I was living in Slovakia in 1994. The outer cladding of many buildings was the construction scaffold.

I returned in 2003. Bratislava and Trnava had transformed into really nice looking cities. I'm not sure how they did that, but they did.

Still too many panelok apartment buildings. But the new apartment buildings were not of the panelok design. Much nicer, from the outside. This country broke its communist past and Russian occupation.