With the presidency of Barack Obama, it was Obama’s own years in Indonesia that generated coverage of his childhood haunts there. Wife Michelle is a native of Illinois, and has spent most of her life in Chicago.
In the Donald Trump family, it’s Trump who has been tethered all his life to an American hometown. Melania Trump, however, is a native of what is now Slovenia — but when she was born, was part of Yugoslavia.
Her hometown is little Sevnica, population 5,000. Sevnica has been following the fortunes of its most famous daughter closely in the last year, and reportedly, many Sevnicans gathered in a bar there on Wednesday morning to watch the returns of the U.S. election come in.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
“Every American election is important, but this is very special for us,” [Mayor Srečko] Ocvirk told a reporter from Slovenian public broadcaster RTVSLO. “[The election] created a sense of excitement for us in Sevnica and we have been following developments with interest.”
Western media have been returning the favor, flooding Sevnica with news reporters looking for angles and background on the woman who could become America’s next first lady. Now that the election has made Donald Trump the president-elect, Sevnica hopes for a boost in tourism.
A troupe of local musicians has popularized an ode to Melania, and for those who don’t speak any Slovene, we’ll spot you a few phrases:
A song soon followed, an ode to Melania, by local musicians, singing about the local girl who “went from Sevnica straight to the top of the world, because she found the right husband.”
“Melanija now walks the path of fame, the United States want her, her homeland plunged into grief, because her stay at home was so brief.”
Check it out below.
V Sevnici že fešta! #ElectionNight @PlanetTV pic.twitter.com/7MI9TLCUOn
— anja markovic (@anjamarkovic5) November 9, 2016
