In our conversation, Petr shared his perspectives on the transition to democracy in the early 1990s, and how the emergence of an independent Slovak state was both flawed and divisive from the very beginning.

You are talking to a person who is approaching its 60s.

And that's the fact.

I have lived first 20 years of my life, still in a socialistic regime, which was collapsing as I was getting to my adult age.

And from Today's perspective, I can say that we have been witnessing as teenagers something which was clearly leading to collapse of that regime and watching in with the hopes.

We were very often laughing about the stuff, how the state is pretending to be the state and how it's getting to its end.

And at the same time, as a curious young people, we were meeting people from this end, the older guys and women who were fighting with the regime.