For Melania Trump's Slovenian Hometown, First Lady's Fame Is Good For Business
The first lady, born Melanija Knavs, is from the town of Sevnica in central Slovenia. Before 2016, it was known for its underwear factory, salami festival, and sports fishing. "Melania put us on the world map," says Mayor Srecko Ocvirk, who has helped lead a Melania-themed campaign to attract more tourists here.
The hamlet of Sevnica, population 5,000, sits right in the middle of the small, alpine nation of Slovenia, in a green valley along the Sava River, surrounded by pine-forested hills.
"It's really an amazing climate," chirps Lidija Ogorevc, a cheerleader-peppy tour guide here. "You should try our wine, our salami."
She stops in front of a fenced-in building â not unattractive, but clearly closed.
"A cultural monument," she declares.
This used to be the factory where Amalija Knavs, the mother of Melania Trump, designed children's clothes decades ago when Slovenia was still part of Yugoslavia.
A sign reading "Welcome to the Hometown of the First Lady" in Slovenian is pictured among other billboards in November 2016 in Sevnica, Slovenia, where Melania Trump was raised.
The first lady, born Melanija Knavs, is a native of Slovenia â which, to many Slovenians' frustration, is often confused with Slovakia, another tiny European country.
In Sevnica, where the first lady was raised, Ogorevc leads a tour that includes the first lady's elementary school, the Communist-era apartment block where she first lived and the neighborhood where her parents still own a handsome, two-story, black-roofed white house. (Viktor and Amalija Knavs are often in the U.S.)
The five-hour walking tour, which costs about $90 for two, is one of several Melania-themed tours offered by the Sevnica municipality.
"You see houses there?" Ogorevc says, waving her arm at a well-kept street of manicured lawns. "OK, that's the Beverly Hills of Sevnica. I say it like that because most people who have money can afford to build a house there."
Ogorevc takes us to a cafe offering Melanija torte (white chocolate mousse, nuts, and edible gold) and a bakery with First Lady Apple Pie. "We wanted to do something that is a mix of America and Sevnica," says Maja Kozole Popadic, whose family owns the bakery.
Ogorevc takes us to a cafe offering Melanija torte (white chocolate mousse, nuts, and edible gold) and a bakery with First Lady Apple Pie.
Continue....for a piece of her cake
