Farewell letter of Consul General Dr. Zvone Žigon

Photo August 25 2009 by Phil Hrvatin

Dear fellow Slovenians, dear friends!

In the mid of May this year, I achieved one of my biggest personal goals. I ran my first full marathon. It was not easy, but it was beautiful, I enjoyed it, and at the end, I felt deeply satisfied and proud.

With the end of August, I am completing another marathon – the distance was - 4 years. My stay in Cleveland was in many ways similar to running the marathon.

Same as with running, the beginning was anything but easy. America was more different from Slovenia than my wife Irena and I expected. I guess, those who came from Slovenia know the feeling…

Let me browse through some moments of those four years.

I arrived to an empty office in which nobody worked for eight months, so I had to start virtually from the beginning, even more, I had to »clean up« a full desk of consular matters. After just four months, we moved the office to new premises. It was just me, my assistant Johanna, my wife and... another beginning.

From the very first day, I tried to be present at as many Slovenian events as possible, and in February 2006 I organized my first one – Slovenian Cultural Evening with the concert of classical music at the St. Mary’s Church. By the spring, I gained enough self-confidence and respect among Slovenian community that, with a great joint effort of almost all Slovenian organizations, we produced Cleveland Slovenian days, 6 weeks of Slovenian culture all around Cleveland, which ended the best possible way, with the visit of world famous Slovenian Octet and the Prime Minister of Slovenia Mr. Janez Janša, who visited an all-Slovenian exhibit the City hall, Slovenska Pristava and SNPJ farm in Enon Valley.

After waiting one year, in the fall of 2006 I started talks about organizing some kind of a »heart« of a very diverse and dispersed Slovenian Community. First meetings and brain-stormings on a Slovenian Museum and Archive began. In the year 2007 we started with another February concert, with a Slovenian web page ClevelandSlovenian.com, with Cleveland Slovenian Ski club and with first meetings of different sections of Cleveland Slovenian Business and Professionals Association. In the same time, I started intensive talks on establishing Center for Slovenian Studies with Slovenian language courses. That May I ran my first 10k and ambassador Žbogar completed his first marathon and raised large amounts of money for ITF for demining and victims of land mines. On the same occasion we also unveiled Slovenian Maiden, “Slovenka”, in the Cleveland City hall (with great help of Mr. August Pust and City Councilman Michael Polensek).

First half of 2008 was another huge »uphill« on my run. Slovenia was chairing the EU and I again initiated and organized or co-organized series of events, from an international business conference in Cleveland (“How To Do Business With New EU”) to a celebration of the Europe day in the Roosevelt U in downtown Chicago, not to mention exhibits, numerous presentations of Slovenia and EU at different Universities, clubs; together with Business and professionals association we hosted American ambassador to Slovenia Mr. Yousif Ghafari, we organized a tour of five members of Slovenian Parliament etc. I have to specifically mention a very special event though: a poetry reading in Slovenian National Home when 13 honorary consuls read the poetry of their countries, we had a slide show featuring their countries and Korotan choir singing Slovenian poems in songs.

This time was also very difficult for me, as in July I lost my father. Slovenian community showed enormous compassion and touched me to the bottom of my heart.

Second half of the same year begun with one of my biggest goals achieved – prof. Luka Zibelnik arrived from Slovenia and started Slovenian language courses at the Cleveland State University and Lakeland Community College, and one more thing to mention – together with Frank Zalar, John Nemec, Phil Hrvatin and Kevin Richards from Pittsburgh, we organized first bowling tournament with participation of all Slovenian organizations, symbolically called SloBowl United.

The year 2009 was no different in intensity. In February, we organized a cultural evening with Slovenian Schools;  the Center for Slovenian Studies started functioning with an executive director, Ivana Yuko, I focused on huge amount of consular work and also running, and in May I coordinated a visit of  5 Cleveland Slovenians to the World Congress of Slovenian Doctors in Slovenia. On June 14, newly appointed Slovenian ambassador Roman Kirn officially opened Consulate of Slovenia in Lemont, IL, and gave credentials to newly appointed honorary consul dr. John Vidmar.

In June we helped to organize a concert of Slovenian Railways Wind Orchestra to honor Slovenian Statehood Day, and then two more events happened:

the City of Cleveland and Slovenian Councilmen Polensek and Cimperman organized a farewell event in the City Hall Rotunda, where I dedicated my exhibit of photography named America – Colors, Shapes and Shadows to Americans – with this act I wanted to say good bye to Cleveland and show Americans my view of their country.

On July 30, members of the newly established Slovenian Museum and Archives opened new premises of the museum, with a very precious exhibit of photography by national Geographic photographer Arne Hodalič about archeological findings of treasures in the river of Ljubljanica, and with this act the museum is officially starting to function. Members of the board spent hundreds of hours finding legal ways, technical solutions and financial background to start it running, already organized a couple of provisional exhibits and started collecting artifacts. I want to congratulate them on job very, very well done and invite everyone to join the efforts to preserve Slovenian ethnic heritage in the USA.

I should not skip my excellent cooperation with Slovenians in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, especially members and leadership of Slovenian Women’s Union and Zarja. We met several times in Minneapolis, Chisholm or Ily, Minnesota, or Milwaukee and West Allis, Wisconsin, or Chicago, Lemont or Joliet, Illinois. I definitely enjoyed visits to SWU museum and archives and want to thank and congratulate you on your efforts and achievements!

During four years, we also took care of four elections, approximately 2.000 consular acts per year, numerous guest musicians and exhibits and tried to be present at as many as possible Slovenian events.

On this occasion I want to specially thank to my first assistant Johanna Bajc. She was there from the very beginning, helped me and Irena to make first “steps” in America, helped to organize the office and became a “trade mark” of Slovenian consulate, with her efficiency, knowledge and kindness. Thank you, Johanna…!

There were though some projects and wishes that never came true.

I never managed to organize direct flights from Cleveland to Ljubljana, due to general crisis in air-industry. I never managed to fulfill my promise and organize regular consular hours somewhere in the East side of Cleveland – there was simply no time due to permanently full desk of consular work.

And I never managed to make Slovenian community self-organize and establish a representative and coordinative body. We did organize a convention on which representatives of different organizations from different parts of the USA participated, elected Ivan Kamin from New York and Milan Ribič from Cleveland to represent American Slovenians to Slovenian Government, but this body never really started functioning by itself.

As said, this 4 year »run« was not easy and not everything could go ideally. So, now, despite some negative spots, as approaching the finish line, I do feel satisfied and proud.

And as I approach to the end of this letter, I must say a big THANK YOU to all Slovenian organizations, schools, churches and individuals, for being so open to me, for cooperating with me and for understanding me, even if I did some mistakes.

Special thanks to Slovenian media, especially to ClevelandSlovenian.com (thank you, Phil Hrvatin and Tim Perčič!!) – for publishing Consular press releases and positively reporting about our projects!

Finally, I want to thank to my wife Irena – Many would probably escape after first two months... Not only that she voluntarily helped in the office, she always stayed on a solid ground and kept me on a right track, as she had to fight with homesickness and  live through all this, in good and bad times - WITH me; criticizing or encouraging, but after all, loving me...!

Na svidenje!

Zvone Žigon