"No one has ever given me anything for free"
On Thursday, October 29, Robert Fico and Katarína Szalayová walked through the airport in Bratislava to a small private plane. Szalayová holding a plastic container that looked like a box of homemade food. The long weekend before All Saintsʼ Day began in Slovakia: on these days, Slovaks usually go to the graves of loved ones, and there are long traffic jams on the roads.
The plane with the prime minister in the meantime left for Split, Croatia. From there, it is not far to the seaside town of Ražanj, one of Ficoʼs favorite vacation spots. A deputy from the opposition “Freedom and Solidarity” (SaS) party Alojz Hlina published photos from the airport on his social networks and ironically said that the prime minister went on vacation "accompanied by his legal wife".
However, Szalayová is not a wife. Officially, he has been married to Svitlana Ficova for almost 40 years. At least their divorce was not publicly reported, Aktuality.sk journalist Tomáš Kisel tells Babel.
Robert Fico and Katarína Szalayovábefore their flight to Split on October 29, 2026. According to flight trackers, this plane has flown between Bratislava and Croatia at least five times in the previous three months.
Commenting on the photo from the airport, Hlina also reminds that Fico publicly defends the "traditional family". Only last year, he lobbied for changes to the Slovak Constitution that would establish the existence of only two genders — male and female — and allow only married couples to jointly adopt children.
Hlinaʼs party colleague — the MP Martina Bayo Holečková — demands that Fico show the flight ticket. According to her, it cost €8 000-12 000. This is the prime ministerʼs monthly salary. According to Aktuality.sk, in 2026, Fico will receive about €10 400 per month.
Two days later, on October 31, Fico posted a video response. He does not specify where he recorded it, but says that he is 62 years old, has worked for four decades, headed the government for many years, and earned well.
The Slovak prime minister also boasts that he has over €250 000, which he received from the media based on court decisions in cases of protection of honor and reputation.
It is noteworthy that Fico has regularly mentioned this figure of €250 000 since 2012 and mentions it every time journalists or opponents ask about the origin of his money, for example, when he buys luxury housing or rents private jets. Fico promises to continue flying private flights if he wants, and if he wants to buy a vacation home, he will. He is not going to hide.
"Nobody has ever given me anything for free," he says.
On November 2, Slovak opposition MPs reported that they would appeal to the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office. The head of the “Freedom and Solidarity” party Branislav Greling,” is asking to find out how much Ficoʼs trips cost and who paid for them. The prosecutorʼs office should check whether it was a bribe.
"I donʼt live with any Robert Fico"
Katarína Szalayováʼs name first surfaced alongside Ficoʼs in June 2020. Reporters from the Slovak publication Plus 7 dní saw them arriving together at the Bratislava “DoubleTree by Hilton” hotel, owned by Slovak oligarch and Ficoʼs party sponsor Juraj Šyroky.
The couple left separately in the morning. Fico was then a former prime minister and opposition leader in parliament, and Szalayová was an intern at the Bratislava Regional Prosecutorʼs Office.
Katarína Szalayová with her mother Katarina Horvatová-Sladečková at Comenius University in Bratislava, 2018.
At the same time, Katarína was photographed near the estate in Vinosady, where Fico regularly visited. He denied that he lived there and explained his trips by health problems.
According to him, acquaintances allowed him to swim in the estateʼs pool while the gyms were closed during the quarantine. The media knew little about Szalayová at the time: she is a lawyer, had an internship at the prosecutorʼs office, and previously worked as a waitress and model.
According to journalists, she is about 25-26 years younger than Fico, which means she is now about 35 years old. The journalists also found out that she used to live in one of the most expensive areas of Bratislava — in the “River Park” millionairesʼ complex on the Danube embankment.
The estate in Vinosady, where Fico was often seen. He said he went there to swim, and only five times, and was indignant: did he really have to ask for a receipt now? A Volkswagen Arteon worth seven yearsʼ worth of Szalayováʼs salaries was registered to her mother.
On the morning of June 10, 2020, Szalayová arrived at work in a Volkswagen Arteon and left it in the underground parking lot of the “Polus” shopping complex.
Journalists from Denník N were waiting for her at the entrance. They asked about her relationship with Fico, trips to Vinosady, and an expensive car. Salajová received about €600 per month for her internship at the prosecutorʼs office, while the Arteon cost about €50 000.
Salajová replied that she was a private person and did not have to explain anything, the car was not hers, it was not her in the photo from Vinosady, she did not own expensive real estate, and in general: "I do not live with any Robert Fico."
Katarina Szalayová in the underground parking lot of the "Polus" shopping center during a conversation with Denník N journalists Monika Todová and Martina Konik. She did not want to answer their questions about Fico, the estate and the car. The Volkswagen Arteon that Szalayová used to drive to work.
Like all judicial employees, legal interns in the prosecutorʼs office are required to submit property declarations.
After publications about Szalayováʼs housing, car, and her relationship with Fico, a scandal erupted in the media. Nothing was listed in her property declarations, and the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office began to check her assets and demanded explanations.
In response, Salajová provided documents showing that the Volkswagen Arteon belonged to her mother. Reporters found Salajováʼs mother in the village of Veľká Manya. The woman worked as a caregiver in Austria and, according to Slovak investigators, could earn around €900 per month, so she would have had to save all her earnings for more than four years to buy her daughter a car.
The Prosecutor Generalʼs Office, however, accepted the explanation. Szalayová did not have to declare her motherʼs property and could use her car.
Later, journalists had questions before Szalayová got into the prosecutorʼs office. At the end of 2018, she passed the selection from 375 candidates, scored 95 points out of a hundred, took 7th place and thanks to her high score was able to choose the place of her internship. Salajová chose the prosecutorʼs office in Bratislava, which was then headed by Svetozar Chabad (the husband of Ficoʼs sister).
When the story with Szalayová filled the Slovak media, Fico himself was asked about his relationship with her, saying that he had been seen with a young woman.
“Who should I date? Young men?” Fico replied.
Fico and Szalayová leave the “Da Cono” restaurant in early October 2020. The establishment operated in “River Park” (a complex where journalists regularly saw Szalayová).
"What are those kurvas doing to my girlfriend again?"
Publications about Szalayová’s car and home interested the National Security Bureau, which issues clearances for classified information. The bureau decided to check whether she could keep her “Confidential” clearance — she received it to work in the prosecutor’s office.
The question at the National Bureau was raised by the difference between Katarína’s income and lifestyle. Without such clearance, Szalayová would not have been able to work with classified materials in prosecutorial cases.
On August 29, 2021, Fico discussed this inspection at a hunting camp near the Slovak village of Čyfary. He was accompanied by lawyers Marek Para and Pavol Gašpar, and businessman Miroslav Bedier.
Their conversation was recorded by a hidden police camera with a microphone. The camera was installed during the investigation into suspected poaching. However, the prosecutorʼs office later declared the case illegal, and the surveillance itself unlawful.
A frame from a police recording at a hunting base near Chifari. According to Aktuality, the camera with a microphone that filmed Fico and his entourage was hidden in a hunting trophy on the wall.
“What are those whores doing to my girlfriend again?” Fico was outraged.
He said that the bureau had summoned Szalayová for an interview on September 16 in a Volkswagen Arteon. In early October, she was supposed to take a professional exam that would allow her to become a prosecutor, so losing her permit blocked her path to the position.
Fico decided to help and called an acquaintance named Martin, who allegedly promised to get the questions that Szalayová would be asked at the interview. This recording was made public on October 29. Fico refused to explain his words.
Szalayová never showed up for an interview at the National Bureau, and shortly after another scandal, she resigned from the prosecutorʼs office of her own free will.
"In decent society, people donʼt talk about salary"
At the end of 2021, Fico criticized the then Minister of Health Vladimir Lengvarsky for his vacation in Oman — they say, the head of the Ministry of Health left the country and doctors in the midst of the pandemic.
The minister can only be excused in one case, Fico ironically said, — if his wife ordered him to go, and he did not dare to object.
Soon, Denník N published a photo of Fico having dinner with Szalayová in Jordan. It immediately became known that Szalayová said at work that she was on sick leave. This outraged the leadership of the regional prosecutorʼs office, where she was an intern, — she was summoned to a meeting of the disciplinary board.
Katarina ignored the meeting, and in April 2022 she herself terminated her internship. Szalayová never became a prosecutor.
Fico and Szalayová at dinner in Jordan in late 2021. She was officially on sick leave for at least two days of this trip.
That same month, she was photographed boarding a private plane in Vienna with Fico and his longtime associate Robert Kaliniak. It later emerged that they had flown to Dubai via Turkey.
At the time, Fico was the leader of the parliamentary opposition, while Kaliniak was engaged in private legal practice and called it a working trip. During a stopover in Turkey, Fico recorded a video against the transfer of the S-300 system to Ukraine. The journalists recognized the interior of the 240 m² apartment of the five-star “Six Senses Kaplankaya” hotel, with a terrace and its own swimming pool. A journalist from Markíza tried to find out why Szalayová was flying with them.
"Stop, youʼre going too far," Fico interrupted him.
After leaving the prosecutorʼs office, Szalayová was not unemployed for long. In June 2022, she became an intern at “Kallan Legal” (Kalinjakʼs law firm). He explained that she lost her job because of politics, and he could not miss such a talent.
In an interview, Kalinjak said that he invited Szalayová himself, praised her in every way, but refused to name her salary, saying that this is not something to talk about in decent society. “Kallan Legal” represents Ficoʼs party politicians in courts and receives hundreds of thousands of euros from the party: in 2023 and 2024 — €432 000 each, and in 2025 — over €442 000.
As journalist Tomáš Kisel told Babel, Szalayová is still working as an intern at “Kallan Legal” and is preparing for the bar exam. In June 2026, she registered her own company “KSZ Advisory”.
Can the scandal shake Ficoʼs government?
A parliamentary committee was investigating who was paying for Ficoʼs vacation. Several years ago, deputies checked who owned the house in Vinosady, but in ten months they found nothing.
The committee will check private flights. If Fico benefited from his position, he will face a fine of twelve monthsʼ salary. He could lose his position, but at least 90 out of 150 MPs would have to vote for this. His opponents do not have those votes at the moment.
The statement to the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office, which is being prepared by opposition deputies, may become the basis for a criminal investigation. First, the investigation will have to establish who paid for his flights.
A luxurious apartment and villa — "Goddammit"
On Christmas Eve 2023, shortly after returning to power, Fico bought an apartment in Bratislava from a member of his own party for €509 000.
According to Kisel, Fico did not take out a mortgage on it, but he never explained where he got the money from. The apartment is located on the top floor of the “Sokolská Residence” residential complex and has about 129 m², and its terrace is more than 186 m². Real estate experts estimate its value at least €850 000, which is significantly higher than the amount reported by Fico.
However, the Slovak prime minister himself called the apartment an ordinary three-room apartment in a building where young families live, and reprimanded journalists for asking questions.
There are only two apartments on the top floor of "Sokolská Residence". The larger one was bought by Fico, the smaller one by the son of Lyubomir Vazhny, an MP from Ficoʼs party.
"Before that, he had been paying very high rent for another luxury apartment for years. He spends many weeks on vacation abroad every year and, as we now know, gets there on private planes," Kisel told Babel.
The journalist finds Ficoʼs explanation that he earned his money from public positions unconvincing given the scale of the expenses.
Before "Sokolská Residence", Fico rented a 377-square-meter penthouse in Bonaparte for seven years from businessman Ladislav Bašternak, who was later convicted of tax fraud. Fico said he paid €2 650 per month, while the market rent was estimated at at least €5 000. When Fico left his apartment in the "Bonaparte" complex in 2019, he completely dismantled and removed the wooden parquet. In addition, all interior doors, sockets, plumbing fixtures and kitchen units were removed from the apartment. The politician explained his actions by saying that he had taken away property purchased with personal funds. On June 20, 2016, the first of 12 rallies over the Bashternak case took place near "Bonaparte". Several thousand people demanded the resignation of Interior Minister Robert Kaliniak, whom the opposition accused of obstructing the investigation into the developerʼs tax fraud, and protesters demanded that Fico move out of Bashternakʼs apartment.
In the spring of 2025, Croatian media already suggested that Fico had purchased a new villa with a swimming pool in the resort of Ražanj. He was regularly seen there with Salajova.
It was a new house on a slope above the sea, which was sold for approximately €1.19 million. Fico denied that the house belonged to him, but confirmed that he had decided to rent this particular villa for the summer — “Goddammit”.
The same villa in Ražanj where Fico vacationed in August 2025. This is a two-story new building with an area of 380 m² with a swimming pool, sauna and garage on a plot of 800 m². Fico denies that the house belongs to him and says that he only rented it, although the local tourist office told reporters that the villa does not have a rental permit.
In August of the same year, the Aktuality.sk reporters came to Ražanj to check if Fico had really stopped there. They saw the premier in the sea and waited for him near the steps to the pier, where a towel and beach shoes were lying. When he swam up, the journalists asked whose house it was.
Fico replied just from the water that he had no real estate in Croatia: “[And] get away, [Iʼm] on vacation.”
Only his head in swimming goggles was seen above the water.