Syldavia (Syldavian: Zyldavja) is a fictional country in The Adventures of Tintin, the comics series by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. It is located in the Balkans and has a rivalry with the fictional neighbouring country of Borduria. Syldavia is depicted in King Ottokar's Sceptre (1938–1939), Destination Moon (1950), Explorers on the Moon (1952–1953, briefly), The Calculus Affair (1954–1956), and Tintin and the Lake of Sharks (1972), and is mentioned in Tintin and the Picaros (1975–1976).[1]
According to Harry Thompson's 2011 Tintin: Hergé and Its Creation, Syldavia "was an idealised portrayal of central Europe between the wars – a benevolent monarchy, peaceful village life, sturdy peasants puffing on large pipes."[2]
Hergé claimed that the country is heavily inspired by the real-world countries of both Albania and Montenegro, and may also be based on larger Balkan nations such as Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria.
Syldavia is a monarchy, ruled at the time of King Ottokar's Sceptre by King Muskar XII. The capital is Klow, formerly Zileheroum, located at the confluence of the Moltus and Vladir Rivers (after Prague, which is on the Vltava River). Other cities named in the books are Niedzdrow, Istov, Dbrnouk, Douma, Tesznik, and Zlip. The population of Syldavia is 642,000 with 122,000 living in Klow, suggesting the country is similar in size to Montenegro. The national airline is Syldair and the official currency is the khôr. One khôr is subdivided into 100 paroe.
Syldavia is also called "The Kingdom of the Black Pelican".[original research?] In line with that, in Montenegro is located the largest resort of pelicans in Europe.
The people speak Syldavian, a language that looks and sounds Slavic but is mostly based on the West Germanic Marols dialect from Brussels.[3]: 5–10 It is written in Cyrillic, but curiously, the Latin alphabet is used in medieval documents, and some of the Cyrillic letters used are a straight transcription from the Latin letters (e.g., "sh" is written "сз" -compare to Polish "sz"- rather than "ш").