TRAVEL DIARY : Squat 'Hajovna' / Žilina (Slovakia)

In this post I want to tell you about Hajovna, a squat in Žilina (Slovakia), amazing place and amazing people. But let's start from the beginning.

I was traveling with band Seine, while they were on EU Tour, and we were driving to Žilina from Krakow, and got caught up in traffic jam right outside the city. We were tired and stressed out from the day before, and just wanted to finally get to the place. Then, when we finally got to Žilina, the GPS was taking us trough the woods, and we thought ''ok we are definitely lost''. But at the end of the road, right outside the woods, there it was - squat Hajovna.

Couple of friendly faces and even more friendly dogs, beautiful scenery and cold beer. We were in heaven :)

They explained to us that the town of Žilina is built around the woods; the woods were in the center of the city, and they build around it this whole town, wow, right?
Also they told us the story about the squat, well actually it's not a 'proper' squat, they rented out this old house, put the solar panels on the roof so they can have electricity and they even gather water from the rain sometime! A really DIY community.

Ivan and Miša (Seine) at Squat Hajovna

Here's a couple of portraits I took of these amazing people:







So we enjoyed and drank for couple of hours, and then, about 9pm the show was about to start.
The support act for Seine, and the man that organized this event was Dáša Fon Fľaša.
This guy blow us apart! He's a acoustic punk singer-songwriter, and this was, I shit you not, he's 999 SHOW!

This is him:

He's a really interesting guy, we found out that there is this documentary about him called Lost in Poland, there's the whole movie on youtube:

Anyway the next morning we got really sad that we had to leave this place, and just as we were packing the stuff, storm of the century came down on Žilina, so we had to hang a bit more, we really didn't complain about that :)


And here's after-the-rain group photo:


Anyway, if you're ever near Žilina, Hajovna is the place to be!

PS
The analogue b&w photos were taken with my Canon AE-1 camera and Ilford Pan 400iso 35mm film and the videos and the digital photos were shot with Canon 6D and Canon L 24-105mm f4 lens
PPS
You can check out Dáša Fon Fľaša here:
https://dasafonflasa.bandcamp.com
https://www.facebook.com/dasafonflasa/
Seine
https://seine.bandcamp.com/album/sno-sna
https://www.instagram.com/seine_sno/
https://www.facebook.com/SeineVz/