to go up in town) deemed the snow chains "Sovietski!," so the Honzas and Dusan and Jiri The Philosopher were quick to frisbee a package into their well-stocked shopping carts. A good call from Libor, who neither owns a car nor the inclination to buy one, as there is mad snow in the Slovak highlands this winter, and the road to the chalet is very slippery indeed.

We defer to Libor in all things sportif (he is, after all, the most radical snowboarder), but his vehicular disinterest leaves the chaining of Dusan's tires in the loose and capable hands of the three Honzas, who are glamorous and have streaked hair and thick gold bracelets and the muscular confidence of American NHL stars, and they go at it in shifts, trying to master the new German system of wrapping chain around wheel. It goes without saying that the Honzas will ace this, in much the same way they mastered C++ and Xcel and the many other computer languages they code in, however after much puffing and panting, it transpires that the German snow chains, which we admire enormously and are very much taken by the style of, differ in basic functionality from the drab and rather ordinary Czech snow chains, which we can throw on our cars pretty much with our eyes closed. In the end, Jiri The Philosopher is summoned, and after some deliberation, it is he who cracks the puzzle by suggesting we refer to the instructions on the packaging.

"Can anyone read German?" he asks.

Martina C, the ice queen (recently promoted to senior management at Globus, the German hypermarket which stands directly opposite TESCO and Ikea on the other side of the Plzenska highway, and which features, truth be told, a far more comprehensive and competitively priced liquor section than either TESCO or Carrefour, which we do not patronize out of loyalty to Honza P and Vitek, but also because of that thing with the Germans occupying our country and coming back as tourists and speaking loudly in German and tipping poorly), is, of course, the woman for the job, and she translates fluently, making a big deal of the verb declinations but otherwise casting light on the non-insurmountable problem of Czech v. German industrial design. The Honzas are quick to act. Crouching in the snow like huskies, their blue eyes keenly appraising the mechanical integrity of this new locking system, they set to work, and the chains go on Dusan's tires as quick as Greased Lightning.

Dusan's Skoda is the corporately luxurious Octavia XL; mint-green and covered with signage for L&M Menthols, the American blend cigarette that is taking Europe by storm. It is by far the best car in the convoy, and the prestige girlfriends - Magda, Monika and Martina C, the ice queen - have elected to ride in it, choosing comfort over proximity to their non-driving boyfriends. Dusan is a journalist at TV Nova, the most popular and hard-hitting news station in Prague, and the car (and many others like it) are but a few of the enviable perks he enjoys with his job. Each year as we prepare to head off to the mountains, it has become something of a tradition to gather in the parking lot at TESCO and wait for Dusan to drive up in the latest Octavia, and this year's model is something to die for! L&M cigarettes have recently changed their campaign, so the computer-generated and dead sexy photographic imaging that covers the hood and roof and back and side windows features a new girl smoking provocatively, crooking her finger and blowing heart-shaped smoke rings, setting in train much jocular, and in the case of the prestige girlfriends, bitchy discussion as to whether she (the new girl) holds a candle to the old girl in terms of sultry provocation and smoke ring blowing technique, and the debate is still raging as we chain all five cars, and then the convoy is ready for the slow drive uphill.

The prestige girlfriends in place, Dusan guns the engine, and we climb into the mountains. Our chalet is in Habovka, a tiny resort town in the High Tatras where our parents used to ski in the time of communism. It is cheap and dirty, with few amenities and none of the class of the French or Swiss Alps, but we are here to snowboard, and the collective opinion is that the inferior slopes and downmarket ski traffic (lots of Poles and Slovaks in silly tam o'shanters) will afford us a more discreet place to learn the discipline of snowboarding, as, with the exception of Libor who is truly radical and "bad," none of the group have ever snowboarded before. On the bright side, we have made a killing in currency exchange, trading robust Czech crowns for heavily depreciated Slovak crowns, precipitating an across-the-boarder frenzy through a drive-in liquor mart and subsequent bulk acquisition of Bohemia Sekt, the excellent "sparkling champagne" served in restaurants in Prague. While the jury may be out on the new L&M girl, one thing upon which we have all reached consensus is that we love the campaign slogan—"Join Me on the L&M CRAZY HOTEL Tour" - which has a behind-closed-doors edgy feel, like there's a party going on if only we could find it, and, despite the fact that discreet inquiries by Libor and Dusan have yielded the disappointing news that there is no "tour" budgeted into the L&M campaign (ie. that the CRAZY HOTEL tour is just a registered trademark, not an actual party we can locate and crash), we have rebounded quickly by appropriating both name and concept as the central theme of our skiing vacation. With Dusan leading the convoy, his bass-enhanced stereo blasting vintage Eminem with an avalanche-starting low-end frequency, we look for all the world like a CRAZY HOTEL tour on tour, and for the next two hours, heads turn in our direction as we traverse the steep slope up the sprawling Alpine range.

The roll call is as follows: Honzas P, C and J. Dusan. Jiri The Philosopher. Vitek (the joker). Marek C (the good Marek), Marek P (the bad Marek), big goateed Libor and homeboys Mikael and Martin. The girls are Magda, Monika, Martina C, the ice queen. Veronika J. Veronika K. Sarka, Klara, Lenka, Petra, and Libor's new girlfriend, Spy magazine "sexy girl" Daniela Zalesakova, who is five feet tall and downright surly. Considerable friction between her and the ice queen, pretty much from the moment they met outside TESCO, resulting in much car shuffling and black looks and the packing and unpacking of snowboards, and once again, it looks like sex is off the menu for poor old Marek C (Truth be told, Marek C is not much longer for this world. Since making the jump from TESCO to Carrefour, his status has diminished in the eyes of the group, and while our sympathies are with him, the sad fact is that he has priced himself out of our entertainment median. He also doesn't drive, which doesn't help). With the exception of Jiri (who is in fact a philosopher and heads the Department of Philosophy and Creative Writing at the Greek-owned University of New York in Prague), our driving convoy is entirely comprised of new model Skodas, the three Honzas having been "hooked up" by Veronika J, who works for a dealership in Andel. Jiri, by contrast, drives a Volkswagen Passat, and has been delegated the responsibility of transporting the majority of snowboards (he has roof racks: the three Honzas do not) as well as Libor and Daniela Zalesakova and Marek P (the bad Marek). A core and likeable member of our group, Marek P requires constant surveillance as his sloe-eyed charm and pop star good looks are a constant source of heartbreak for the ladies. Right now, just outside the ski lodge, flicking L&M ash into the pristine snow, he cuts a dangerous figure in his Marc O'Polo windbreaker and American-brand designer jeans, and the flow of female traffic is steady around him as we meet the landlord and move into the chalet.