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ONLINE SERVICES
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NEWS
EU optimists
There is no country in
Europe where people trust
the European Union and its
institutions as much as
they do in Slovakia, accord-
ing to the results of a recent
Eurobarometer survey.
pg 2
Social insurer to halve
State social insurance pro-
vider Sociálna Poisťovňa
will see its staff headcount
fall from last year's 5,863 to
3,000 by 2016, based on a
new strategic plan.
pg 4
OPINION
Twilight of the census
Observers suggest Slovakia
might see its last old-fash-
ioned census this year, hop-
ing that the state will in fu-
ture find a better way to use
the data it already collects.
pg 5
BUSINESS FOCUS
Waiting for eGov
Digitalising public services
is happening around the
world and Slovakia is no
exception, at least in lofty
ambitions and stated
plans. But actual achieve-
ments indicate Slovakia is
lagging behind other EU
countries.
pg 6
Online security
Although the potential
dangers of the internet are
well known, experts say
Slovaks do not always be-
have in a responsible way
and do not take online se-
curity seriously enough.
pg 7
CULTURE
City Gallery's jubilee
This year marks Bratislava
City Gallery’s 50th an-
niversary and a series of
special events will com-
memorate the golden ju-
bilee throughout the year .
pg 11
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Vol. 17, No. 9
Catherine Ashton, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, and Mikuláš Dzurinda, Slovakia's
foreign minister, speaking at the V4 ministerial summit held in Bratislava on March 3.
Free food plan
emerged in early 2010
THE GOVERNMENT’S plan to dis-
tribute free flour and pasta to the
needy has created a melee of differ-
ing opinions on the food assistance
scheme as well as the state of
Slovakia’s agriculture sector.
While the opposition Smer
party’s shadow agriculture minis-
ter, Stanislav Becík, called the plan
the “Somalia way” which Slovakia
should not follow, his successor,
Agriculture Minister Zsolt Simon,
responded that it is part of a wider
EU scheme and that it was actually
Robert Fico’s government that ori-
ginally decided, early last year, to
Enormous VAT fraud busted
BY BEATA BALOGOVÁ
Spectator staff
A MAN nicknamed the Lord of
Zemplín, who has been in
business for 12 years and serves
as an authorised representative
in 77 firms, has allegedly stolen
nearly €29 million from the
HUF 270.90
JPY 113.43
PLN 3.98
Slovak state via a fraud in-
volving value added tax.
Mikuláš Vareha, a business-
USD 1.39
man from eastern Slovakia,
was arrested by the police on
March 1. He reportedly traded
in a wide variety of goods and
commodities including bark
FOCUS
Monday, March 7, 2011 - Sunday, March 13, 2011 of this issue
Leaders look
east from
Bratislava
BY MICHAELA TERNZANI
Spectator staff
SUPPORT for the EU’s Eastern Partner-
ship programme and calls for the Be-
larusian authorities to democratise and
release political prisoners were voiced
during a ministerial meeting of Visegrad
Group countries and Germany held in
Bratislava on March 3.
Catherine Ashton, the EU’s high rep-
resentative for foreign affairs and secur-
ity policy, attended the meeting as a spe-
cial guest and stressed that the EU needs
to create close ties with its eastern
neighbours.
See SUMMIT pg 9
Photo: TASR
Slovakia to
count people
and homes
BY MICHAELA TERENZANI
Spectator staff
a European Union project, launched HOUSEHOLDS in Slovakia should expect
BY BEATA BALOGOVÁ as an urgent measure during the some rare visitors this spring. For the first
Spectator staff harsh winter of 1986-1987 when time in ten years census takers, respons-
surpluses of agricultural products ible for collecting data for the general
were given to charities in EU mem- census of residents, apartments and
ber states for distribution to those houses, will walk around every district in
use state grain reserves to supply who needed them, according to an Slovakia at the end of May. And while stat-
free food in 2011. official release by the European isticians stress that taking part in the
The plan is not a systemic Commission. census is a right of every inhabitant and
measure to address the impact of The application to include Slov- give multiple reasons why people should
food-price inflation on the popula- akia in the programme was filed by make sure they are counted, critics of the
tion, Agriculture Ministry spokes- the ministry's previous leaders last census call it a waste of time and money
man Juraj Kadáš stressed in com- year and the programme will be im- and say that the data could be obtained
ments to The Slovak Spectator. plemented now, according to Kadáš. from other sources that the state already
Instead, the distribution of free has access to.
food to the neediest people began as See AGRO pg 4 For more on this story please see pg 3
hk}ly{pzltlu{
IgZcYh^ci]ZHadkV`aVWdjgbVg`Zi
beetles, cowshed compost and
wooden gates. The police be-
what the police say were ficti-
tious deals. Between 2007 and VcY]jbVcgZhdjgXZh
lieve at least some of the trad- 2010, the state refunded VAT of
ing between firms was ficti- €32,729,204 to the business-
tious and that about a dozen man, which Lipšic said makes
shell companies were involved.
Vareha has now been
charged with tax evasion and
it likely that additional charges
will be filed. Additionally, the
businessman had claimed an
DG9:G
is in pre-trial custody, said In-
terior Minister Daniel Lipšic,
additional €21 million in VAT
refunds that the state had not CDL
who along with Finance Min- yet transferred to him.
ister Ivan Mikloš announced
the arrest to the media. If
convicted he faces up to 12
Lipšic stated that the
businessman apparently
thought his political connec-
Eg^XZ/í)
years in prison, SITA news- tions would allow him to cov-
wire reported. er up millions of euros in tax
The businessman re- fraud.
portedly claimed VAT refunds ;dgbdgZ^c[dgbVi^dck^h^illl#heZXiVidg#h`$egdYjXih
totalling €28,745,934 based on See VAT pg 2
dglg^iZidX^gXjaVi^dc5heZXiVidg#h`
2 March 7 – 13, 2011
Handlová blast investigation finishes
SEVERAL factors were re-
sponsible for a 2009 explo-
sion at a mine in Handlová
which left 20 miners dead, an
enquiry has found. The con-
tributory factors included the
reduced cross-section of the
corridor, large amounts of
ash in the corridor, the tem-
perature at the centre of the
fire which led to the blast,
and the opening of the cor-
ridor door, according to the
results of the investigation,
conducted by the Prievidza
District Mining Authority.
“Individual factors as
such could not create a situ-
ation in the ventilation res-
ulting in an explosion of
No agreement on citizenship yet
A RULING coalition working
group failed to reach agree-
ment on issues surrounding
dual citizenship at a meeting
on February 28, and an
amendment to the Citizen-
ship Act is therefore unlikely
to be submitted to parliament
during its March session.
The members of the
commission agreed that no
proposal would be put for-
ward without an agreement
by all participating parties,
the TASR newswire reported.
Independent MP Igor
Matovič said he was glad to
see that opinions voiced by
some members of the
coalition’s four parties ac-
corded with his own, TASR
wrote. On February 10,
Matovič voted with the op-
Coalition slips lower in January poll
IF PARLIAMENTARY elec-
tions had been held in Janu-
ary, the ruling coalition
would have finished without
a majority in parliament,
despite the fact that the
Slovak Democratic and
Christian Union (SDKÚ) im-
proved its preferences to 16.9
percent, according to a sur-
vey conducted between
January 3 and 31 by the Me-
dian SK polling agency.
The opposition Smer
party attracted support from
39.7 percent while the Slovak
Slovakia commands ALTHEA in BiH
SLOVAKIA is the command-
ing country of the ALTHEA
international peacekeeping
operation in Bosnia and
Herzegovina as of March 1,
and will remain so for an un-
specified period of time.
“The Slovak Republic is
taking over command as the
lead country in the “South”
region from Germany,” said
Brigadier-General Pavel
Macko of the General Staff of
the Slovak Armed Forces as
he took command, the SITA
newswire reported. “It lies
south of Sarajevo and is one
combustible gases,” said
Bohuš Sliacky, head of the
District Mining Authority, as
quoted by the SITA news-
wire. “It is not possible to
clearly determine the main
reason for the explosion of
the gases based on the find-
ings of the investigation.
Therefore, it is not possible to
identify a specific and obvi-
ous breach of safety
regulations.”
Twenty persons died in
the August 10, 2009 accident:
11 mine rescuers and nine
miners who were all trying
to extinguish a fire in the
Handlová mine, some 330
metres below ground level.
position on the issue and as a
result was expelled from the
Freedom and Solidarity (SaS)
caucus. He believes dual cit-
izenship should be possible
only for those with a real link
to another country, such as
permanent residence or close
family relations, saying that
those who do not meet any of
these conditions should
automatically lose their
Slovak citizenship by accept-
ing a foreign one.
Most-Híd, another coali-
tion party, disagrees; its rep-
resentatives say the state
should not punish its own cit-
izens in this way. Despite the
impasse, Most-Híd said it will
not obstruct parliamentary
business over the issue as it
did in February, TASR wrote.
National Party (SNS), also in
opposition, would have
crossed the five-percent
threshold to get into parlia-
ment, with 5.7 percent.
The Christian Democrat-
ic Movement (KDH) was
supported by 11.6 percent of
respondents, while Freedom
and Solidarity (SaS) got 8.4
percent of the preferences
and Most-Híd 7.1 percent.
No other political party
would have made it into par-
liament based on the poll
results.
of four large sectors into
which Bosnia and Herzegov-
ina is divided.”
Together with Slovak sol-
diers, troops from Turkey and
Switzerland, two countries
which also have so-called
LOT (Liaison Observation
Team) Houses in the area, are
deployed in this region. Slov-
akia, which coordinates mil-
itary units in southern and
south-eastern areas of Bos-
nia, has three LOT Houses.
Compiled by Spectator staff
from press reports
NEWS
EU-optimism flourishes
showed that mistrust of na-
Slovaks are the tional institutions prevailed
most trustful of not only in Slovakia but in
many other countries and in
EU institutions the EU average. The survey
found that the Slovak cabinet
was trusted by only 36 percent
BY MICHAELA of the country’s citizens and
TERENZANI Slovakia's parliament had the
Spectator staff trust of only 37 percent of re-
spondents. Slovakia’s judicial
system was the least trusted
THERE is no country in institution, with only 32 per-
Europe where people trust the cent of the respondents saying
European Union and its insti- they trusted it and 65 percent
tutions as much as they do in responding that they do not
Slovakia, or at least that is trust it at all.
what the results of a recent Geist said another reason
Eurobarometer survey sug- why the EU enjoys so much
gest. Some observers noted, trust among Slovaks might be
however, that the high level The European Parliament in Strasbourg. Photo: E. Terenzani related to the country’s specif-
of trust that Slovaks have in ic path to EU entry, “when EU
the EU and its bodies might age of Slovaks who trusted Mistrust at home? membership was massively
say as much or more about cit- EU institutions topped all communicated as an entry
izens’ opinions about their other surveyed countries and There are several reasons among ‘civilised’ and
own national institutions. exceeded the EU average by that trust in the EU and its in- ‘advanced’ countries, or in
According to the results of 28 percent. Slovakia was fol- stitutions is so high among some cases even as a way to
the EU-sponsored survey, lowed by Bulgaria and Esto- Slovaks, but a tendency to protect the country from its
conducted in November 2010 nia in the top three. compare EU institutions with own politicians”.
and released on February 28, The high overall trust in national institutions might Additionally, the EU and
71 percent of Slovaks said they the European Union corres- play the most significant part, its institutions are perceived
trust the EU. ponds with a high level of said Radovan Geist, the to operate in a less politicised
The Eurobarometer is an trust in its specific institu- founder and publisher of manner, according to Geist.
opinion poll conducted twice tions. Euractiv.sk. “The decision-making of
a year that seeks opinions on The European Parliament “The strongly positive EU institutions, including the
a wide range of issues among (EP) was trusted by 76 percent view of EU institutions thus EP, isn’t perceived as a result
citizens of both EU member of Slovaks while the propor- reflects also on our espe- of political fights, negoti-
countries and candidate tion of Slovaks who trusted cially critical view of the na- ations and agreements to the
countries. Slovaks have regu- the European Central Bank, tional ones, and mistrust of same extent as it is on the na-
larly scored among the top the EU Council and the them,” Geist told The Slovak tional level,” Geist explained.
EU-optimists in past surveys European Commission was Spectator.
but in late 2010 the percent- around 67 percent. The Eurobarometer survey See EU pg 5
VAT: 51 firms with revenues of €705m
Continued from pg 1
“Those times are over,” Lipšic said, as
quoted by SITA. “Whoever wears
whatever political suit and has whatever
friends at the highest positions, if the
person violates the law, crosses its lim-
its, one will bear responsibility.”
Mikloš stated that the businessman
served as an authorised representative
in 77 firms, 51 of which were registered
as VAT payers, adding that these com-
panies maintained active business ties
while charging that Vareha simply made
deals with himself, that invoiced
products never left warehouses, that the
firm had no documentation on only
sporadically-used transport, and that
most of the companies had no employ-
ees. SITA wrote that Mikloš reported that Vareha, pictured with First Lady Silvia Gašparovičová at a charity event. Photo: SITA
the 51 firms reported revenue of €705
million and losses of €109 million donations to the foundation headed by Smer’s communication department,
between 2007 and 2009. the president’s wife, adding that adding that the police president and the
The Sme daily reported that it had Gašparovičová did not have any other director of the Tax Directorate an-
found 136 firms in Slovakia’s business business activities with Vareha. nounced the breaking of that tax fraud.
registry under Vareha’s name, including Both Lipšic and Mikloš lashed out at The case involved 10 men and four
dozens of wood processing firms, water the previous government, stating that it women who had established or ac-
transport companies, construction con- had done little to investigate and pro- quired 30 companies which filed fraud-
tractors, and real estate businesses as secute tax frauds and using as evidence a ulent tax reports to claim VAT refunds
well as firms trading in Tokaj wine. Sme recent study by the European Commis- from the state.
also wrote that several years ago Vareha sion that reported that Slovakia has the Former interior minister Robert
had built a mini-zoo with wild boars, os- second highest rate of VAT evasion in Kaliňák, now a Smer MP, stated that the
triches and deer but local residents com- the EU, following only Greece. police force under his watch was ready
plained about the smell and said that the The opposition Smer party responded to take action against Vareha.
animals were suffering. that it was the police force under Robert “We had registered an increased
Sme added that Vareha apparently Fico’s government that had discovered number of exactly these suspicious op-
enjoyed the bright spotlight and wrote and taken action against the largest VAT erations linked to firms of this busi-
that in early 2009 he had distributed fraud in Slovakia’s history involving nessman and proceedings had started
apples along with Silvia Gašparovičová, Sk1.35 billion (nearly €45 million). over the matter,” Kaliňák said, as quoted
the wife of Slovakia’s president. “The ministers of interior and fin- by TV news channel TA3.
Marek Trubač, spokesman for the ance at that time did not have the need Mikloš said that the head of the
President’s Office, stated that it does not to brag about the specific case,” stated a Trebišov district tax office had been
check the tax affairs of those who make news release prepared by Erik Tomáš of sacked over the arrest of Vareha.

Statisticians prepare for
the decennial census
People and homes
to be counted in
May 2011
BY MICHAELA
TERENZANI
Spectator staff
TEN YEARS have passed since
the last census took place in
Slovakia and statisticians are
looking forward to soon hav-
ing fresh data available from
the next count of population
and housing, scheduled to
take place in late spring 2011.
They claim that the import-
ance of the census is even
bigger this time around, since
2011 will see censuses take
place all around the European
Union, making the union-
wide data suitable for inter-
national comparison.
The Population and Hous-
ing Census, to give it its full
name, will be held in Slovakia
in May 2011. The actual meas-
urement point for the census
will be midnight between
May 20 and May 21, 2011. It is
the country’s most extensive
statistical inquiry and is ex-
pected to provide new data
about the number of people
living in the Slovak Republic,
as well as information regard-
ing the population’s demo-
graphic, educational, social
and economic structure.
For the first time censuses
will be held simultaneously
across the whole EU based on
Regulation (EC) No 763/2008 of
the European Parliament and
of the Council of 9 July 2008
on Population and Housing
Censuses, which obliges all 27
EU member states to hold a
census in the same year, 2011,
using uniform or comparable
definitions of surveyed in-
formation.
Foreigners counted too
The census is not restric-
ted only to citizens of each
state being counted and sur-
veyed. Slovakia’s law on the
2011 census states that the
census will gather informa-
tion about all residents,
whether citizens of the Slovak
Republic or foreigners living
in Slovakia at the relevant
point in time.
“The census applies to in-
habitants, including foreign-
ers, with the exception of for-
eigners who enjoy diplomatic
advantages and immunity,”
Ivana Juhaščíková from the
department of population
statistics of the Slovak Statist-
ics Office told The Slovak
Spectator. According to her, a
foreigner who has been resid-
ing in Slovakia for less than 90
days is obliged to answer only
questions relating to their sex,
date of birth and citizenship.
Slovakia will soon have updated information about its residents and housing.
The census question-
naires will be available in the
Slovak, Hungarian, Roma,
Ukrainian, and Ruthenian
languages. Questionnaires in
English will be available only
for the electronic census.
It is the first time that
Slovakia will allow residents
to participate in a census
electronically. The electronic
census sheets will be avail-
able at www.scitanie2011.sk.
To be able to complete the
census online, a respondent
needs an identifier, which is
a randomly-generated num-
ber they will receive from
their census taker in a sealed
envelope.
While the hard-copy
questionnaires will need to
be filled out between May 21
and June 6, 2011, the window
for online submissions will
be restricted to May 21 to
May 29. Those interested in
completing an electronic
census should announce to
their respective census taker
when first visited; if they fail
to do so, the census taker will
have to visit once more and
fill out a hard-copy ques-
tionnaire instead.
52 questions
There will be three ques-
tionnaires to fill out for the
census, altogether compris-
ing 52 questions. The Resident
Sheet, which is to be filled out
for each member of a house-
hold, asks for personal in-
formation such as place of
birth, employment, national-
ity and religion – but also
computer literacy. Apart from
that, there is an Apartment
Sheet, to be completed by one
person for the entire house-
hold, and a House Sheet, to be
completed by house owners
or, possibly, house managers
for each apartment house.
NEWS
The census is anonymous
because previous censuses
have been misused, for in-
stance the census done before
World War II was later used
to monitor Slovakia’s Jewish
residents, said István Schill,
the deputy head of the Statist-
ics Office, at a press confer-
ence on February 23.
Census questionnaires for
all EU countries, including
Slovakia, contain so-called
obligatory topics according to
the directive of the European
Parliament and the European
Council, Juhaščíková said,
adding that the most inter-
esting among them is defin-
itely the question about the
so-called usual address of a
resident – that is, the place
where the resident spends
the biggest part of his or her
time, and where he or she
usually spends the day, or
sleeps at night.
“This basic characteristic
shows that the aim of this
topic is to find out the real
number of inhabitants in par-
ticular EU countries and pre-
vent one citizen from being
counted in several countries,”
Juhaščíková said.
Is a census necessary?
The census, which will
cost Slovakia €30.6 million,
has been criticised heavily in
the Slovak media over some
questions in particular –
mainly those about religious
beliefs – but also over whether
it makes sense to hold a
census at all. Some media
have pointed out that the
state is spending money and
time filling out question-
naires on topics that people
already answer in other offi-
cial forms.
The Statistics Office,
however, argues that there
are many justifications for
Photo: SITA
the census, including allow-
ing the state to be able to
make accurate prognoses for
the future development of
society.
The census data will be
processed in the second half
of 2011, but the deadline for
publication of the compre-
hensive results is not until
March 2014. That is when
Eurostat, the European stat-
istics authority, expects to re-
ceive all the data from the na-
tional statistics authorities.
“The Slovak Statistics Of-
fice will, obviously, also pub-
lish running results from the
census,” Juhaščíková said,
adding that the first set of
results could be released as
early as autumn 2011.
The statistical data can,
according to Schill, facilitate
decision-making by respons-
ible officials regarding issues
such as where to develop
apartments, or where a
school, hospital or road is
needed. Statistics derived
from census results will also
answer questions associated
with enterprise; where and in
which sphere business efforts
pay off, where regional in-
vestments should be directed
to create new jobs, or where
the existing workforce should
be retained.
In Slovakia one very fre-
quently cited use for the res-
ults is connected with ques-
tions of nationality and reli-
gion. The proportion of
minority members in a muni-
cipality, for instance, determ-
ines whether the respective
public bodies are obliged to
speak and write in the
minority’s language as well as
in Slovak, while the number
of religious believers determ-
ines the amount of financial
assistance that the state
provides to churches and reli-
gious organisations.
Slovakia counts
its minorities
BY MICHAELA
TERENZANI
Spectator staff
NATIONALITY will be among
the key questions in the na-
tional census that will be
conducted this spring in
Slovakia. Along with the
much-debated change in the
threshold for mandating that
minority languages are to be
used in municipalities, the
actual count of minority cit-
izens that results from this
census will also determine
where a minority language
must be officially recognised
and used. Representatives of
ethnic Hungarians, whose
officially-recorded popula-
tion is expected to drop again
in this census, have already
started campaigning for eth-
nic Hungarians living in
Slovakia’s southern districts
to state their nationality as
Hungarian when completing
the census question.
The question about a
resident’s national identity
offers 14 specific choices plus
a blank field if none of the lis-
ted nationalities corresponds
with the person’s professed
nationality. The choices are
Slovak and the 13 officially re-
cognised national minorities
living in Slovakia: Hungarian,
Roma, Ruthenian, Ukrainian,
Czech, German, Polish, Croa-
tian, Serbian, Russian, Jew-
ish, Moravian and Bulgarian.
The results of the census
will have an impact on
whether a minority language
will be designated as one that
must be spoken or written in
a certain municipality in offi-
cial communications. The
current threshold in Slovakia
is when a municipality has 20
percent or more of its resid-
ents from a specific minority.
The municipality is then des-
ignated a bilingual municip-
ality in which certain rights
for the minority become
obligatory. Rudolf Chmel,
Slovakia’s Deputy Prime Min-
ister for Human Rights and
National Minorities, is now
The percentage of minority residents determines whether a
municipality has bilingual signage.
March 7 – 13, 2011 3
proposing to lower this
threshold to 15 percent.
Chmel is encouraging
members of national minor-
ities to state their professed
nationality when complet-
ing the census form.
“When collecting statist-
ical data for the census, we
expect members of minorities
to be serious not only about
the economic and social in-
formation, but also about be-
longing to the national com-
munity from which they de-
rive their identity or with
which they are culturally
linked,” Chmel wrote in a
statement, adding that this
will be particularly important
for those minorities who are
perceived by the majority
through negative stereotypes.
Hungarians
to campaign
The 2001 census counted
over 520,000 ethnic Hun-
garians living in Slovakia but
experts have said that the re-
corded population could drop
by as many as 60,000 in the
2011 census. In 2001, the
number was almost 50,000
less than in 1991.
Sociologists have said
that the drop in the number
of ethnic Hungarians recor-
ded in the census could be at-
tributed to demographic
changes as about 1,000 more
ethnic Hungarians die each
year than are born to ethnic
Hungarian families.
But Boris Vaňo from the
Demographic Research
Centre also pointed out to
the SITA newswire that na-
tionality in the census is de-
termined on a declaratory
principle: a person states
their nationality.
“Assimilation is an exist-
ing phenomenon and we
must create a political atmo-
sphere that will make minor-
ities feel at home in
Slovakia,” László Juhás, the
head of the Section for Na-
tional Minorities at the Gov-
ernment Office, told SITA.
See COUNT pg 9
Photo: Sme -V. Šimíček
4 March 7 – 13, 2011
Economic sentiment up in February
THE INDEX of Economic
Sentiment (IES) in Slovakia
improved by 0.3 percentage
points in February 2011 to
reach 97.4, the TASR news-
wire reported based on data
from Slovakia’s Statistics’
Office.
The IES was particularly
influenced positively by
higher consumer confid-
ence.
The Index grew by 10.3
points year-on-year, but is
still 0.5 points below the
long-term average, the
Statistics Office said while
the indicator of confidence
in industry fell by 4.7 points
in February due to negative
assessments of demand and
by increased stocks.
The indicator of confid-
ence in construction de-
teriorated by 1 point
month-on-month in Febru-
ary to minus 40.5, falling
below the long-term aver-
age by 16.5 points. It was af-
fected by an expected fur-
Social insurer to halve staff by 2016
THE NUMBER of employees
working at Slovakia’s social
insurance provider, Sociálna
Poisťovňa (SP), will be re-
duced from last year's 5,863
to 3,000 by 2016, based on a
newly released strategic
plan.
“The number of employ-
ees will be influenced by in-
ternal measures aimed at
raising the efficiency of SP’s
operation, with the biggest
effect in 2011 and 2012,” the
SITA newswire wrote, quot-
ing from the document.
The number of employ-
ees to be cut in 2012 and 2013
are related to the transfer of
collection of current insur-
ance premiums and past due
payments to newly created
financial offices under an
Bratislava City Card proves popular
ALMOST 13,000 residents of
Bratislava have shown an in-
terest in acquiring a Bratis-
lava City Card since January
15, when three partner banks
started issuing the card to
customers who request one.
The card, available to per-
sons with permanent resid-
ence in Bratislava, can be
used for domestic and inter-
national payments, as a lib-
rary card and as an electronic
ticket for city galleries and
museums.
The card can also be used
to purchase pre-paid tickets
for city transport along with
a 10-percent discount.
When visiting cultural
attractions and other venues
operated by the city, such as
Bratislava Zoo, the city’s art
gallery and museum, and the
Pasienky indoor swimming
pool or summertime outdoor
ther drop in employment in
the next three months.
The indicator of confid-
ence in retail fell by 12
points in February to 6.7,
matching the long-term av-
erage.
The indicator of confid-
ence in services dropped by
1.3 points month-on-month
to 25.0 due to a negative as-
sessment of expected de-
mand while the overall
business situation and cur-
rent demand were assessed
more positively by the re-
spondents, TASR wrote.
Consumer confidence
did not change significantly
in the month-on-month
terms, with its indicator
growing by 0.5 points to
minus 26.1, especially due to
a better perception of the
expected financial situation
in households.
Nevertheless, compared
to the same period last year
people were more pessimist-
ic, by 6.1 points.
initiative undertaken by the
Finance Ministry.
Sociálna Poisťovňa is ex-
pected to lay off about 600
employees in 2011.
“We expect to spend €2
million on the layoffs while
the annual savings will reach
€8 million,” said SP General
Director Ľuboš Lopatka
about the layoff plan, as
quoted by SITA.
Expenditures by the SP
administrative fund are to
fall from €128.3 million in
2010 to about €80.9 million
in 2016.
In 2013, Sociálna
Poisťovňa forecasts one-off
expenditures that relate to
the transfer of premium col-
lection functions to the new
state financial offices.
pools, the Bratislava City
Card will bring a 20-percent
discount off regular prices.
Almost 2,700 card holders
have activated their card to
serve as a pre-paid city trans-
port ticket, Bratislava Mayor
Milan Ftáčnik said, as repor-
ted by the TASR newswire.
The banks currently in-
volved in the project are VÚB
Bank, OTP Bank, UniCredit
Bank Slovensko and Volks-
bank Slovensko, which
joined on March 1. Of these
only UniCredit issues cards
to Bratislavans who do not
already hold a bank account
with it.
Poštová Banka and
Slovenská Sporiteľňa are ex-
pected to join the programme
some time in 2011.
Compiled by Spectator staff
from press reports
BUSINESS / NEWS
AGRO: 'The whole issue
has been politicised'
Continued from pg 1
“In fact it was the former
management of the Agricul-
ture Ministry and the gov-
ernment led by Fico who in
January 2010 decided that
Slovakia would use 45,000
tonnes of grain from inter-
ventional stocks in 2011 for
humanitarian help,” Kadáš
said, adding that the govern-
ment did not expect “even in
its worst dream” to be criti-
cised by a left-wing politician
– a reference to Fico – for seek-
ing ways to improve the lives
of people in need.
There are about 370,000
people in Slovakia who could
benefit from the assistance.
They are socially the most
vulnerable groups, orphan-
ages, nurseries and nursing
homes, social services
homes as well as people liv-
ing under the subsistence
level, said Kadáš.
“The conditions are
defined by the European Uni-
on and the union itself will be
watching over [us to see that
we are] meeting these
conditions,” Kadáš said. “We
restate that the whole process
is sheltered, financed and
administered by the European
Union, Slovakia will not pay a
single cent for this
assistance.”
The food will be provided
to charity organisations by
grain processors who win a
public tender, he added.
Milan Semančík, the
chairman of the Slovak
Chamber of Food and Agri-
culture, told The Slovak
Spectator that the whole is-
sue has been politicised even
though it is part of a pro-
gramme that was used across
the European Union even be-
fore Slovakia joined.
“Certainly, this is not a
systemic step in terms of solv-
ing the key problems of our
agro-food complex, nor the
price of food in stores,”
Semančík said. “But then
none of the one-time meas-
ures, including the EU pro-
gramme, are intended to be
such. Nevertheless, the inter-
national community has rel-
atively rich experience with
it, while it is a first for Slov-
akia in its modern history.”
Smer rings agro-alarm
As well as attacking the
plan, Becík, who became well-
known after travelling parts
of Slovakia in a horse-drawn
carriage while minister, also
said that the situation in
Slovakia’s agricultural sector
is “catastrophic”.
He pointed out that at a
time when food prices were
rising sharply, direct pay-
ments to agriculture were be-
ing reduced by €40 million,
although he did not explain
A proposal to provide pasta and flour to those in need has generated political heat.
why this should be regarded
as incongruous. Becík also
said that Slovakia imports too
much food and the country
should follow a path of great-
er self-sufficiency, while ac-
cusing the government of
treating agriculture “like a
step-child”.
Smer has panned the
government’s plan to distrib-
ute flour and pasta and said
that it would address the issue
of high food prices by cutting
VAT from 20 to 19 percent and
by increasing direct payments
to farmers.
“Slovakia must return to
the idea of food security,” said
Smer leader Robert Fico, as
quoted by SITA newswire. He
did not explain how such a
policy would be implemented,
given the EU’s strict rules to
protect free trade, or how it
might benefit consumers.
Fico insisted that the cur-
rent government is not inter-
ested in agriculture.
“We think that the gov-
ernment of Iveta Radičová
fundamentally contributes to
what is happening around
food prices since it lacks any
agricultural policies,” said
Fico. “It considers agriculture
a redundant sector which has
been reflected in specific de-
cisions which have been
taken against farmers.”
The ministry responded to
Smer’s criticism by pointing
out that under the four-year
Fico government four nomin-
ees, including Becík himself,
came and went from the post
of agriculture minister.
The ministry dismissed
criticism of its performance
and attached a list of the res-
ults it said it has achieved in
just seven months. These in-
cluded a systemic change to
restitution claims; electronic
procurement within the
state management of
forestry, which according to
the ministry has eliminated
corrupt behaviour; the ex-
pected renewal of the accred-
itation of the Agricultural
Payment Agency; as well as
steps taken to strengthen
domestic production.
The challenges
As for the tasks that the
agricultural sector and the
government faces, Semančík
said that the ultimate goal
should be the stabilisation of
the whole sector, especially
livestock production, which
has sunk into such decline
that, he said, the numbers of
pigs farmed has dropped to
approximately the level last
seen during the Second World
War. He said farming of other
livestock is not much better.
Along with synchronising
conditions with the joint ag-
ricultural policies of the EU it
also is necessary to improve
the business environment for
farmers, said Semančík: “First
of all this means thoroughly
harmonising Slovak legisla-
tion with European norms in
every instance where our reg-
ulations exceed the require-
ments of the union.”
Semančík also said that it
is necessary to rebalance rela-
tions and profits in the whole
food distribution system
where, according to him, re-
tail chains have an unam-
biguously dominant position
at the expense of farmers and
food producers.
Semančík said this should
mean “focus[ing] on increas-
ing the sale of selected Slovak-
made quality agricultural
products, including increas-
ing the effectiveness of the
system of Brand of Quality of
Slovakia, as well as the devel-
opment of projects for region-
al food, which has consider-
ably suffered from the global
approach of retail systems.”
As for the eventual impact
of joint EU agricultural
policies on the end-prices of
food in Slovakia and the com-
petitiveness of Slovak food
products, Semančík says that
these joint policies have signi-
ficantly contributed to the de-
cline in Slovak agriculture
since 2004. Through discrim-
ination against new member
states, including Slovakia, in
subsidies the EU has contrib-
uted to worsening their com-
petitiveness as well as the
Photo: AP
whole manoeuvring space on
the joint market.
“We warned about it dur-
ing the pre-entry period,
when we unambiguously
said that in association with
European integration we did
not fear foreign competition
but unequal conditions for
business,” Semančík said,
adding that the result was
an “almost unbelievable
drop in Slovakia’s food self-
sufficiency, to the level of 47
percent”.
Agro policies
Minister Simon has held
several bilateral meetings
with colleagues from Po-
land, Germany, Hungary
and the Czech Republic. Ac-
cording to Kadáš, an import-
ant step towards improving
the joint agricultural policy
was the signing last year of
the Bratislava Declaration,
which was signed by six of
the new EU members.
“It is necessary to seek
ways so that joint agriculture
policies are reformed in a fair
manner and seek ways to re-
distribute finances for the
farmers of the new EU mem-
bers more objectively,” said
Kadáš. “By the entry of the
eastern European countries to
the EU, the old member states
gained for little money a large
market and thus it is neces-
sary that the states of the EU
15 support the joint position of
the new EU members.”
Minister Simon suggested
that the policies of the
European agricultural sector
must be market-oriented and
competitive and that it is ne-
cessary to preserve its budget
at the current level within the
financial framework of the
EU, said Kadáš.
In early February, Simon
met German Minister for
Food, Agriculture and Con-
sumer Protection Ilse Aigner
and agreed to shape a joint
German-Slovak working
committee to harmonise the
opinions of particular parties
on reform of joint agricultur-
al policies.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
An employee of one of alleged VAT fraudster Mikuláš Vareha’s companies.
Šeherezáda
BY LUKÁŠ FILA
Special to the Spectator
YOU DON’T need to be an ex-
pert on Slovakia to guess that
Šeherezáda is not exactly a
typical local name. But thanks
to the massive success of the
soap opera A Thousand and
One Nights we too have our
first Šeherezáda’s.
Much like the Rambo’s,
Winnetou’s, Sandokan’s, and
Esteban’s of the past, they will
quickly be replaced by
something even trendier and
are unlikely to become a mass
phenomenon. But a brief look
at the names that have be-
come dominant nicely illus-
trates some of the changes the
country is going through.
First, there is a break with
tradition. The Interior
Ministry’s statistics show
that none of the ten most
common women’s names
(Mária, Anna, Zuzana,
Katarína, Eva, Jana, Helena,
Monika, Marta and Martina)
You called me WHAT? Slovakia already has its first baby Šeherezáda's.
EU: Slovaks back accession for some
Continued from pg 2
“On the one hand it means
that the engagement of Slovak
citizens in EU politics lags be-
hind, as seen from the very
low turnout in the EP elec-
tions; on the other hand the
EU institutions are not per-
ceived as connected with
‘dirty politics’,” he added.
Old states are more sceptical
While most of the newer
members of the EU27 were
among the most EU-optimist-
ic, the other end of the rank-
ing was occupied by the ‘old’
member states. The survey
found that the most sceptical
Europeans were the British,
with only 20 percent saying
they trusted the EU and 64
“He is backed by politicians in the highest places.”
SLOVAK WORD
OF THE WEEK
made it to the 2010 top ten list
(Sofia, Viktória, Natália,
Laura, Nela, Nina, Kristína,
Ema, Vanesa and Lucia).
The fashion in men’s
names is more stable – Mar-
tin, Michal and Tomáš appear
on both lists.
However, the new names
have a lot of catching up to do –
the one thousand Sofia’s born
last year have little chance of
threatening the dominance of
the 225,000 Mária’s.
percent saying they did not.
In Germany and France, the
EU was not trusted by about
half of those surveyed.
“In the old member states
European politics and politi-
cians are perceived to be much
more connected with their na-
tional politics,” Geist said. He
added that another reason for
the higher level of trust among
the new member states is that
they have benefitted much
more from their EU member-
ship than the older members
did from their accession.
For most Slovaks the EU
means the common European
currency and the freedom to
travel, study and work any-
where in the EU – and these
are viewed as significant be-
nefits that flowed to Slovak
citizens from EU accession.
OPINION / NEWS
The shift in culture goes
hand in hand with a weaker
role of religion. The fact that
Jozef and Mária are the most
common names leaves little
doubt about the historically
strong position of Christian-
ity here. And although last
year‘s first five boys’ names
(Jakub, Samuel, Tomáš,
Lukáš and Martin) indicate a
continuation of that trend,
all the Sofia’s, Viktória’s, and
Laura’s indicate that the
Bible is by no means the only
source of inspiration.
Lastly, as in all other
areas of life, new things come
mainly from the West.
Slovakia has many
unique names (think of
Svetozár, Ignác, Bonifác)
which could be resurrected
and new ones could possibly
be invented.
That is not too likely to
happen. But than again, pre-
dictions can be misleading –
who would have guessed that
soon there will be dozens of
little Šeherezáda’s running
around the country?
Photo: Sme - Ján Krošlák
Yes to enlargement, but...
Compared with the aver-
age among EU countries, Slov-
aks are much more positive
towards further enlargement
of the union, with 68 percent
supporting the accession of
new members. Geist attrib-
uted this to the fact that there
is no particular political power
in Slovakia that is known to be
very sceptical, or completely
opposed, to EU enlargement.
The survey found,
however, that Slovaks have
very selective views about
which countries they sup-
port for accession. Future
membership by countries
with strong economies –
Norway and Switzerland –
was supported by 85 and 90
percent, respectively, of the
The twilight of the census
COUNTING the population is
probably one of the oldest
administrative pastimes of
those in power: Roman king
Servius Tullius inscribed the
word “census” in the history
books when he counted his
people to keep track of those
fit for army service and to
estimate the economic
strength of the population.
Questions have been lis-
ted, tables designed and
“census takers” trained so
that the state in Slovakia
can now get its new num-
bers. Given recent technolo-
gical progress, one would
think that the time when
census takers roam the
country armed with tables
and questionnaires was
over. But it seems that the
twilight of the census has
yet to arrive.
Observers suggests that
perhaps Slovakia will this
year experience its last old-
fashioned census, since in
ten years the state should
finally be able to find a way
to use the data it collects
through other institutions,
for instance the social in-
surer, health insurers and
the cadastre.
However, there are
some groups in society who
anxiously await the census
results, because the num-
bers they reveal can de-
termine state policies
which directly affect them.
These groups are the na-
tional minorities.
The census has been
causing particular concern
for representatives of the
Hungarian minority in Slov-
akia. While the 2001 census
counted over 520,000 Hun-
garians living in Slovakia,
experts expect that this
number could drop by as
many as 60,000 in 2011.
Studying the psychology
of those who no longer wish
to be identified as a minority
or no longer want to have
their children counted as
Hungarians could fill hun-
dreds of pages of sociological
studies, but the numbers
will have a much deeper im-
Slovak respondents. Croatia’s
accession was supported by
78 percent, while Iceland,
Montenegro and Ukraine
would be supported in their
accession ambitions by
more than half of the Slov-
aks surveyed.
“Switzerland and Norway
are rich countries, therefore
their [potential] membership
is not seen as bringing prob-
lems, as is the accession of
poorer states,” Geist said,
adding that cultural closeness
might play a part too, espe-
cially in the case of Croatia.
On the other hand, the
survey found that one third
or less of the surveyed Slov-
aks supported the accession
of Albania (24 percent),
Kosovo (28 percent) and Tur-
key (33 percent).
March 7 – 13, 2011 5
pact on the life of the minor- identify with a certain
ities than some individuals minority often fear the loss
might realise. These num- of their language.
bers often determine the
rights and financing of
minorities in ethnically-
It is not always about a
fear of being banned from
using it; sometimes the con-
mixed areas, and also where cern is that in fact they are
minorities are able to use not inspired to use it any-
where else but in their living
rooms and kitchens.
EDITORIAL
Why is language so cru-
cial for minorities?
Whenever ethnic groups
give up their language their
culture rapidly metamorph-
oses into fragile, dusty mu-
seum pieces, such as collec-
tions of old folk songs
which after just a couple of
decades are simply no
longer understood.
While it might seem that
it is a “victory” for the ma-
jority nation when the
number of those who identi-
fy with a national minority
in the census drops, the
truth is that the nation as a
whole loses something irre-
placeable as it witnesses the
disappearance of a cultural
group which is unique in its
BY BEATA BALOGOVÁ
Spectator staff very essence and enriches
the majority. The culture of
ethnic Hungarians in Slov-
akia, their language use,
their mother tongue in offi- their songs and fairytales are
cial contexts. different in many respects
The approaching census from those in Hungary. Its
has made the planned slow decline should raise
changes to the Act on the questions in the majority
Use of Languages of Ethnic population as well.
Minorities even more cru- Of course there is always
cial, with the government natural assimilation, espe-
passing an amendment cially in a globalising world,
which would reduce the and when a mixed family
threshold required for fills out census question-
minorities to be allowed to naires it is likely that they
use their native language in will identify with the major-
official contacts from the ity nation. What is import-
current 20 percent to 15 per- ant though, behind the cold
cent. Béla Bugár’s Most-Hid statistics, is that whatever
party had originally hoped option people choose, they
to achieve a 10 percent make their choice based on
threshold but then settled how they feel or where they
for a compromise. see themselves in society,
While the majority popu- and not based on their pro-
lation often does not under- jection of where they should
stand all the fuss around appear as numbers. Other-
minority languages, with wise the census will turn
those fired by nationalism out to be nothing but an
parroting that perhaps orgy of numbers, one that
minorities in Slovakia have will nonetheless still impact
excessive rights, people who real people’s lives.
J ÁN PAL LO - Publisher
EDITORIAL
B E ATA B AL O G OVÁ - Editor - In - Chief
J AM E S THO M S O N - Assistant Editor
D O NAL D S PATZ - Assistant Editor
J ANA L IP TÁKOVÁ - Staff Writer
M IC H AE LA TER ENZANI - Staff Writer
ZUZANA V IL IKOVS K Á - Staff Writer
D O M INIK A UH R ÍKOVÁ - Staff Writer
LAYOUT, WEB & IT
TATIANA ŠTR AUC HOVÁ - Graphic Designer
R O M AN K R Á Ľ - IT
TO M Á Š PAL L O - Online Publishing
SALES - FINANCES
B EATA F OJ TÍKOVÁ - Sales Executive
M AR TINA Š M ATL ÁKOVÁ - PR and Marketing Manager
M AR TA F UK AS OVÁ - Advertising Assistant
D ÁŠA R EH ÁKOVÁ - Circulation Manager
The Slovak Spectator is an independent newspaper published every Monday by The Rock, s.r.o.
Subscriptions: Inquiries should be made to The Slovak Spectator’s business office at (+421-2) 59 233 300.
Printing: Petit Press a.s. Distribution: Interpress Slovakia s.r.o., Mediaprint-kapa s.r.o., Slovenská po‰ta a.s.
Mail Distribution: ABOPRESS. EV 544/08. © 2010 The Rock, s.r.o. All rights reserved. Any reproduction
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represented by the publisher, reserve the right to give their approval for reproducing and public transmission
of articles marked ©The Slovak Spectator, as well as for the public circulation of reproductions of these articles,
in compliance with the 33rd article and 1st paragraph of the Copyright Law. Media monitoring is provided
by Newton, IT, SMA and Slovakia Online with the approval of the publisher. Advertising material contained herein
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commercial enterprises or ventures by The Slovak Spectator or The Rock s.r.o. ISSN 1335-9843.
Address: The Rock, s.r.o., Lazaretská 12, 811 08 Bratislava. IâO: 313 86 237.
6 March 7 – 13, 2011

Firms seek to upgrade Slovaks' BUSINESS FOCUS Next issue:

INTERNET & ONLINE SERVICES

internet-security awareness

Slovak news sites to erect pay-

wall to access certain content CONSTRUCTION

Will eGovernment begin Institutions and organisations in

internet and online services

Ministry of Finance

to finally move forward? Minister: Ivan Mikloš

www.finance.gov.sk

Government Proxy for an Information Society:

State proxy says
PM Radičová
gives it high
priority
BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁ
Spectator staff
DIGITALISING public services is
a general undertaking by gov-
ernments around the world and
Slovakia is no exception, at least
when lofty ambitions and stated
plans are concerned. But actual
achievements indicate that
Slovakia is lagging far behind
other countries in Europe. The
government of Iveta Radičová is
seeking to bridge the gap. The
biggest change, in addition to
merely turning paper docu-
ments into electronic forms of
communication in order to
make public services more effi-
cient, may rest in the increased
importance the current gov-
ernment is giving to developing
strategies to reduce bureaucrat-
ic requirements while building
eGovernment services.
The latest Benchmark
Measurement on EU eGovern-
Slovaks have limited access to e-public services.
ment, a report commissioned
by the European Commission
published on February 21,
shows that even though Slov-
akia has made some progress in
the availability and sophistica-
tion of government online ser-
vices, it lags behind other
European countries in several
significant respects.
The report was jointly pre-
pared by Capgemini, Rand
Europe research institute, In-
ternational Data Corporation
(IDC) and the Danish Technolo-
gical Institute (DTI) and ana-
lysed 32 countries – all EU mem-
ber countries as well as Iceland,
Turkey, Croatia, Norway and
Photo: SITA
Switzerland. The report focused
on the availability and sophist-
ication of online services to
businesses and citizens. The re-
port found that Europeans, on
average, had online access to 82
percent of basic public services,
such as job searches and gov-
ernment benefit guides, up
from 69 percent a year earlier.
The report also stated that the
sophistication of services had
risen from 83 percent to 90 per-
cent last year. Ireland, Austria,
Malta and Portugal were at the
top in both indicators.
Slovakia improved in full
online availability compared to
its previous benchmark meas-
urement, by 8 percentage
points to 63 percent, and the
sophistication of online ser-
vices in the country increased
by 9 percentage points to 81 per-
cent. In spite of this progress,
Slovakia remained far below the
European average in both
benchmarks, near the end of
the rankings – for full online
availability it was fifth from the
bottom and in sophistication it
was eighth from the bottom.
The results of the bench-
mark assessment were no
surprise to Roland Sill, the
government proxy for an in-
formation society, who took
over the post from Pavol Tar-
ina last year after the June
parliamentary election.
“The measured standing
of Slovakia is in line with the
reality,” Sill told The Slovak
Spectator. “The benchmark-
ing indicates what all we feel.
On one hand we see a certain
improvement but on the oth-
er hand progress is very hesit-
ant and inadequately slow.”
Sill said Slovakia is still
failing to progress rapidly in
its building of eGovernment
services.
See eGOV pg 8
Roland Sill
www.vlada.gov.sk/22128/mgr-roland-sill.php
IT Association of Slovakia (ITAS)
www.itas.sk
Slovak Association of Electronic Commerce (SAEC)
www.saec.sk
Association of Internet Media (AIM)
www.aimsr.sk
Club of Advertising Agencies of Slovakia (KRAS)
www.kras.sk
Some internet providers in Slovakia
Antik Telekom, www.antik.sk
GTS Slovakia, www.gts.sk
Orange Slovensko, www.orange.sk
Satro, www.satro.sk
Slovak Telekom, www.slovaktelekom.sk
Slovanet, www.slovanet.sk
Swan, www.swan.sk
UPC Broadband Slovakia, www.upc.sk
Compiled by Spectator staff
Home internet access spreads fast
AS MANY as 70 percent of households across the
European Union had access to the internet in the first
quarter of 2010, up from only 49 percent in the first
quarter of 2009. In Slovakia, 67 percent of households

Slovak advertisers advancing online
Rapid growth in
internet access creates
new opportunities
BY JANA LIPTÁKOVÁ
Spectator staff
AFTER a dip in online advertising revenues
in 2009 due to the economic crisis in Slov-
akia, the market grew once again in 2010
and prospects for 2011 are quite positive.
Advertisers, advertising agencies and me-
dia outlets are shedding their previous cau-
tion and are now discovering new oppor-
tunities within the medium of internet-
based advertising. Online advertising is re-
sponding quickly to the rapid development
of high-speed internet connections within
Slovakia, even though the country still lags
behind other parts of the world in this area
as well as in access to the newest and most
sophisticated electronic devices.
Expenditure on internet-based advert-
ising hosted on servers owned by members
of Slovakia’s Association of Internet Media
(AIM) declined by 5.4 percent over the
course of 2009 but then increased by 7.7
percent, to €25.1 million, in 2010. The last
quarter of 2010 contributed significantly to
the positive trend as internet advertising
posted a year-on-year increase of 31 per-
cent in that quarter.
“This is very positive news for advert-
ising in Slovakia,” Milan Csaplár, chief of
the executive board of AIM, wrote in a
press release. “Advertisers more and more
trust in internet advertising. When we also
take into consideration investments by
Slovak advertisers in servers owned by
non-members [of AIM] and in internation-
al social networks and search engines, the
sum amounts to as much as €40.9 million.”
AIM views the recent development of
the Slovak online advertising market as be-
ing very similar to that of the global market
or in other countries’ markets even though
there is a moderate lag in the arrival in
Slovakia of some services that are popular
in other parts of the world.
“Probably deal-of-the-day websites are
the best examples [of this lag] at the cur-
rent time,” Veronika Pizano, the executive
manager at AIM, told The Slovak Spectator.
“The Groupon website [a Chicago-based
daily deals company] became popular in
the USA and has emerged in Slovakia after
a delay of about six months to a year. Here
in Slovakia deal-of-the-day websites are
also registering success.”
Petra Holéczyová, the managing dir-
ector of a full-service digital advertising
agency, digita.sk, who also teaches digital
marketing at the Faculty of Media at The
Pan European University in Bratislava,
thinks the development of the Slovak on-
line advertising market depends on its
stakeholders, such as internet-based me-
dia, advertising agencies and advertisers
themselves.
“While in the past we were all discover-
ing the opportunities online and many
things were new to us, we now have the
basic knowledge on which we can build,”
Holéczyová told The Slovak Spectator,
adding that this has brought more courage
to clients to experiment with non-tradi-
tional methods as well as a growing num-
ber of clients present in the online envir-
onment. “Nevertheless, when compared
with abroad, we still have much to learn
and the development itself [in Slovakia],
like in other sectors, is lagging behind by
some years.”
Most common online ads
Banner advertising remains the most
popular kind of online advertising in Slov-
akia. Of all spending on internet-based ad-
vertising on AIM members’ servers it ac-
counted for 52 percent, or €13.1 million.
Classifieds ads followed with 20 percent
(€5 million) and so-called search ads were
close behind with 16 percent (€4 million).
Compared with the previous year, lead-
generation advertising registered the most
significant increase, up by 439 percent, ac-
cording to AIM.
See AD pg 8
were connected by the first quarter of 2010 and the
country posted one of the EU’s most dramatic increases
in household internet connections between 2006 and
2010, according to data published by Eurostat, the
union’s statistics office, in mid December, as quoted by
the SITA newswire.
The number of Slovak households with access to the
internet more than doubled after 2006, when only 27
percent were online.
Internet penetration increased the fastest in Romania,
were domestic access tripled, from 14 percent of
households in 2006 to 42 percent in 2010. In Bulgaria
access spread from 17 to 33 percent of homes, and in the
Czech Republic from 29 to 61 percent. Slovaks, along with
Bulgarians, Lithuanians and Latvians, were among those
who most frequently used the internet to make
voice and video calls.
The Netherlands reported the highest proportion of
households with internet access, 91 percent, followed by
Luxembourg and Sweden, with 90 percent and 88
percent, respectively. The lowest share of households
connected was in Bulgaria (33 percent), followed by
Romania (42 percent) and Greece (46 percent).
During the first quarter of 2010, as many as 61 percent of
EU households had broadband internet connections,
meaning the proportion doubled compared with the first
quarter of 2009, when only 30 percent had broadband
connections. Sweden led the field in broadband
connections, with 83 percent, while Romania brought
up the rear with only 23 percent. In Slovakia, 49 percent
of households had broadband connections.
Compiled by Spectator staff
from press reports

Targeting online security
Slovaks are
conservative but
careless internet
users
BY JANA LIPTKÁKOVÁ
Spectator staff
ONLINE technology is
evolving at breakneck speed.
This brings not only sophist-
icated new services, smarter
ways of communication and
more opportunities to share
information, videos and pho-
tos with family and friends,
but also potential online
dangers and the need to de-
fend against them. The owner
of any computer now needs to
have, and regularly update,
anti-virus programs and be-
have in a responsible way
when putting information,
photos and videos on the web
or communicating with his or
her bank online. But although
the potential dangers of the
internet are quite well known,
Slovak users do not always be-
have in a responsible way and
do not take online security
seriously enough, say experts.
The experts report that
Slovaks underrate the security
risks that internet use may
pose for them. The level of
safety precautions the average
Slovak user applies is relat-
ively low and the passwords
they use are too simple and
easy to crack.
“Analyses which we en-
counter show regularly that
people in general are not care-
ful enough when on the in-
ternet and that Slovakia is not
an exception,” Roman Greguš,
manager for internal and ex-
ternal communications at in-
ternet provider Slovanet, told
The Slovak Spectator. “Slovaks
as well as other Slavic nations
are generally more trusting
and underestimate the im-
portance of a strong password.
They often use passwords
which can be guessed simply
or which can be broken using
a so-called dictionary attack.”
Paula Okaninová from Mi-
crosoft Slovakia agrees, say-
ing that passwords are often
created according to how easy
they are to remember – rather
than how secure they are.
Ivan Kvasnica from the
online IT daily zive.sk pointed
out to The Slovak Spectator
that internet users worldwide
are not very careful,
something which has been
demonstrated by checks by
well-known IT security com-
panies. At the end of 2010
hackers stole the passwords of
some 200,000 users of some
US portals, while the most
common passwords were
‘123456’, ‘password’ and
‘12345678’. Slovakia has its
own notorious example: a
hacker discovered in 2006 that
the National Security Office of
the Slovak Republic (NBÚ SR),
which is responsible for the
Experts stress the need for parental vigilance when children are online. Photo: Sme - T. Benedikovič
vetting and security clearance
of personnel appointed to
sensitive positions, was using
the password ‘nbusr123’ for its
own system.
The experts regard social
networks as representing a
special security issue.
“I think that few people
realise how much personal
data they give away on social
networks and how these de-
tails can be abused and
misused,” said Okaninová.
Greguš agrees, adding
that people often share sens-
itive information on social
networks, for example when
they are going on holiday.
This may be ideal informa-
tion for burglars, who can
use it to find out when
homes will be empty.
Moreover, according to
Kvasnica, it is possible to
find social network profiles
with photos and texts which
are left completely public by
users even though Facebook,
for example, provides relat-
ively effective security tools
to protect privacy.
Based on Microsoft
Slovakia’s experiences, Slov-
aks are not very cautious,
either.
“They are often surprised
how information, photos or
opinions which they publish
online can be abused,” said
Okaninová. “There still re-
mains a feeling of anonym-
ity, which is very deceptive.”
On the other hand, in
Greguš’s opinion, Slovaks are
also more conservative,
which may act as a kind of
protection.
Some experts regard as
careless the behaviour of
Slovak internet users when
communicating with their
banks online.
Kvasnica ascribes the
generally low level of aware-
ness of internet security to
low education and a lack of
promotion of the need for
higher security among in-
ternet users.
“Internet users often treat
the computer and the internet
as tools for which they do not
need to take care and follow
BUSINESS FOCUS
some rules,” said Kvasnica.
“They do not realise that they
risk not only the loss of data,
but during the current time of
social networks and payment
cards, also the loss of their
money and identity.”
According to Kvasnica,
Slovaks often lack even basic
awareness about security
risks on the internet. Normal
internet users who do not
work in the IT sector often
neglect to install a firewall or
anti-virus program, though
thanks to education and pro-
motion things are improving.
The situation is worse when it
comes to protection against
phishing, updating software
including the operating sys-
tem, and using precautions
against identity theft and ab-
use of data on social networks.
According to Kvasnica,
there is a lack of integrated
and mass education about se-
curity on the internet. He be-
lieves that in companies and
state administration this
should be the task of the ad-
ministrators of local net-
works. Smaller companies in
particular underestimate se-
curity but, as Kvasnica points
out, the consequences of
leaked or damaged sensitive
data could result in liquida-
tion. He said there are plenty
of security tools available for
the home internet user
which are free and of reason-
able quality.
Active attitude
from the IT sector
Some Slovak internet pro-
viders and IT companies, re-
cognising the low awareness
about online security, have
launched their own projects
to help clients. One of them,
internet provider Slovanet,
has been running a survey
among parents to assess their
knowledge about how to pro-
tect their children from on-
line dangers. After finding out
that only some parents know
what to do it has intensified
its activities in this area.
Slovanet, in cooperation
with the Association of
Private Schools and School Fa-
cilities in Slovakia, has been
conducting a survey among
parents of school children
aged up to 18 years. Its partial
results, revealed on January
25, showed that many parents
do not know how to protect
their children from online
dangers. More than 37 percent
of parents admitted that they
had caught their children
watching improper content
on the internet. Parents be-
lieve that various technical
measures could help, but they
often do not know how to ob-
tain or use them.
Teachers say it is import-
ant that parents demonstrate
an interest from a very early
age in what websites their
children are looking at and
keep their children’s online
behaviour in check.
“It is necessary not only to
protect children from inap-
propriate content, but also to
evaluate information they get
from the internet in a critical
way,” Saskia Repčíková, pres-
ident of the Association of
Private Schools and School Fa-
cilities in Slovakia, explained.
“Here school can be very
helpful.”
In response to the worry-
ing survey results Slovanet
has launched a service at
www.bezpecnyinternet.sk, a
free, advisory website with
the aim to raise people’s in-
terest in online security. Via
the advisory service parents
can pose internet security re-
lated questions to experts or
ask how to improve their
children’s online security.
“In general we assess
bezpecnyinternet.sk very pos-
itively, because it is meeting
its goal – to raise people’s in-
terest in online security,”
Greguš told The Slovak Spec-
tator. “This is still insufficient
and children, who do not real-
ise the dangers of the inter-
net, are often its victims. So
far more than 5,000 parents
have joined the survey and
the online advisory service is
also successful.”
See ONLINE pg 11
FOCUS shorts
Slovaks spend more online, more often
SLOVAKS shopped more of-
ten and spent more in e-
commerce in 2010 than a
year earlier. According to
data provided by online
shops cetelem.sk, hej.sk,
hop.sk, mall.sk, martinus.sk,
obchodny-dom.sk and
pelican.sk, all members of
the Slovak Association of
Electronic Commerce (SAEC),
they made and settled
586,000 orders between
them last year. Compared
with the previous year this
was an increase of 46 per-
cent. Sales via the e-shops
grew 17 percent to €76.36 mil-
lion, the SITA newswire re-
ported, citing SAEC data.
“The comparison of the
number of orders and the
turnover indicates that the
number of fans of online
shops is growing signific-
antly faster than the value of
goods and services bought,”
said SAEC executive director
Jozef Dvorský. This was also
reflected in the lower value
of the average order, which
decreased from €162.50 in
2009 to €130.42 in 2010.
Dvorský sees residual re-
straint stemming from the
financial and economic crisis
behind the behaviour of con-
sumers. In spite of this, he
All Slovaks to get broadband by 2013
THE SLOVAK cabinet on
March 2 adopted an updated
National Strategy for Broad-
band Internet Access in
Slovakia according to which
all Slovaks should have ac-
cess to a fast internet con-
nection by 2013, the TASR
newswire reported.
“The aim is to ensure
broadband internet access
with a connection speed of 1
Mbps for everybody by the
end of 2013 and to enable ac-
cess to high-speed internet
with a bit rate of 30 Mbps by
the end of 2020 for all people,
public administration [bod-
ies], the business sector and
the third sector,” reads the
document.
The previous strategy,
adopted in 2005, focused on
nationwide coverage of Slov-
akia with first-generation
broadband internet access.
Then, the speed for house-
holds was set at only 256
kbps with 2Mbps for the
eHealth system still not in sight
AN ELECTRONIC health care
system on which Slovakia
has spent tens of millions of
euros, still remains unreal-
ised. The project – in prepara-
tion since 2007 and intended
to introduce patient e-books,
a national health portal and
electronic prescription of
medicines – should have
started last year. The Health
Ministry has now halted the
project, known as eHealth,
March 7 – 13, 2011 7
described 2010 as having
been very successful.
In terms of goods pur-
chased, customers made
474,000 orders with a total
value of €37 million. In ser-
vices, turnover was €40 mil-
lion and orders numbered
112,000. Compared with 2009
this was an increase of 36.7
percent in turnover and 46.5
million in orders.
Consumers in Bratislava
Region placed almost one
quarter of all orders, while
the remaining regions were
each responsible for 10-12
percent of the total orders.
The types of payment
used remained relatively
similar. Compared with
2009, only the share for pay-
ment on collection increased
significantly, up by 4 percent
to 21 percent.
Cash on delivery re-
mained dominant, with cli-
ents using this payment
method for almost two thirds
of orders. Twelve percent
chose direct transfers to
sellers’ bank accounts. Cus-
tomers financed only 1.5 per-
cent of orders via instalment
purchase schemes, but this
method accounted for nearly
4 percent of the total online
shopping turnover.
commercial sector and pub-
lic administration. Thus the
new strategy envisions ex-
pansion of the network to al-
low higher connection
speeds, the SITA newswire
wrote.
The new strategy dis-
cussed the need to adjust ex-
isting regulation because the
high costs of creating the in-
frastructure for high-speed
internet access and the po-
tentially lower demand for
such services may otherwise
discourage providers from
investing in the necessary
infrastructure.
Out of the budget of the
Operational Programme for
the Information Society
(OPIS) €113 million is alloc-
ated for projects to build
broadband internet infra-
structure in regions with low
or insufficient infrastruc-
ture. A proposed OPIS revi-
sion increased this amount
to €160 million.
the Pravda daily wrote in
early March.
“During the last four
months the ministry has
audited and revised the ori-
ginal programme of imple-
mentation for eHealth and
prepared a new strategy,”
Health Ministry spokesper-
son Katarína Zollerová said.
Compiled by Spectator staff
from press reports
8 March 7 – 13, 2011 BUSINESS FOCUS

eGOV: New strategy seeks to reduce administrative steps

Continued from pg 6
He pointed out that
changes in other fields are
happening in much more dy-
namic ways, citing the fact
that internet banking has be-
come a commonplace part of
people’s lives in recent years.
“But it remains a large
problem for the state adminis-
tration to enable people to
communicate electronically,
even for very simple
applications,” said Sill. “I con-
sider this lagging on the part of
the state to be unacceptable.”
After the Radičová gov-
ernment took power last July it
prepared a document called
Revision of Building eGovern-
ment that was adopted by the
cabinet on February 2.
“I consider the strong in-
terest of Prime Minister Iveta
Radičová and also the new way
of adopting strategic decisions
to be a fundamental factor for
acceleration of eGovenment,”
Sill said, stating that the luke-
warm interest of previous
political players in pushing
eGovernment forward was the
main reason behind its slow
progress. He added that sup-
port of leading political figures
has been the key to success in
other EU countries.
“In countries where in-
formatisation was under the
direct guarantee of the prime
minister it progressed
quickly,” said Sill. “Today I can
luckily say that eGovernment
has received a very high prior-
ity. A Strategic Board for eGov-
ernment has been established
that is directly led by Prime
Minister Radičová at which all
the key ministries are present.
The primary aim of this board
is to accelerate the building of
eGovernment.”
Sill said he sees two main
reasons behind the ineffective
building of eGovernment in
Slovakia thus far: only draw-
ing a small proportion of the
available EU funds and
achieving low added value
from the projects that have
been undertaken.
“The first reason is very
low drawing of EU funds alloc-
ated for informatisation,” Sill
stated. “We passed the halfway
mark of the programming
period a long time ago but only
about 3 percent of the allocated
amount has been used so far.
The second reason lies in the
fact that the projects them-
PM Iveta Radičová Photo:TASR
selves were prepared with
little added value for citizens.
All of the efforts concentrated
on electronisation of already
existing administrative pro-
cesses without a real reduction
in the administrative burden.
This means that even if Slov-
akia drew EU funds faster we
would be not able to enjoy the
full potential of eGovernment.”
The total budget of the Op-
erational Programme for the
Information Society available
from EU funds and Slovakia’s
state budget for the years
2007-2013 is estimated at about
€1.2 billion, the SITA newswire
wrote. The programme has
four priority goals and eGov-
ernment, digitalisation of pub-
lic administration and the de-
velopment of electronic ser-
vices were budgeted to receive
€826 million.
The government proxy
noted that the biggest problem
in drawing EU funds has been a
heavy administrative burden,
but he added that Slovakia cre-
ated the administrative prob-
lems itself.
“A relatively small formal
shortcoming can mean spoil-
ing efforts in preparation of
projects that lasts many
months,” Sill stated, adding
that extensive bureaucracy
leads to very low effectiveness
when implementing the
projects. “Actually the whole
system of drawing funds is so
ineffective that it is ripe for
fundamental reform…. In this
matter we are preparing im-
provements which we will
publicly introduce in late
March. The essence of the im-
provements will be taken from
the experiences of countries
that have had high success in
drawing [EU] funds.”
The tortoise-like progress
in building eGovernment has
been sharply criticised by ex-
perts from the information and
communication technologies
(ICT) sector who had hoped
that IT projects for developing
eGovernment would help the
sector span the gap in new or-
ders from commercial custom-
ers during the economic crisis.
But the ICT sector also views a
higher degree of digitalisation
to be critical in development of
society as a whole. The IT As-
sociation of Slovakia (ITAS)
discussed the issue of eGov-
ernment at its general as-
sembly on March 1.
“We expect that this year
the government will fully start
the systematic building of
eGovernment,” said Juraj
Sabaka, president of ITAS.
“Several global companies are
pondering creation of some
thousands of jobs in the ICT
sector in Slovakia. One of the
important criteria when se-
lecting the target country is
undoubtedly also the degree of
informatisation. However,
Slovakia occupies the bottom
rankings in these terms. Thus
decisive steps by the govern-
ment are required in this re-
spect, but after eight months
this is still unclear.”
Actually, the current gov-
ernment halted many of the
projects within the eGovern-
ment area when it believed
they were too expensive or
were not achieving the expec-
ted benefits.
Sill stated that successfully
building eGovernment re-
quires clear task assignments
on the part of the state admin-
istration and then suppliers
should develop appropriate
solutions.
“So far, it was not com-
pletely like this and the mis-
take was especially on the part
of the state, which was not
able to formulate assignments
properly,” said Sill, adding that
this resulted in relatively ex-
pensive projects bringing little
benefit for citizens. “We have
changed this attitude. We have
formulated comprehensible
assignments as to actually
what eGovernment should ac-
complish. The answer is par-
ticularly a reduction of admin-
istrative steps for citizens and
businesspeople. Now we are
communicating with all in-
volved and searching for ways
to achieve this in the most ef-
fective way.”
To read the whole article.
please go to www.spectator.sk

AD: iPad could bring further change Slovak news sites

Continued from pg 6

Pizano sees the popularity of these first

two types of internet-based advertising as
stemming from their similarity to formats
used by other types of media, while the
third category is popular because an inter-
net search is one of the basic things that an
internet user does when finding
something on the internet.
With regards to determining which
type of internet advertising is most popular
in Slovakia Holéczyová notes that there is a
problem with how online advertising is
monitored here, raising questions about
how representative the collected data are.
She said that AIM only monitors Slovak
servers and misses some of the important
search and context advertising based on
other servers as well as various types of ad-
vertising embedded in communications
via fast-growing social networks such as
Facebook.
AIM started monitoring online ad-
vertising viewed in Slovakia on non-
member servers, including Google and
Facebook, at the beginning of 2011 so fu-
ture statistics should provide a more ac-
curate picture of online advertising here.
Holéczyová attributes the popularity of
banner advertising to its longer history as
well as to the fact that it is the most classic-
al form of internet advertisement, the one
that is most similar to traditional advert-
isements in other media. Advertisers can
provably hit much of the internet popula-
tion through banner campaigns and from
the viewpoint of the ratio of price to per-
formance it is very often one of the most ef-
fective ways to advertise, even though its
success often depends on the aims of the ad
campaign, Holéczyová said.
More opportunities available
Some business sectors discovered the
internet as a means for advertising several
years ago and now heavily use online ad-
vertising. Last year the telecommunica-
tions sector spent the most on online ad-
vertising (21 percent of the total), while the
financial and automotive industries used
the internet intensively for promotion, ac-
counting for 18 percent and 14 percent of
internet-based advertising respectively.
Various kinds of services, which included
real estate, educational and political ad-
vertising followed in fourth position, with
a 10-percent share. Online advertising of
food products was fifth, with 8 percent.
Both Pizano and Holéczyová see more
opportunities for online advertising to grow.
“The situation has been improving
each year and more and more companies
have been gradually discovering the ad-
vertising opportunities the internet has to
offer them,” said Holéczyová, adding that
it is difficult to say whether companies are
currently using all the available advert-
ising opportunities that the internet of-
fers. “A company’s use of the internet [for
advertising] stems from its preparedness
to enter this environment as well as the
preparedness of the internet market itself.
Here I have in mind internet media, [ad-
vertising] agencies as well as the market-
ing departments of the advertisers. The in-
ternet offers innumerable opportunities.
Many [companies] are aware of them and
they are beginning to take measures so
that they are able to promptly respond to
these opportunities.”
Pizano sees a great opportunity for fur-
ther growth in online advertising, specific-
ally for advertising via video, so-called rich
media.
“Companies will gradually move their
[advertising] investments from print to the
internet,” said Pizano. “Print has to cope
with this in various ways, for example via
use of new devices, for example tablets [e.g.
Apple iPad, Motorola Xoom, etc.]. This
trend is very fast in the world; in Slovakia it
is a bit slower but it is visible. It is question-
able when Slovakia will reach this breaking
point. This will likely happen only when
tablets became more widely affordable.”
The potential for more internet-based
advertising is very good, Pizano said, be-
cause of the constantly-growing number
of Slovaks who are regularly accessing the
internet.
“Each business sector has space for
growth, but especially the financial and
automotive industries, tourism and leis-
ure-time activities,” said Pizano. “This
stems from the financial possibilities of the
population but as well from the movement
of some services to the internet.”
Optimistic outlook for 2011
The internet market has been growing
dynamically and media, advertisers and
advertising agencies are responding quite
quickly to that development.
“We are uncovering new opportunit-
ies for the internet, new types of commu-
nications, social networks, possibilities
for measurement and so forth,” said
Holéczyová. “Thanks to this many special-
ised companies as well as many experts,
who were missing here some years ago,
have emerged. This means that while a
few years ago we only guessed how things
should be done, we have now gained some
experience. And based on this experience
the trust and enthusiasm of clients has
been growing.”
Holéczyová expects that develop-
ments in 2011 will be about increases in
investment into online advertising as
well as discovering new types of commu-
nications, experimenting with social
networks and more stringent require-
ments in terms of assessing the effective-
ness of individual ad campaigns. The driv-
ing force behind this is the growing ma-
turity of the Slovak market, more sophist-
icated clients and inspiration coming
from abroad, she added.
AIM estimated that online advertising
revenues would grow by about 15 percent
during the course of 2011.
“Such an increase would demonstrate
the stability of the online market,” said
Pizano. “But we do not expect any signi-
ficant changes in the individual types of
advertising. We also do not expect any re-
volutions. Slovak media will try new
devices more and more; a certain advance
may come when the iPad officially arrives
in Slovakia.”
to erect paywall
THE SLOVAK print media is
looking for ways to increase
its income and force readers
to pay for online content.
Now, various print outlets
are joining together under a
single umbrella, and readers
of Slovak news websites
could face a payment barrier
to access some content as
early as April, the Sme daily
wrote in early February. Un-
der this unique premium
content payment scheme,
known as Piano, a reader will
get access to parts of some
websites only after paying a
monthly or weekly charge.
“The Piano model will be
very similar to the model for
cable TV stations,” Tomáš
Bella from NextBig com-
pany, the head of the Piano
project, told the Hospodárske
Noviny financial daily. “For
one monthly payment you
will get access to a large
amount of content from
various competing media.
Simultaneously, a large por-
tion of the content, espe-
cially general news, will re-
main free.”
To begin with, readers
will pay only to use certain
services. Bella estimates
that 5-15 percent of internet
users will end up paying for
content. The monthly fee
should be €2.90 and the
weekly fee €0.90. Payment
methods will be extensive,
ranging from text messages,
bank cards and internet
banking to PayPal, and
charges could later be in-
cluded on invoices from in-
ternet service providers.
Bella also sees the Piano
scheme as a route to better
journalism.
Contrary to users of
Facebook, authors of texts at
news and media websites
expect payments from pub-
lishers when costs of content
at these websites are, in the
better case only a little smal-
ler than revenues from ad-
vertising.
“If people are not satis-
fied with the quality of Slov-
ak journalism, the reason is
not that the media do not
want to produce better-qual-
ity content, but they mostly
cannot afford to,” Sme
quoted Bella as saying. Bella
is a former editor-in-chief of
Sme.sk, the online version of
the Sme daily. He added that
without sharing costs for
production of the content
with readers an increase in
quality is impossible.
PC Revue and Trend
magazines have confirmed
to Sme that they intend to
join the scheme along with
Sme.sk. The dailies
Hospodárske Noviny, Pravda
and Nový Čas have also ex-
pressed interest in the idea.
Sme plans to put some of its
commentaries and part of its
tv.sme.sk content behind the
paywall. It is believed that
consumers who often take
part in online discussions
will also pay.
The project's website,
www.pianomedia.sk, is
already online and it is avail-
able in English as well.
By Jana Liptáková
 NEWS March 7 – 13, 2011 9
SUMMIT: Belarus crisis is discussed ADVERTISEMENT

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COUNT: Minorities seek info campaign Junior Controller

Continued from pg 3
Politicians who represent ethnic Hun-
garians have conceded that the number of
ethnic Hungarians counted in the 2011
census might decrease again and they have
started campaigns to inform ethnic Hun-
garians living in Slovakia about the census
and to encourage them to state their na-
tionality as Hungarian.
“I believe the concerns are
appropriate,” said Béla Bugár, the chair-
man of political party Most-Híd, as quoted
by SITA. “Natural assimilation is picking
up pace.”
Bugár also stated that he was worried
that a hostile approach towards minorities
that was taken by the previous government
of Robert Fico might negatively influence
the willingness of people to mark their na-
tionality as Hungarian on the census form.
Roma seek more information
The Council of Non-Governmental Or-
ganisations of Roma Communities
(RMORK) has stated that it believes the
scope of the public awareness campaign
leading up to the 2011 census is insuffi-
cient. Ladislav Richter, the head of
RMORK, complained that awareness in-
formation will not reach certain segregated
parts of the country that are home to many
Roma, the TASR newswire reported, and
that this might impact as many as 20,000
residents.
Richter also said that he was wor-
ried that the lack of a strong informa-
tion campaign will affect thousands of
other Roma who are integrated with
the majority population. They are
“worried of persecution and after ex-
periences with extremists in recent
years, or racist statements by several
Slovak politicians, they are considering
whether or not to admit their
nationality”, Richter stated, as quoted
by TASR.
He said that the lack of a proper in-
formation campaign could cause the
number of Roma counted in the census
to drop and added that this would result
in a permanent cut in funds, particu-
larly for Roma cultural programmes.
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C 3573
10 March 7 – 13, 2011 CULTURE

A Catholic island in Spiš Western SLOVAKIA

HISTORY TALKS
IN THE MIDDLE Ages, the territory of Slov-
akia was administered by two bishoprics:
Bratislava and Spiš. Alongside the bishoprics,
chapters operated as advisory bodies. The
chapters created special streets in towns or in
their residences (for instance, Kapitulská –
kapitula means chapter in Slovak – in Bratis-
lava, or Kanonicza – meaning Canonry –
Street in Krakow). The chapter’s buildings
and temples were often so numerous that in
some places they formed whole towns, as
happened in Spiš.
Today, Spišská Kapitula (The Spiš
Chapter) is part of the town of Spišské
Podhradie, but for most of its history it was an
independent municipality. It is interesting
that when Spišské Podhradie was forfeited to
Poland, Kapitula remained within Hungary.
Also, during the Reformation, Kapitula be-
haved independently from its neighbour.
While in Spišské Podhradie – as in other Spiš
towns – Protestantism set down firm roots, Podhradie shows how tense relations were
Kapitula remained one of the few islands of between devotees of both beliefs.
Catholicism in this region. The fact that town
councillors from Spišské Podhradie did not al- trance to the Kapitula complex.
low students from Kapitula’s secondary
school to lodge with families in Spišské
Bratislava
l BENEFIT CONCERT: Be– EVENTS COUNTRYWIDE
nefičný koncert pre Afriku /
Benefit Concert for Africa –
Raising money for the con-
struction of drinking-water
wells in Africa, this concert
includes performers like Ja-
nais, Križiaci, Metelica, Samo
Tomeček and Free Inna Cage,
and The Hope Gospel Singers,
with Natália Žembová as host.
Starts: March 8, 19:00; UPC,
Mlynská dolina. Admission:
voluntary contribution. Tel:
02/5564-0409; www.savio.sk.
Bratislava
l IRISH DANCE: Lord of the
Dance 2011 – The world-fam-
ous group founded by Michael DESIGN FACTORY, at Bottova 2 in Bratislava, is showing an ex-
Flatley has already been to hibition by US photographer Gordon Watkinson. Bauhaus
Slovakia, but its universal
twenty-21: An Ongoing Legacy shows the enduring heritage of
language is still enchanting
new audiences. the style that formed the beginnings of modern architecture.
Starts: March 11 and 12, Until March 27 visitors can admire his photographs on Mondays
19:00; SIBAMAC Arena, Prí- through Fridays between 10:00 and 18:00 and on weekends
kopova 6. Admission: €25 and between 13:00 and 18:00, for free. For more information, please
up. Tel: 02/4920-9890, 02/5293 call 02/5020-1717 or visit www.designfactory.sk. (Catalogue by
-3323; www.ticketportal.sk. Birkhäuser Verlag, Basel.)
Photo: Apartment House Weissenhof Estate, L. Mies van der Rohe,
Bratislava
1927, Stuttgart, Germany, Courtesy of Foto+Synthesis
l EXHIBITION: Čas na komiks
In this postcard from 1943, we see the en- / Time for Comics – This ex-
hibition shows Polish ‘rea- - výstava / Selection from conducted by Marián Vach
listic’ comic art and its strong Works - Exhibition – The and directed by Barbara
By Branislav Chovan influence on other media, and creme de la creme of four Klimo. It tells the tragic story
features work by Piotr Mach- artists: Marian Vida, Melita of a young Japanese woman
lajewski, Krzysztof Gawron- Gwerková, pottery maker falling in love with an Amer-

Dancers’ sweat baptises book kiewicz, Przemyslaw Truscin-

ON FEBRUARY 28 a new book Šoltýs, S. Daubnerová, M.
Sloboda objavovať tanec (The Bohuš, R. Milič, L. Bagin and
Freedom to Discover Dance) by V. Sadílek. Dancers and act-
Marta Poláková was ors led by Renáta Bubniaková
“baptised”, or ceremonially displayed an energetic cho-
launched, at Štúdio 12 in Jak- reography that culminated in
ubovo Square in Bratislava. the “baptism” of the book
Poláková, an influential cho- with the sweat produced by
reographer, took part, together the performers.
with the book’s reviewers As well as being a choreo-
Dagmar Hubová and Eva grapher, Poláková is a teach-
Gajdošová. The publication was er and movement analyst.
presented by Zuzana Hájková, She has made several re-
head of the Štúdio tanca in search visits abroad and co-
Banská Bystrica and the event operated with several
was hosted by actress Lucia renowned personalities of
Rózsa-Hurajová, the Theatre the dance world. She founded
Institute reported. and led the first post-revolu-
Štúdio 12 falls under the tion (i. e. post-1989) group of
Theatre Institute and part of professional dancers, known
the presentation was, unsur- as ‘a dato’, which concen-
prisingly, a dance improvisa- trated on contemporary
tion by M. Čaprdová, S. dance. Her recent work re-
Vlčeková, D. Raček, V. Benito flects her study of Laban’s
Dancers contributed their sweat to baptise a new book at Štúdio 12.
Weather updates and forecasts from across Slovakia
can now be found at www.spectator.sk.
analysis of movement. She
currently lectures in the
technique of contemporary
dance and improvisation at
the Academy of Performing
Arts in Bratislava.
Her book explores and
supports the development of
creative skills through dance
improvisation and is the first
work of its kind in Slovakia,
Hubová wrote. It is for both
dancers and for dance teach-
ers. The author tried to pin-
point and communicate the
essence of the creative pro-
cess in dance, Gajdošová
wrote in her book review.
The book’s presentation
was one in a series of events
that the Theatre Institute has
prepared to celebrate its 50th
anniversary.
Compiled by Spectator staff
Photo: Courtesy of TI (DI)
ski and several others.
Open: Mon-Thurs 10:00
Gabriela Vidová and photo-
grapher Tomas Morilon.
Open: daily 10:00-19:00 un-
ican and finding the clash of
cultures impossible to over-
come.
-17:00, Fri 9:00-15:00 until til March 20; City Café Gallery Starts: March 11 and 12,
March 18; Polish Institute, in City Gate Passage (Lau- 18:30; State Opera, Národná 11.
SNP Square 27. Admission: rinská Street). Admission: free. Admission: €8. Tel: 048/2457-
free. Tel: 02/5443-2014; www. More info: www.citylife. sk. 120; www.stateopera.sk.
polinst.sk.
Galanta Banská Bystrica
Bratislava l EXHIBITION: Galantská l EXHIBITION: Veronika
l PHOTO EXHIBITION: Jazz & paleta 2011 / Galanta Palette - Šramatyová - Hard Work/
Blues – Slovak photographer This exhibition of local club Clean Work – Solo exhibition
Zdenko Hanout shows his amateur artists' works has by a Slovak neo-conceptual
photographs portraying mu- now entered its ninth year. artist who uses a hyper-real-
sic personalities like B. B. Open: Tue-Fri 8:00-16:00, istic approach presents the
King, Al Green, Bobby McFer- Sat-Sun 13:00-17:00 until last decade of her work.
rin, James Morrison, Maceo March 13; Renesančný kaštieľ. Open: Tue-Sun 10:00-16:00
Parker, and others. Admission: free. Tel: 031/7804 until March 13; Stredoslo-
Open: one hour before -731; www.galanta.sk. venská galéria, Bethlenov
each performance, usually at dom, Dolná 8. Admission:
18:00, until March 25; foyer of Central SLOVAKIA €0.50-€1.50. Tel: 048/4701-615;
the Divadlo Malá scéna STU, www.ssgbb.sk.
Dostojevského rad 7. Admis- Banská Bystrica
sion: free. Tel: 02/2042-0014; l OPERA: Madama Butterfly Eastern SLOVAKIA
www.malascena.sk. – The premiere of one of the
most famous operas, Giacomo Poprad
Bratislava Puccini’s three-act drama in l SKI CUP: Pohár primátora
l EXHIBITION: Výber z tvorby Italian, here produced and Vysokých Tatier v obrovskom
slalome / The Mayor of High
Tatras’ Cup in Giant Slalom –
The third and final round of
this race between High Tatras
elementary school pupils.
Starts: March 9, 9:00; Ta-
transká Lomnica-Čučoriedky.
Admission: free. More info:
www.popradtatry.sk.
Prešov
l EXHIBITION: XI. Krosni-
anske bienále umenia (Kros-
niansky salón) / XIth Krosno
Artistic Biennale – This gener-
al view of current Polish art,
including paintings, statues,
photographs and installa-
tions, has been exchanged
with the BWA Gallery in
THE CURRENT exhibition by Michal Jakabčic and Viera Krosno (Poland).
Žilinčanová, both key representatives of Slovak art, called Os- Open: weekdays 9:00-
trovy imaginácie / Islands of Imagination and collected from 17:00, weekends 14:30-18:30
eight galleries and three private owners can be seen at the M.A.
until March 27; Šarišská
galéria, Hlavná 51. Admission:
Bazovský Gallery, Palackého 27 in Trenčín, Tuesdays through €0.50-€1. Tel: 051/7725-423;
Sundays from 9:00 to 17:00, until April 3, for €1.30. For more in- www.museum.sk.
formation, please call 032/7436-858 or visit www.gmab.sk.
Photo: Courtesy of GMAB By Zuzana Vilikovská
N A M E D A Y M A R C H 2 0 1 1
Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday
TomበAlan Franti‰ka Branislav Angela Gregor Vlastimil
Alana Bruno Angelika
March 7 March 8 March 9 March 10 March 11 March 12 March 13

A Slovak’s name day (meniny) is as important as his or her birthday. It is traditional to present friends or co-workers with a small gift,
In cooperation with the Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute such as chocolates or flowers, and to wish them Všetko najlepšie k meninám (Happy name day)
 CULTURE / BUSINESS FOCUS March 7 – 13, 2011 11

Bratislava City Gallery Puppeteers seek adult audiences

BANSKÁ Bystrica’s Bábkové
divadlo na Rázcestí (Puppet
Theatre at the Crossroads)
exhibitions installed in
Banská Bystrica’s biggest
shopping centre, screenings

celebrates 50 years has launched a campaign,

Divadlo dospelým! (Theatre
to Adults!), to promote pup-
pet theatre among adults and
not just children.
The head of the theatre’s
A second production and marketing
Galandovci department, Róbert Špoták,
told the SITA newswire that
exhibition shows the campaign will last until
the group’s art the end of June and will
bring various unconven-
from 1969 to 1989 tional, innovative activities
intended to stimulate in-
terest in the performing arts
BY ZUZANA VILIKOVSKÁ and culture.
Spectator staff These include various
of videos, performances in a
big tent, creative workshops
and an open-doors day on
April 1. The campaign started
on February 15 with the sta-
ging of Milenky (Mistresses)
by Austrian Nobel laureate
Elfriede Jelinek. Puppeteers
from Banská Bystrica staged
the play as part of the project
www.ruzovyamodrysvet.sk,
which focuses on making the
public more sensitive to
gender issues.
Compiled by Spectator staff
from press reports

AFTER THE great success of

last year’s exhibition
Galandovci, Legends of Slovak
ONLINE: Parental
Modern Art, the Bratislava
City Gallery has organised a
follow-up exhibition of the
vigilance urged
works of this loose grouping of Continued from pg 7 The Slovak Spectator. “It has
artists covering the years raised interest not only
from 1969 to 1989. It will re- Apart from parents among children, but also par-
main open until April 3. Visit- Slovanet has also involved ents and especially teachers.”
ors to the gallery’s Mirbachov teachers, who can also sig- Microsoft Slovakia began
Palace in Františkánske nificantly influence the be- the project in 2008. As well as
Square can follow the avant- haviour of children using the website it also regularly
garde group’s artistic Vladimír Kompánek's Rajecké humná. Photo: Courtesy of the GMB the internet. organises events at which it
struggles after they were pro- Slovanet also offers a se- attempts to draw more atten-
hibited from exhibiting and space to members of the group Bratislava as it was prepared USA that will open in March; curity product which filters tion to online security. It or-
promoting their work by the who had died earlier. specifically for the space in and a display of artworks from websites that are inappropri- ganises roundtables as well as
Communist regime. Moreover, the curators said the Bratislava City Gallery. the gallery’s web-art project ate for children using criteria interactive workshops at
The first period of their the group’s work did not (www.webumenia.sk) com- set by parents. which it addresses contem-
work from 1957 to 1968 was change substantially after GMB celebrates ing up in June. Microsoft, another com- porary topics such as social
featured in the 2010 exhibi- 1989 so the current exhibition In July the gallery will pany active in increasing on- networks, according to
tion and examined the artists’ provides a comprehensive The Bratislava City Gallery publish a special book mark- line security in Slovakia, has Okaninová.
works based on the common overview of their artworks was separated from its previ- ing its 50th anniversary de- responded with its project Microsoft Slovakia wants
principles in their Manifesto and their meaning for 20th- ous association with the Na- scribing its history and cur- Child Online Safety (Bezpečne to continue its interactive
as well as their shared values century Slovak art. tional Homeland Office, rent initiatives. September na internete). As part of it, project this year as well.
and artistic perceptions, The exhibition opened on which oversaw four historical will bring an exhibition en- Microsoft Slovakia operates “There are a number of
Zsófia Kiss-Szemán, curator at February 11, 2011, but and cultural centres (the city titled the “50th Anniversary of the website www.bezpecnena online dangers with which it
the gallery, told The Slovak Kompánek, a leading member museum, the regional library, the City Gallery Bratislava” of- internete.sk, on which it pub- is necessary to be
Spectator. From their first of the group, died on January the conservation centre as fering its famous and less- lishes information, tips and acquainted,” said Okaninová.
joint exhibition in Žilina in 20. The exhibit’s concept and well as the city gallery), on famous works in the Pálffy instructions on how to cope “Since the internet is con-
1957 to their last in Berlin in final form could not be January 1, 1961. It moved to Palace, followed by a sym- with online threats and use stantly developing, it is very
1968, the group – named after changed but invitations to the its current location, the posium marking the an- the internet safely. likely that we can expect a
the already deceased painter exhibition’s opening and the Mirbach Palace, named after niversary in October. In “The project Child Online new phenomenon which will
Mikuláš Galanda – worked and catalogue were updated to in- its last owner, in 1975. It is November a postage stamp Safety has met with a great require us to be prepared and
exhibited together, mutually clude information about the thought a wooden house featuring Christoph Murer’s response,” Okaninová told armed with information.”
influencing and creating a co- artist’s death. The exhibition stood on the site of the palace Portrait of Ján Sambuco from
herent artistic vision. Kiss- has now become a tribute to as early as 1459, but the build- 1587 will be released.
Szemán said they can be con- the artist. ing acquired its current form The gallery’s other current
sidered the Slovak neo-avant- The Galandovci, although between 1768 and 1770, when exhibitions include Classic
garde even though this term is they came together in the brewer Michael Spech com- Modern Art from France.
usually perceived more in a second half of the 1950s, missioned the present rococo Kiss-Szemán noted that for-
global or central European looked to history in the sense structure. After World War II, eign cultural institutes and
context. The group consisted that they took Galanda as their the palace became state- embassies are a huge help to
of Andrej Barčík, Anton Čutek, symbolic model even though owned and subsequently the gallery in arranging and
Vladimír Kompánek, Rudolf he had died in 1938, and also housed the city gallery. Brat- exchanging works of art. The
Krivoš, Milan Laluha, Milan concentrated deliberately and islava City Gallery has anoth- gallery's permanent exhibits
Paštéka, Andrej Rudavský, explicitly on Slovak and er venue, the Pálffy Palace, represent a general survey of
Ivan Štubňa and Pavol Tóth. Slavonic national, rural and whose origins date back to the Slovak art over the course of
Kiss-Szemán said the cur- traditional motifs. 1st century AD. The building’s centuries. Though some ex-
rent exhibition should not be Nevertheless, the last private owner was Count hibitions have labels as well
viewed as a sequel but rather Galandovci were progressive János Pálffy, an art lover and as informative publications in
as a continuation of the and innovative in their artist- patron. The building later English, this is not uniformly
group’s activities after they ic perceptions and tech- passed into public owner- the case. More information
were banned from exhibiting niques, Kiss-Szemán said, ship and was most recently can be found at www.gmb.sk,
and working together as a adding that as many of the reconstructed in 1987 to ex- which includes English text. Online activities are fun but require supervision. Photo: TASR
group, forcing them to create artists lived and worked until hibit artworks from the Brat-
individually and to go in the end of the 20th century, islava City Gallery’s collec- ADVERTISEMENT
somewhat different direc- and some remain active even tions. Both buildings offer a
tions. Kiss-Szemán said 1989 now, it can rightly be said that dignified environment to
was chosen as the ending their work spanned nearly an display historical and mod-
milestone because of space entire century. ern works of art.
limits within the gallery and The curator stressed that This year marks the
also because soon after 1989 what makes the current show gallery’s 50th anniversary and
some members of the group so valuable and unique is the a series of special events will
died while others reduced fact that the exhibited works commemorate the golden ju-
their creative activities. Kiss- have been laboriously bilee, such as the exhibition
Szemán and her co-curator gathered primarily (70 per- “50 Masterpiece Prints from
Jan Kukal thought this would cent) from private collectors the Collection of the Bratis-
be the best way to present an so it is unlikely that an exhibi- lava City Gallery”; Viktor
accurate proportion of each tion like it will occur in a sim- Tilgner’s Bust of Josef Pollak,
artist’s works, believing it ilar form in the future. The a donation from Nathaniel
would not be fair to give less exhibition will not travel from and Megan Udell from the
SP90474/1
12 March 7 – 13, 2011
Prešov bakes 145kg
Valentine cake
THE FOURTH
1
year of a popu-
lar event for res-
idents of
Prešov, in east-
ern Slovakia, took place on
Valentine’s Day in front of the
municipal building.
Prešov – láska moja
(Prešov – My Love) culminated
at 16:00 with a giant cake, 2
metres by 2 metres and weigh-
ing 145 kilograms, being cut by
Mayor Pavol Hagyari and be-
ing heartily enjoyed by resid-
ents and visitors, Veronika
Gazdová, the city’s spokesper-
son, told the SITA newswire,
adding that everyone who
wanted to celebrate the “day
of love and people in love”
could get a piece of cake.
The mother of all Valentine cakes.
Tile makers revive
an old tradition
THERE WAS
2
rarely a house
in Nitrianske
Pravno that did
not produce
home heating with a tiled
stove or fireplace in years
past. This town in the
Hornonitrie (Upper Nitra)
region was a centre of stove-
making and tile production
with a 500-year tradition,
Rastislav Vlnieška, a repres-
entative of the Vekaterm
company, told the TASR
newswire.
Vekaterm revived this
tradition in the municipal-
ity 20 years ago as many
people began to buy old
houses in Nitrianske
Pravno, sometimes as week-
end cottages. They were re-
luctant to demolish the old,
AROUND SLOVAKIA compiled by Zuzana Vilikovská from press reports
Baking the cake required
367 eggs, 23 kilograms of
flour, 24 kilograms of sugar, 9
kilograms of grated coconut,
8 kilograms of marmalade, 32
pieces of Hera baking fat, 1.3
litres of rum, 24 litres of milk,
and large pinches of various
other ingredients.
The accompanying pro-
gramme included perform-
ances by Tomáš Palonder
and Barbora Švidraňová as
well as a new twist – a for-
tune teller who forecast the
future for all enamoured
couples in the crowd. The
city also supported
Valentínska kvapka krvi
(Valentine’s Drop of Blood), a
blood donation drive held
throughout Slovakia.
Photo: SITA
traditional stoves when
they were reconstructing
their homes but since many
stoves had damaged or miss-
ing tiles Vekaterm began to
make new tiles using old
technologies. The company
used historical designs and
sometimes it created new,
modern designs.
Currently, the company
produces about seven or
eight types of tiles and 50 to
90 tiles are needed to cover
one heating stove. Some
ceramic tiles, which had to
be mass-produced due to
enormous demand, are pre-
pared in plaster moulds and
then dried in electric stoves.
The company directly em-
ploys 30 people and also gives
work to 80 more tile crafts-
men across Slovakia.
FEATURE
The High Tatras as they appeared in an early 20th-century postcard.
Skiing in Slovakia marks
a racing centenary
SKIING in
3
Slovakia’s High
Tatras marked a
centenary on
February 4 as
the first ski race with interna-
tional participants was held
on January 4 and 5, 1911. The
organiser was Dr Michal Guhr
and competitors were asked
to pay fees equivalent to two
to four crowns to participate.
Skiers competed in several
categories such as cross-
country skiing and ski jump-
ing, with the best jumpers re-
ported to have reached a dis-
tance of only about 9.5 metres
off an improvised ski jump.
Modern skiing began in
Norway, which is seen as the
homeland of the Nordic ski
disciplines. Fans of the snow
in the Kristiania region of
Norway initiated cross-coun-
try skiing as well as ski jump-
ing. They also pioneered
“schuss boom” – straight and
fast downhill runs that usu-
Bratislava Zoo welcomes first
new jaguar cubs since 2000
BRATISLAVA
4 Zoo officially
welcomed two
jaguar cubs on
February 3 after
they successfully passed their
one-month veterinary exam-
ination, the TASR newswire
wrote.
The female cubs, named
Mayra and Iazua, were born
on December 23 and 27, 2010,
respectively to parents Laima,
aged three, and Boris, aged six.
They have been pronounced
fit and are the first jaguars to
be born at Bratislava Zoo since
their grandmother's birth
there in 2000.
Zoo officials said Laima,
who gave birth for the first
ally finished with a fall, con-
trolled or not. A crucial ad-
vance in skiing technique
came from the Telemark re-
gion which mastered the pro-
cess of turning on skis that
became known as telemark or
later “kristiánka”.
From among all the early
ski enthusiasts who helped to
improve ski techniques, Aus-
trian ski instructor Matthias
Zdarsky is recognised as the
creator of the technique often
called snowploughing, the
TASR newswire wrote.
Historical records indic-
ate that skis were first used
within the territory of Slov-
akia in 1865, when they were
brought by pharmacist Karol
Cornides after his travels
through Norway. Another
significant Slovak ski pro-
moter was Dr Mikuláš
Szontag who skied down
Slavkovský štít in 1873. Cap-
tain Kamil Lersch began
training soldiers on skis in
time, mastered it all per-
fectly and has been a devoted
mother since the first day,
adding that, as is typical for
jaguars, she aggressively de-
fended her offspring, not
permitting zoo-keepers near
the cubs for the first month
after their birth.
At the beginning of Feb-
ruary the young jaguars
were old enough to be ex-
amined, to receive their first
vaccination, to get identific-
ation chips, be weighed and
have their gender determ-
ined. Miloslava Šavelová, the
head of Bratislava Zoo, per-
mitted photographers to re-
cord these procedures, TASR
reported.
Photo: Sme-J. Krošlák
military garrisons in
Kežmarok and Levoča in the
High Tatras as early as 1876
and it is reported that Count
Andrássy of Humenné began
using skis on his lands in the
region of Vihorlat in 1882.
Count Hohenlohe also
equipped foresters working
on his properties with skis
imported from Norway as
early as 1895.
J. Strižka from Liptovský
Svätý Mikuláš was the first
producer of skis in Slovakia
and made them based on
Norwegian designs beginning
in 1887.
Sources cited by TASR in
preparing its history of skiing
in Slovakia included: Dejiny
lyžovania na Slovensku
1860-1944, 1st edition, Poprad,
1997, by J. Terezčák and
Lyžovanie; učebné texty pre
študentov tel. výchovy, by B.
Paugschová; as well as the
websites www.muzeum.sk
and www.wintersport.sk.
Mayra and Iazua
Battle
museum
to open
THE TOWN
5
council of
Vavrišovo in
the Liptov re-
gion has taken
the remaining formal steps
to open its recently con-
structed museum. It com-
memorates a battle
between imperial armies
and rebels at the town in
1709. The museum building,
with a dominant viewing
tower, was formally opened
on October 29 last year but
the public has been waiting
since then for it to be fully
accessible.
“We want to advance as
soon as possible and launch
its regular operation this
spring but this depends on
solving the necessary, inev-
itable administrative is-
sues," mayor Ľubomír
Račko told the TASR news-
wire, stating that the stat-
ute of the museum ap-
proved by the town council
must also get approval from
Slovakia’s Culture Ministry
and it must be entered in
the central list of museums
and galleries.
The Museum of the
Battle near Vavrišovo is
supported by €450,000 from
the European Fund for Re-
gional Development. In the
last two years, local history
enthusiasts have organised
two major re-enactments of
the battle.
The mayor said that if
funds are available the town
would like to repeat the re-
enactment. Many exhibits
are already in place, includ-
ing period arms, uniforms,
and designs of field fortific-
ations and military camps.
Photo: TASR