The changing face of Bratislava

Last Friday evening I returned to Bratislava, a city I first visited almost exactly six years ago. While on the surface of things, the Slovak capital has changed a lot in that time, dig a little deeper and it has changed little. True, the Habsburg old town has become a lot more tourist-friendly. Whereas, in 1998, there were few bars and restaurants and most were fairly cheap and cheerful, now there are a plethora of Soho-style cocktail lounges full of chrome and designer lighting, grand cafes in the Viennese style, Salsa clubs, Pizzerias and even a Sushi bar. Six years ago, the Tesco's department store and McDonald's restaurant felt like an alien imposition in a city feeling its way blindly towards a new mode of existence. Now, they are so commonplace as to be barely noticeable. Indeed, whereas the McDonald's on Laurinska Ulica always seemed to be packed with people on my last (weeklong) visit, this time only a handful of diners were inside when I passed by early in the evening, a sign of increasing consumer sophistication and of the range of eating options now available.
Yet, away from the old town the pace of change has been much slower. The area around the railway station, for instance, barely seemed to have altered since 1998. The same post-communist shacks selling mustard smothered hot dogs and Slovak brands of cola were still in evidence and prices (some of the cheapest in Europe) were still (for a relatively well-to-do Westerner) remarkably cheap (the equivalent of Euro 0.65 for a hot dog and around Euro 1.50 for a glass of beer).
These low prices are indicative of the low incomes of the majority of Slovaks and a sign that, for many, the pace of economic transition has been painfully slow to date.
Hopefully EU membership will help speed the transition; if not, don't be surprised to see the Slovak electorate turn back towards more extreme political factions again.