San Escobar

San Escobar is a non-existent country, a blunder of Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Witold Waszczykowski. On 10 January 2017, Waszczykowski told reporters that, in a bid for a non-permanent seat for Poland on the UN Security Council, he had meetings with officials from various countries, including some Caribbean nations, with some of them "for the first time in the history of our diplomacy. For example with countries such as Belize or San Escobar".

You got to be kidding...

Then the fun started.

As a result, the "country" gained a significant presence on the Internet, and was spontaneously given a fictitious identity on social media, including a flag (blue, white, and green stripes, with a yellow 5-pointed star in a red triangle), photos and maps.

The Facebook page was created by Jarek Kubicki, a member of the Razem political party. Within a day the hashtag #SanEscobar was tracked by over 2 million people and has become the most popular within the Polish segment of Twitter. 

San Escobar has also become a subject of numerous joke news, e.g. about an appointment of a military attaché and its nice ecology. A good deal of them play upon drug lord Pablo Escobar, popularized via the TV series Narcos. 

A Twitter account for 'República Popular Democrática de San Escobar' (@rpdsanescobar) was established, which quickly rose to prominence. It announced full support for Waszczykowski in his endeavor, and proceeded to issuing various news releases in Spanish and English. San Escobar issues a newspaper, the San Escobar Times. San Escobar has also become a popular travel destination via El Niño Airlines. 

Then everybody jumped on the bandwagon. Ticketing service Fru wrote that there are only one-way tickets to San Escobar. Netflix (the creator of Narcos) also allegedly claimed it already has airline tickets to sell. 

In 2017 Comedy Central Poland recorded an anthem of San Escobar sung by Eric Cartman, an animated South Park character.

Also a lot of bars popped up with a reference to San Escobar. I always pass one of them when walking to language school. 

The place is called "San Esco Bar". Brilliant.

Years after it still has not faded away. One slip of the tongue and everything went full circus. 

Have a good day everyone :)