Ing. Peter Kubička

* 1968

  • So we went to Devínska Nová Ves. And I don't even know how we found ourselves at the Bratislava car factury, now Volkswagen, at the gatehouse. We said that there are people here as well. It was about ten o'clock in the evening. We got out of the car and started sticking posters on the BAZ gate. A doorman ran after us, we already knew that it would probably be bad that he noticed us. We pasted what we could and quickly jumped in the car, that we would hide somewhere in Devínská, that we would be pasting posters for now and that they would not find us among the houses in Devínská Nová Ves. But the patrol found us relatively quickly. They stopped us and started solving what we have. That's what I thought, if this doesn't turn out well, I'm definitely done with school. Of course, they took our amphlets, they wrote down IDs ... but I know those cops used more likely to explain us, "Guys, don't be silly, this is a moment, you're complicating your life unnecessarily." But they didn't take us to the police, or don't think beaten or something. They just wrote down, picked up the pamphlets, and made a record. Rather, they told us not to have problems. They weren't those aggressive cops.

  • In the end, as I mentioned Slánský and these books, it started the opposite effect in me over time. It started in high school. I don't know why it turned out. I began to feel very strong opposition to socialism. Whatever I heard in connection with socialism, I began to have the opposite effect. At university, I even managed to avoid SZM. I know that a man who was the chairman of the SZM came to see me. He came to see me again and again. They have all moved to SZM. I always said I had a lectures or some activity. In the end, I succeeded. The revolution came and he gave me peace of mind.

  • I remember that it was very intensively decided at the time that which families would take what extra, what could be sold in Croatia, in the former Yugoslavia, and get some money for which something else could be bought and brought. You take it this, you take it that. There you can sell an inflatable or some other scarce goods at that time in Yugoslavia. It brought from here and it was sold there. I remember this, my mother's colleagues dealt with who would take what, how it would be transferred, and what would be written in that statement. We had something that wasn't listed there, just so it could be sold. I know my mom warned us at the time not to deal with it. If they asked us, we wouldn't know.

  • Mom got an apartment. The first way from the bus station, where a bus brought us from our grandmother from Vrábľov, was to Dúbravka. The world ended behind Patronka at that time. Then we went through some fields, some narrow paths and came to some terribly built habitation. At that time, the building of Dubravka began. When I started school as a freshman, it was a newly opened school. I remember it was decorated with the red stars and things. That remained very strongly in my memory. I remember we had the Room of Revolutionary Traditions there. I will never forget that. We were obliged to go there to watch maybe every month. We already knew every flag, every description, every photo, but it still had some strange flavor, because this time of liberation was strongly demonized.

  • In 1982, when Brežnevv died, we were freshmen in high school. Our school was relatively well equipped. It was an electrical engineering high school. They had TVs in every class. There was an indoor TV circuit and etc. When he died, the all-day program was to follow Brežnev's funeral. It did well that we were watching all day. And that's where it started. We had to watch all day. Interestingly, the teachers refused. They disappeared somewhere, or did their work not to watch. That pomp, ridiculousness and sophistication. It felt like a circus to me because it didn't connect with our history. Then another functionary died in a year, and I remember i saying they could die regularly after a year because we always had a day off. Because we had to watch TV broadcasts of these funerals all day long.

  • What I remember very much was the agitation. What has never been the case before. Posters of individual political parties and what everyone actually promised. How it all changes fast. I remember discussions with my uncle, who was also in the Communist Party and worked in the East part of Slovakia, where he convinced me that even if something it changed, it would take a long time. I didn't want to believe it. After all, those people from those posters know what they're saying. I was convinced that within half a year, a maximum of a year and everything would change. The man from that agitation got the feeling that those people probably knew what they were doing. Even at those round tables. Those people were talking about something that good sense for the most part. Today we would have distinguished it, at that time we could not compare it. We thought it would be great. The election will be voted and they are going to a happy future, as the Communists promised us.

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During socialism, there was no interest in supporting diving, because it made it easy to escape

Peter Kubička - First Holly Communion
Peter Kubička - First Holly Communion
photo: Witnesses archive

Peter Kubička was born in Zlaté Moravce in 1968. Father Tibor Kubička, a well-known football player, died when Peter was two years old. The mother got a job in Bratislava. Peter grew up in the newly built habitation Dúbravka. He graduated in electrical engineeringo n high school. At the age of 13, he started going to a swimming club, where he met divers. They took part in the selection of the plane that crashed on the Zlaté piesky. When he grew up the age of 15, he joined the divers club, which belonged to Zväzarm. The regime did not support this military sport very much. They had a problem with equipment and travel because they could easily emigrate. When the leader of club was succeed it, the club slowly disintegrated. Peter continued at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava. He was caught by police when he distributed revolutionary pamphlets in November 1989. It ended with a admonition. After the revolution, he started a business and in 1996 founded a diving school. He started organizing diving events, lectures and expeditions abroad. In 2002, he founded his own brand Kubi. Since 2004 he has been teaching technical diving for divers and instructors and is a member of the Slovak Speleological Society.