Archive of articles - October 1997

Soprano soliloquy - Chatting with an opera star

At 29, soprano singer Ľubica Vargicová is one of the brightest lights on the contemporary Slovak opera stage. At a corner table at Bratislava's Gremium Café, she spoke with Katarina Boďová for The Slovak Spectator.When did you get your first break as an opera singer?"After I finished music school, I applied to university to study under a teacher I admired very much, Professor Hudecová. But she had too many students and couldn't take me, so I decided to wait for a year and apply to her again. And it was during that year that I won a scholarship and got a chance to sing small parts on the opera stage in Bratislava. This early experience gave me my first taste of the atmosphere on a real stage, and a chance to face a real opera audience. By my third year of university I had already sung a lead role."

Slovak exports up 13.2% p.a.

Slovakofarma issues new stock

1997 foreign trade turnover reached 428.19 bn Sk

ST's privatization on hold until maybe '98

The privatization of Slovakia's state-owned telecommunications company, Slovenské Telekomunikácie (ST), has begun to resemble a hare-and-tortoise affair. The hares, led by foreign investors and officials from ST and the Slovak Ministry of Transport, Post and Telecommunications (MDPT) are growing increasingly restive with postponements of the main event. Government tortoises, meanwhile, have yet to show up for the race."I don't see it happening this year, especially as we are already at the end of September," said ST spokesman Lubomír Štancel. "We should have been a 100 percent joint stock company by the end of last year, [but] the government has [yet] to decide."Peter Haluš, general director of the telecommunications section at MDPT, concurred, saying that since "the minimum time needed just to choose a strategic partner is six months," there was little likelihood that ST could be privatized before the summer of 1998. "It's already a critical time," he said.

A cultural icon still stands

Kostolany pod TribečomJust as the last trace of Nitra fades in the distance heading east on E571 toward the rest of the country and the hills start to tightly ripple, the castle ruins at Jelenec appear. At first glance, the road seems to cut alone through the fields with the castle and small town underneath it unattainable. Who would know that the little settlement underneath would be home to Slovakia's oldest standing church.Kostoľany pod Tribečom is a village not unlike any other you would find in western Slovakia: quiet, hard working people busy about their chores, chickens and geese on the road, and a church on a hill. Sv. Juraj (St. George's) Church dates back to the 10th century. There are three naves painted a faint brown on the outside. The wooden doors are sometimes open, which means an energetic old man, the caretaker, is somewhere near. If not, a sign hanging on the door will tell the visitor to track down the church's priest at his home to ask for the key.

The Hague duel: Vote highlights

14:1, that Hungary was not entitled to suspend and subsequently abandon, in 1989, the works on the Nagymaros Project and on the part of the Gabčíkovo Project for which the Treaty of 16 September 1977 and related instruments attributed responsibility to it;9:6, that Czechoslovakia was entitled to proceed, in November 1991, to the "provisional solution" as described in the terms of the Special Agreement;

Do everything at the office - or anywhere - with the Nokia 9000 Communicator

It was only a matter of time before important technologies provided by the cellular telephone, electronic organizer, the Internet, and fax were merged into one unit. Catering to that businessperson forever on the go is a product that unites all these functions - the Nokia 9000 Communicator.A long-time innovator of telecommunication products, Nokia has squashed telecom networks that require some form of keypad for input and a display for output into a hand-held unit that fits into a jacket pocket.At first glance, the Nokia 9000 Communicator just looks like a regular cellular phone. In some ways that's true, as the product is a full-featured GSM and PCN phone with the same data functionality as the Nokia 2110 digital cellular phones.

Get in on the secret: Afrodita in Partizánske is fantastic

Where do we begin to try to describe this restaurant? Probably the best place is first to apologize for keeping this secret to ourselves for such a long time. We have agonized over whether to publicize this jewel, and have finally decided it really is our responsibility to share this fantastic place with you.So what makes this such a special find? After all, there are some delightful restaurants in Bratislava, and this gastronomic oasis is 140 kilometers away. Why should we encourage you to take this drive? Simply, it is a combination of the people, the food, and the service. With a little improvement in the ambience, and an upgrading of the table settings, this would be, without a doubt, a world class establishment.As it is, there is little to criticize and everything to commend. The owners are Juraj Halmo, your host, and Marián Filo, the chef extraodinaire.

Public radio station plans layoffs as it restructures

Slovakia's state-run radio station, Slovenský Rozhlas, is embarking on a major restructuring of its organization that will result in layoffs of at least 100 of its staff in the station's technical department, a top representative at the station told The Slovak Spectator.According to Vladimir Holan, Slovenský Rozhlas's deputy director and program manager, the station's directors are making recommendations to their supervisory committee, the Council for Radio Broadcasting, involving program restructuring and major outlays for administrative and technical equipment.Holan contends that these changes are necessary to bring Slovenský Rozhlas up-to-date. "It is clear that these changes are a question of survival," he said.

Letter to the Editor: Have foreigners help with green cards; Don't disobey Austrian laws

Case closed: Gaulieder out

"The Prime Minister's party and its allies have made an historic decision, whether they know it or not. They have chosen raw power...and ended the rule of law in Slovakia."U.S. Senator Alfonse D'Amato, Chairman of U.S. OSCE Commission Ignoring the Constitutional Court's verdict, deputies from the ruling coalition voted on September 30 not to let their ex-colleague František Gaulieder reassume his seat, prompting pan-European bodies to recommend dropping Slovakia completely from the list of countries being considered for accession to the European Union.Out of 147 deputies, 68 voted in favor of Gaulieder's comeback, 42 voted against, 33 abstained and four, including Parliament Speaker Ivan Gašparovič, didn't vote.The special session was repeatedly requested by opposition MPs who insisted Gaulieder's absence from the chamber was unconstitutional.

Introducing the Multimedia

Internet - the global computer network, the network of networks, is made up of more than 16 million host computers with more than 50 million users worldwide. According to some prognoses, every computer will be hooked up to the Internet by 2005. The cause of the Internet's increasing popularity is its accessibility to everybody. This represents an enormous number of potential customers who can use various services offered by this network: electronic mail (e-mail), World Wide Web (WWW), communication via the Internet (TALK, IRC, CHAT), File Transfer Protocol (FTP) or electronic conferences (Netnews, Usenet).

Stock market has short-term growth potential but little for long-term

It was a quiet mood on the BSE floor again over the last two weeks, with thin trading and high volatility resulting from it.Over the past four weeks, the SAX index reached a high of 181.29 points and a low of 169.41 points. On October 3, the index closed at 176.39, down 0.9 percent since the beginning of the year. However, in dollar terms, the decrease is 6.7 percent, which means that a foreign portfolio investor investing in the SAX would lose 6.7 cents out of each invested dollar.By comparison, the Hungarian stock index BUX would bring a 53.5 percent return on investment in dollar terms, the Polish WIG would bring a 2.6 percent return, while the Czech PX-50 fell by 17.6 percent in dollar terms. The biggest growth of all was achieved on the Russian stock market, whose MT-50 stock index jumped 193.7 percent in dollar terms since the beginning of 1997.

Slovak cement producers lured home by construction boom

After several years of struggling to survive by competing on the export markets of Germany and Austria, Slovakia's leading cement producers are now turning their attention back to the growing domestic construction market, according to a report in the Slovak business paper Trend.When construction in Slovakia suddenly stalled following the fall of Communism in 1989, Slovak cement producers decided that their fate for the near future depended on accessing foreign markets. But since these faltering companies did not have the resources to compete in western Europe, they started to be privatized in 1992 - some to foreign investors.An 84 percent stake in the biggest Slovak cement producer, Hirocem in Rohožník, was acquired by Holderbank Financiere Glarus - the world's largest cement producer with more than 75 cement plants in 45 countries - which also bought 97 percent of Stredoslovenské Cementárne in Banská Bystrica.

Opera lives on in Bratislava

For anyone tired of hearing about Slovakia's economic woes or political troubles with the European Union, Hviezdoslavovo Námestie in Bratislava is the home of one of the best venues in the country for music of a more uplifting strain."This season's offerings give you an idea of the power of Slovakia's opera tradition," said Vladimír Zvara, art director at the Opera of the Slovak National Theater. "Opera-goers will have an enormous range of pieces to choose from."The stars on and behind the stageThe opera staging teams at the Slovak National Theater (SND) in Bratislava consist of graduates of the Academy of Dramatic Arts and Music in Bratislava, in addition to experienced artists. Performance directors include Miroslav Fischer, SND's general director, and Ondrej Lenárd, the opera director."Lenárd is the greatest conducting personality in Slovakia," Zvara said. "He's a big draw for the opera, and this year has prepared a very dramatic performance of Puccini's Tosca. He really sets our musical profile."

Letter to the Editor

Around Slovakia

Slovakia's "beard-winner" has 43 cm long facial hairMovie theater faces dinosaur fate

Cultural happenings around Slovakia

International Court of Justice rules that Slovakia, Hungary must abide by the 1977 treaty and negotiate the completion of the hydroelectric project on the Danube River.The two-decade-long saga of the Gabčíkovo-Nagymaros waterworks had its closing chapter on September 25 when the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled that Hungary was not entitled to suspend and subsequently abandon its building of a hydroelectric plant on its side of the border.By saying that the September 16, 1977 treaty that established the project remains in force, the Court vindicated the heart of Slovakia's argument, which was that its southern neighbor broke an existing agreement to cooperate on the project, said Peter Tomka, Slovakia's chief legal counsel before the Court.