“5 for 2025” exclusive interviews
The First Gentleman of Slovenia Dr. Ales Musar
As a First Lady or Gentleman, you are in the supporting role to your spouse, and you both work for your country.
“If we look for one word that would define what I like the most, it would be stories and storytelling.”
In this DC Slovenia Christmas interview, one of the first “5 for 2025” exclusive interviews, we open the first box of jewels and have the honour to find out who Aleš Musar, the First Gentleman of Slovenia is.
If you wondered what it takes to achieve your dreams, uncover the rest of the story about today’s interlocutor who “caught my eye” when he, together with the Protocol department of the Slovenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs organized a day of activities for spouses of the diplomats based in Slovenia including a literary evening with author Drago Jancar at Strmol Castle. When I heard about it, I was so intrigued that the interview with the First Gentlemen of Slovenia became “a must” for DC Slovenia. Good news travel fast.
DC Slovenia: Esteemed Mr. Musar, I see this interview as opening a precious box of jewels and learning about a new person and culture. Expats like me, who are now living in your country, may hear some things about you for the first time. DC Slovenia uses this opportunity to thank the Office of the President of Slovenia, Dr. Natasa Pirc Musar, who approved and assisted in organizing this interview.
You are very active both on social media and present in the mainstream media, so there are a lot of things that people read and hear about you. We learned about you, as mentioned above, in the context of Slovenian literature and cultural heritage. Perhaps we could start there. Could you tell readers of DC Slovenia a bit more about the events for the spouses of the ambassadors posted to Slovenia?
Aleš Musar: These events started at the beginning of last year. I discussed with the Head of the diplomatic protocol, Nataša Prah what the first ladies or gentlemen do in an organized country. We concluded that as the ambassadors to Slovenia are guests – and dear guests – in our country, I should be the host to their spouses who are in a way in a similar position like myself. And we decided that it would be an interesting experiment to organize an event, which would combine learning something about Slovenia with its cultural heritage. We started in spring 2023 with a visit to the Post and Telecommunications Museum in Polhov Gradec Mansion outside Ljubljana. In this old, little castle, one can learn that the inventor of the post stamp was Slovenian. There you can also see a collection of modern mobile devices, including some of my old mobile equipment. You know, I don’t really throw away things; I’m a kind of a hamster that way (laughter) – but we’ll probably come to that later. So, we decided to visit this museum and preparing for the visit it turned out that I had a full collection of Blackberries which I could give as a present to the museum. Bearing in mind the fast pace of digitalization and development of telecommunications, these things are already history and it’s funny how fast now we are “creating history”. Interestingly enough, the castle we visited was also the home of a botanist. The inhabitant of Polhov Gradec Mansion was Count Rihard Ursini von Blagaj, an aristocrat, Slovene botanist, and patron of art who had found a new plant there, Blagayana, which became so famous in the 19th century that the king of Saxony came unannounced to visit just to see it in blossom. The other part of that event was therefore inviting the curator of the Slovenian Alpine Garden, Juliana, to speak about the alpine flowers of Slovenia. And after that, we would repeat the program twice a year. The visit to Strmol Castle that you mention was the fourth such event, and it included a tour of the Castle which has its own centuries of history and is best known for relatively recent history of the family who lived there during the Second World War. That story ended tragically and was converted to a novel “I Saw Her That Night” by, in my opinion, our best contemporary writer, Drago Jancar.
So, what we did, and it was quite an effort really, we obtained translations of this book in all the languages we could find, and sent it to our guests, the spouses of the ambassadors. They received it a few weeks before the visit to Strmol Castle with a note that it was their “homework” to read it, because when they later visited the castle, they would see it with different eyes. And afterwards, we had a talk with the author himself. It was a really very nice event. It went so well in fact that maybe we set the bar a little too high. With that experience as benchmark, I have real difficulties thinking about what the next event could be (laughter).
DC Slovenia: Were you the idea generator when it comes to finding the translations and organizing the event in such a creative way?
Aleš Musar: Yes, that was my idea. I contacted Mr. Jancar before to see if he would be willing to participate. The ideas for these events are generally mine. To achieve the best experience, you need a lot of creativity, and this comes from a part of my career when I was tour guiding. The creativity is required when you are guiding to places with rich history and with stories which you can tell. And if I look for one word which would define what I like the most, it would be stories. Storytelling. It comes from reading a lot and connecting information into stories. That’s probably the best part of reading. When you have read enough then suddenly, things start to connect “over time and over places”. That’s when it becomes exciting.
DC Slovenia: Amazing. Are you sure that you don’t want to open your own marketing agency?
Aleš Musar: Not a marketing agency but I did have a tour company, and I still organize travel from time to time. And at this point it is also necessary to mention that I am a chemist by profession. If the event is well prepared and the person who organizes it is creative, a certain kind of chemistry happens during the event or a trip.
DC Slovenia: Definitely! When we speak about your different career paths, could you explain how this, “triangle of creativity” works in your case bearing in mind different jobs you had?
Aleš Musar: Right. I need to go way back in time because my decision to study chemistry was something obvious to me since the seventh grade, when I was 14. That’s when I met a very famous lady, Professor Aleksandra Kornhauser, who later became my mentor for the bachelor’s and master’s degrees, and my first boss for 10 years. So, yeah, it was something natural. I consider myself a person from natural sciences world.
DC Slovenia: Yeah, one is either social sciences or natural sciences person.
Aleš Musar: Oh, I’m definitely a natural sciences person which makes for very interesting discussions with my wife who, being a lawyer certainly has social sciences background. (laughter). But my balance was always reading books and interest in history. This was the basic knowledge which I could use in tour guiding. I started to guide groups because of a tour which I made myself to China in 1988 for two months as a student, and found out that I could not really afford to travel as much as I would like.
So, my next idea was: “Fine, let’s do it as a profession then”. I went to the main tourist agency of that time, Kompas, which organized education for tour guides. It was a really large organization at the time, and I started slowly. You know, escorting buses with retired people on their vacation to Croatian Islands, and then weekends in Budapest to later cover most of Europe. And finally, in the beginning of the nineties, this led to what I discovered was my passion; the Middle East.
I was fortunate at that time that, we were “opening new countries” as it’s called. It is the most difficult thing for a tour guide to do. This means going to a country and having no one in Slovenia to ask for advice on how to guide the tour there. The first country of this type was Syria where I think I went about 10 times.
DC Slovenia: When Damascus was the Paris of the Middle East?
Aleš Musar: Well, I would not say Paris. I was quite satisfied with Damascus being Damascus. It has a very special feel, which I was missing for many, many years until a few months ago when I travelled for a few days with my son to Algiers. In the Casbah of Algiers, I got that same feeling. Yeah, suddenly a very different place, but the feeling was the same. The next country was Lebanon and then Iran, which is a wonderful country, rich with history, rich with the historical sites, but on the other hand not a place where one would want to live. And I’m really very sorry that the places I like that much are in such unfortunate conditions these days. I was also fortunate enough to for example visit Libya in 2006, seeing places which are now inaccessible to tourists. So, yeah, it is with some sorrow that I remember that.
DC Slovenia: The wheel of history is strange; first you see cities develop, flourish, blossom, like Sarajevo, for example, my hometown, that we mentioned in the context of you serving in the army there, during the Olympic games in 1984 and then as the wheel of history continues to roll, we see the same city decay and get destroyed.
Aleš Musar: Exactly. But learning history also teaches you that it is really a “kind of a wheel”. Eventually, there is another bright period. I’m waiting to see that again.
DC Slovenia: That’s very optimistically said that, yes, it’s a circle. And in the circle, there are periods of good and favorable kind of circumstances and then, unfortunately, another downfall is inevitably coming.
Aleš Musar: Yes. I try not to think that much about that, but this is certainly one type of places, which I like – a place rich with history. Apart from those countries I mentioned there are also Jordan, Israel, Egypt and many others. China included, of course, where you can learn a lot about history. But this is not the only type of countries that attract me. There are countries where you can get a feeling of being in a different place because of the nature. And the most vivid experience of that sort, I would say, is Iceland. Or for example, Mongolia, the endless plains of Mongolia. Basically, it is a lot of grass, if you try to think about it in a banal way. But the feeling you get there or Algerian Sahara, for example, with its open skies and endless land, is the feeling of endlessness. And then there is yet another type of place; the place where you think: “OK, here I could live at least for a time.” And, you know, this feeling can come very unexpectedly. The nearest one for me is Ticino in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. And then a small town named Hamilton in New Zealand or another Hamilton on the shores of Lake Ontario in Canada. I cannot describe or analyze why I get this feeling.
DC Slovenia: Let’s continue with that feeling and the urge to travel. Why do we travel? What is this need that makes us travel – You obviously know this “Let’s pack our bags and explore” feeling. What do you think?
Aleš Musar: For me, it is to learn. A good day is a day when I learn something new. And even preparing for a trip forces you to learn a lot, and to remember what you have learnt before. Sometimes I get that moment of enlightenment. The feeling of “Ah! So, this is how it connects”. The history is really amazing. I was reading a lot of history about Mongolia before this summer since there was an official visit of the President to Mongolia, and I got a completely new perspective on the 13th century. It might be not that relevant to everyone but certainly very interesting to me. An eye-opening experience on how we can be very, very far apart from each other, but – you may agree or not – we still have so many things in common. What you learn when you travel teaches you really that connections have always existed. When we were in Mongolia, I said, of course as a joke: “But we are former neighbours,” because Mongolian empire expanded all the way to Slovenia in the 13th century.
DC Slovenia: Yeah. Like Marco Polo going all the way to China.
Aleš Musar: Yeah. Exactly. It makes us kind of distant relatives, not maybe in this strictly genetic way but we are from the same planet, which is, at the end of the day, not so big if you have the assets to explore it.
DC Slovenia: Yes, you are so right; For example, I went to China a week ago and spent a couple of days there. It was a very last-minute trip. I realized when I came back “Oh my god we’re so similar” in so many ways. And you know the typical, first reaction of people when you say you travelled to China, would generally be along the lines: “Oh, it must be a totally different world”. Nowadays, my impression, because the globalization, which, like it or not, influences every corner of our planet, is that all cities in the world are starting to look alike. The streets are starting to look alike. People are starting to dress almost the same even if they are 8,000 kilometers apart. What do you think about that?
Aleš Musar: China in 1988 was very, very different from China I saw in 2009 when I was there on another trip. I’m curious to see Shanghai now because the old part of Shanghai and Bund of Shanghai was, well, a step back in time in 1988. And I know now that Shanghai is one of the most impressively modern cities, with impressive exhibitions as well. I hope I might manage to see the Marina Abramovic exhibition “Transforming Energy” at the MAM Shanghai which was opened on October 10, 2024. My wife had a podcast with the artist. I think it’s one of the best interviews with Ms. Abramovic as the two of them connected well. And there will be a great exhibition of Marina Abramovic in autumn next year in Slovenia. The exhibition will open on Marina and Ulay’s shared birthday, November 30, 2025, at the Cukrarna Gallery in Ljubljana, the city where Ulay spent the last years of his life.
DC Slovenia: So, joining a team of tourist guides was a good idea for you to see the world. Now, once again, you have the opportunity to travel, bearing in mind that you are the First Gentleman. Is it like a dream continuing to come true for you?
Aleš Musar: Well, first, I’m not traveling that much.
DC Slovenia: No?
Aleš Musar: No. Not with the president, quite rarely. And those travels are, you know, organized to the last minute. So, it’s not the type of travel like before. It is fascinating though. One can see things that are otherwise difficult to see. And this is what I want to translate to the events we have here for the spouses of the ambassadors, namely to help them see something they would maybe either not discover or not be able to see by themselves.
So, for example, when we were in Brdo Castle and at the Brdo Estate, we were joined by Dr. Ines Vodopivec, who is the Deputy Director of the National Library of Slovenia and who made her research and PhD in early Slovenian prints. After the visit to the Estate and the Castle, we all sat for a tea and discussion on how the Slovenian language developed. The Slovenian nation is defined by its language. And in the library of Brdo, there is a copy of the first Slovenian Bible from 1584. That particular copy has been included to the UNESCO list “Memory of the World”. It is an experience to be able to see and touch the “real thing”. Then, there was the 17th century description of Slovenia by Valvasor in that same library which we also examined.
DC Slovenia: It is different when you can touch things. It’s tangible.
Aleš Musar: Exactly. The stories where you can touch something from the past or you can see it with your own eyes leave a “deeper” impression. And this is also, what I’m trying to assist with here in the Office of the President. Since my wife became the President, we have been adding artwork and objects borrowed from the collections of our national cultural institutions which tell a story about Slovenia, about its past, about its accomplishments. If you enter the palace through the main entrance and then climb the stairs you will see a motorbike there which is a part of the Technical Museum of Slovenia collection. This was in fact the first artifact that came new to this palace at the beginning of last year. Why? The inventor of modern motorcycle was Janez Puh, a Slovenian entrepreneur. This is on the one hand a great story of inventiveness and on the other hand, a story about how we can forget what was developed here because Puh then built a factory in Graz, which is now in Austria, and we almost forgot that he’s a Slovenian.
DC Slovenia: So, is it Austrian or Slovenian?
Aleš Musar: Well, this is the same question that, I suppose, you could ask about madame Curie who spent all her scientific life in France, but still, she is a Polish scientist, and they are immensely proud of her there as we should be proud of Janez Puh. But the museum does not have an example of Puh’s motorbike from before the First World War, so we had to settle for another for the Presidential palace. That is a prototype of a racing bike developed at the TOMOS factory in 1976. It was very fortunate circumstance that one competition complained that the bike was too light, and it was disqualified from racing, so it never entered the production. But it is a product of Slovenian knowledge entirely. And, of course, there is another, you know undertone; my wife rides a bike. Yeah. And there is yet another undertone; my grandfather worked at TOMOS factory at that time. Stories within stories.
DC Slovenia: Yes, stories. You meet a lot of people who come to your country as guests and many of them can witness that you are the true ambassador of your country. When you meet new ambassadors and presidents who come to official visits, what do you usually tell them about your country?
Aleš Musar: I try to find a story that relates to them or their country. First of all, not all people are that keen on stories. So, some people might be bored by that. But then again, most people like to hear and learn something new. And if you can find something that also relates to them in their country, then the story makes a bigger impression. This also goes for the official visits of high state representatives who come to Slovenia.
Let me give you an example because it is easier to explain that way. When the President and the First Lady of Poland visited Slovenia this year, I knew that the First Lady Agatha Kornhauser–Duda is very keen on books. She is a professor of German language. Her father was a professor of literature at Krakow University so it was obvious that we should probably find something in “that direction”.
As many times before I turned to the treasure house of the National Library and asked about the connections between Slovenia and Poland. It turned out that the first translation of one of the Mickiewicz’s sonnets, was made by France Prešern, who is The poet of Slovenia as much as Adam Bernard Mickiewicz is The poet of Poland. Strangely enough, that translation was not to Slovenian but to German language. The original is kept in the National Library. So, we went there. During the visit they presented the original, which is, of course, otherwise kept in a safe. They also made a facsimile on the same type of paper as a present to Ms. Duda. We also saw some correspondence of the Poles, who lived in Slovenia at that time. I learned a lot. And Ms. Duda liked it as well. So, I think this is an example of how to find the appropriate story.
DC Slovenia: You’re so humble. When listening to you, one might say: “Oh, it’s so easy, or it takes just a bit of preparation”. It is not. It takes a lot of research, obviously, and a lot of dedication to every single occasion, every single person, every state visit.
Aleš Musar: Well, I think the main thing is to know whom to ask, because there is so much knowledge, so many treasures, so much cultural heritage that you can likely find a connection between almost any two things. And you can be pleasantly surprised. On another occasion, when preparing for the visit of Olena Zelenska to Ljubljana I knew we would be going to the National Library again because there is an ongoing idea of a cultural cooperation project between Slovenia and Ukraine since the National Library keeps a legacy of Ivan Bobersky who was the father of physical culture in Western Ukraine before the First World War. He was then representing the pre-Bolshevik West Ukrainian Republic in the United States and Canada. He was married to a Slovenian, and then lived and died here. Bobersky left about forty boxes of documents and manuscripts which have not yet been read and studied. We need a professional Ukrainian expert to do that. This idea might eventually result in a project which would be interesting, I would say. When we were there, I asked Marijan Rupert, the head of the manuscript department, who was also the acting director of the National Library: “Can we look whether Jernej Kopitar”, who was the main linguist for Slavic languages at the beginning of 19th century “had some correspondence with anyone from Ukraine?” What I knew was that Kopitar was one of the first scientists to recognize Ukrainian as a separate language, and he was invited to the Vatican to establish the Department of Ukrainian language and Ukrainian printing press. We found out, even to the curator’s surprise; admittedly he is curating a huge collection, that there were letters from Bishop Ivan Snihurskyj, who was a proponent of Ukrainian language at the beginning of the 19th century to Kopitar and they were in Latin, not in Ukrainian. This small connection shows that our relations are not something which developed in the last thirty years or even in the last seventy years, but they go back centuries.
DC Slovenia: Sir, your passion for reading and exploring the stories that connect nations, people, languages, cultures, cities, countries, and heritage is truly admirable. How do we now copy-paste your passion to young generations? Maybe not yours personally, but this kind of approach to life which is not “instant”. You know how the young people say: “Just give me a couple of lines from Wikipedia, and I’m okay with that.”
Aleš Musar: Tell them stories. Tell them stories that relate to them. It is a different generation with a different view of the world. This is something that I said a few times in the interviews. We all have a lot of challenges in the digital world. This was one of the topics of the Fourth Summit of First Ladies and Gentlemen this year in Kyiv. The Summit theme was child safety, and I participated in the panel on safety in the digital world. This topic is interestingly also relevant to childhood obesity problems because the digital world presents challenges to the young generations which work adversely to that problem. My thesis is that whoever is above let’s say thirty cannot really understand the world as the young generations do because the world these generations were born into is the world with the Internet. My son, who is 24, and a very clever young man, certainly understands that there was a time before the Internet, but for him and his generation, the experienced reality is that there has always been internet and social media. This acknowledgment that we do not see the world in the same way generationally is something that we should consciously admit to ourselves.
DC Slovenia: And what are the actions we can take to kind of – I wouldn’t use the word save the young generation because they don’t need to be saved – just inform them about how it used to be?
Aleš Musar: No, it’s certainly not saving. But if you want to have someone to act in the digital world, he or she has to be a native, as we, the older ones, are foreigners there. We are the digital dinosaurs. Action has to come from the young generation. We have to trust them. That’s, I think, the basic principle, trust.
DC Slovenia: That is true. Trusting them and then maybe trying to include them in projects from the past, telling them stories, how it used to be, not being nostalgic, but telling them that it is necessary to have this previous knowledge in order to better understand the current moment.
Aleš Musar: Well, the stories can be current as well. Perhaps the current history does not so much correspond with my own particular field of interest, but you can find stories and you can create stories from current perspectives. What I think is important when it comes to today’s generational outlook is to take into account something that we discussed about the European Union. Slovenia has been a part of the European Union for 20 years and some other countries for a few decades more. We who can remember the time before the European Union can see the differences. But I try to see also how this looks through the eyes of my son. For him, there have never been borders in Europe. Of course, he knows that there were borders and there are still borders but almost invisible. For him, there is practically one currency in the whole of Europe. The world is free to travel. Everyone is connected. If you try to think about this perspective and then think how the world would look to him, if something of that was taken away, the answer is; well, terrible. What we have now is certainly not perfect, but it would be terrible to go back. Europe, as I see it is like a family, which might be dysfunctional from time to time, with relatives you don’t really like that much from time to time, but still a family.
DC Slovenia: Let’s now look at 2022, when you took on this role of the First Gentleman, when you joined your wife on this presidential “journey”, to speak in traveling terms. When you compare those years before and now when you both are, together with your son, in the middle of the term, how do you see the future, 3 years from now?
Aleš Musar: Knowing what you’re embarking on and experiencing it are two very different things. Whatever you think will happen – it is different. The reality differs from expectations. I don’t have a negative-positive relation to it. It’s just different.
DC Slovenia: Were you surprised positively? Was it better than you expected or just as you expected?
Aleš Musar: Some things, yes. Some things, not. It’s interesting how the so-called soft power has developed in recent years i.e. in the last decade when the activities of the First Ladies and Gentlemen changed to having more substance. Not universally of course. Even the First Lady or Gentleman is free to choose whether to be active or not. The field of activity is something where you are, well, not entirely free, but it certainly is your choice. It’s not an obligation. All this, bearing in mind that as a First Lady or Gentleman you are in the supporting role to your spouse, and you both work for your country. This, I think, is the most important.
DC Slovenia: And last but not least – Humanitarian work in an organization you have been active in, the ITF. What are their main activities?
Aleš Musar: The ITF Enhancing Human Security organization has been active for almost thirty years, and I’ve become involved with it just recently. ITF was established by the Slovenian government in 1998 with the initial objective of being active in demining in Bosnia. Very soon they found that medical rehabilitation of the victims is crucial and then also their psychosocial rehabilitation. So, the field expanded, and the geography expanded. ITF is now an international organization that conducts humanitarian projects in several countries, including Ukraine. I came into contact with its activities last year, when I first visited Kyiv, and the activity even enhanced this year, when I started my visit to Ukraine in Izmail in the south. There is a project there for psychosocial support to children carried out by ITF, with Slovenian Philanthropy as the organization on the Slovenian side and Ukrainian NGO Zhiva-Ya, on the Ukrainian side. After 10 months, I can say, seeing firsthand what has been done that it has positive results. The children and the families there are, to a large extent internal refugees with a lot of problems. Helping them is assuring the future of the country. ITF sees the benefits of my involvement in providing a little bit more visibility. This is basically the role that we play. You use your contact within the spouse’s network to help each other’s work.
I think the best example of that was my invitation to Olena Zelenska to attend the ITF Advisory Board meeting where there were representatives of 22 donor countries. She presented together with the First Vice President of the Ukrainian government the humanitarian needs of Ukraine. I believe that this gives an opportunity to fund more humanitarian projects in Ukraine. Let us meet again next year, and I will share the results with you.
DC Slovenia: What is your Christmas and New Year’s wish that you would like to share with our readers?
Aleš Musar: It might sound like a cliché, and I would consider it a cliché two years ago, but after two years of seeing a lot, I would really just want peace. Peace is the only thing we need. Doing whatever we can within our framework or profession, any kind of small contribution we can make to peace, is a step in the right direction.
Interview by Vanja Kavcic, Ljubljana, December 2024.