1989 · 1990 · 1999 New owners, new nameNoví majitelia, nové meno

November 1989 changed who owned the Tatras more than it changed what they looked like. Under socialism a great deal of the accommodation on this slope belonged to enterprises and the trade unions, and a fortnight in the mountains was something your workplace allocated rather than something you bought; within a few years those buildings had been sold and the settlements were running on a market. The administrative story moved too: in 1990 the settlements were joined again under one town council, at first under the name Starý Smokovec, and in 1999 the town was renamed Vysoké Tatry. And the border on the ridge, closed for forty years, slowly began turning back into a line you could walk across.November 1989 zmenil skôr to, komu Tatry patria, než to, ako vyzerajú. Za socializmu patrila veľká časť ubytovania na tomto svahu podnikom a odborom a dva týždne v horách človek dostal pridelené v práci, nekupoval si ich; do niekoľkých rokov boli tie budovy predané a osady fungovali na trhu. Pohla sa aj správna stránka veci: v roku 1990 osady opäť spojili pod jedno mestské zastupiteľstvo, najprv pod menom Starý Smokovec, a v roku 1999 mesto premenovali na Vysoké Tatry. A hranica na hrebeni, štyridsať rokov zatvorená, sa pomaly začala meniť späť na čiaru, cez ktorú sa dá prejsť.