Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Interaction, migration and change
238 Maruška Svašek talist property claims by foreigners who had no previous connection with the Czech Republic. In general, the changed economic climate in post-socialist Eastern and Central Europe had attracted the interest of numerous Western investors, in particular of Germans and Austrians. To avoid selling off the "family silver", the Czechoslovak government passed a law prohibiting the sale of land and real estate to foreigners. It was, however, easy enough to circumvent this hurdle by establishing a firm with a Czech director (Jednatel). Such companies were officially Czech, and were therefore allowed to buy property.12 The villagers of Vesnice were suddenly confronted by exactly such a “Czech” company which had actually been set up by the Dutch entrepreneur Pieter Hulshoff. Unlike the Sudeten Germans, he had no personal connection to the village, no painful memories of lost property, and was not interested in symbolic appropriation. He simply wanted to buy buildings and land, and establish a pheasant shoot and a hunting lodge. When Hulshoff turned his attention to Vesnice, he had already a considerable amount of entrepreneurial experience in post-socialist Czechoslovakia. Shortly after the Velvet Revolution, he had bought and privatised an old state farm in a village only fifteen kilometres south of Vesnice, together with a befriended Dutch farmer. He knew how hard it was to get things organised and deal with the local authorities, but this did not discourage him. “Once I have my teeth in something, I won’t let go”, he said a number of times, and stressed that he could only hold out and take financial risks because he ran a successful company and owned an estate in the Netherlands. It would be wrong to imagine the Sudeten German relationship with the village as "purely emotional”, and Hulshoff's attitude as “purely rational”. The latter was not "just” looking for investment and long-term financial gain. He was also driven by a strong desire to establish a pheasant shoot and a quasi-estate. Hunting had been one of his lifelong passions.
