Archive of articles - May 2000

Top Pick: International Children's Day

On Saturday, June 3, the streets of Bratislava's Old Town will be the source of amusement for both small children as well as the bigger ones. International bands, Slovak artists and children's performances will assure a day full of fun on International Children's Day. The Old Town centre will belong to the kids from the beginning of the day as plenty of attractions will be held, including a LEGO football show and table football matches played in an inflatable stadium on Hviezdoslavovo námestie, starting at 10:00.At 14:00 participants of the International Water Sprite Festival from all around Slovakia and abroad will gather on the Danube at the Hydrofoil port near the National Museum. At 14:30, the parade will pass Námestie Ľ. Štúra and head to Hlavné námestie.

Info law to give free access

The Slovak parliament approved a new Freedom of Information law during its regular session on May 17. The basic principle of the law, which will take effect on January 2001, is explained by the slogan of the information campaign which preceded the legislation's approval: Čo nie je tajné, je verejné (What isn't secret is public).The law will secure the public's right to access information on state bodies, regional governments and other public entities. Information which is explicitly off-limits or circumscribed by other laws will be declared confidential, as will personal information on private citizens. The law also sets the procedures for applying for requested information.

Slovak jazz singer wins over Prague

PRAGUE - While female jazz vocalists who can sing are not uncommon, few can really kick it. Miriam Bayle is one the few - watching her sing on a dusty stage in one of Prague's tiny underground, cellar-like jazz clubs will stand out in the memory of any jazz aficionado for many a show to come.Bayle's musical career began in the unlikely locale of northern Slovakia's Liptovský Mikuláš, where the 24-year-old was born to a family with little musical background. But she began listening to jazz legends at an early age and formed her first band at 15. "Although I like all good music, it's always been jazz that most interested me," she says in her low and intoxicatingly smooth satin voice.That voice led her from her home town four months ago to follow her heart by attempting to establish herself as a jazz singer in Prague. She had little money and no friends there, she says, but she still made up her mind to chance it. Two days later Bayle found herself in the Czech capital searching for gigs by simply walking up to respected local musicians and asking to sing with them.

Community Calendar

International Women's Club in BratislavaAustrian EmbassyHotel TatraEnglish-language church service

Change afoot at Slovak universities

It's midday on a school morning, but only one of the six massive doors at Comenius Unversity's Law Faculty is unlocked. Students queue patiently and squeeze through the narrow aperture; for them, it's not unusual to find their entrance to the building restricted even by chains.But across town, Slovakia's Education Ministry is getting ready to throw open many more doors to the country's university students. Cloaked in scaffolding and undergoing a much-needed facelift, the ministry in early May tabled a 35-page proposal that would make the Slovak higher education system compatible with those of western countries - including three-year bachelor degrees, credit-based programmes and fee-paying students.

Review: Gothic art exhibition falls short

An exhibition of gothic art from the 15th and 16th centuries opened on May 21 at Mestské múzeum (City Museum) in Bratislava. Running until September, the small collection backs up the museum's permanent collection of city artifacts during the busy summer months.Although the title of the exhibit includes the words 'gothic art', a more suitable replacement might be 'Gothic objects'. The exhibition's five rooms include around 20 sculptures, mostly Christ figures, but only two paintings and far more books, bowls, basins, oven tools, keys, and other items designed more with utility in mind than beauty.

Crucial system implementations

After the lengthy selection of an accounting system, companies face the next crucial task: system implementation. What are the issues to consider when planning such an implementation?Prior to project commencement, the benefits the company wishes to receive should be pre-defined (e.g. cost savings - anticipated time of their realisation, monitoring metrics). In order to avoid missing out on these benefits at the end of the project, they must be followed throughout the whole process of implementation.Senior management should ultimately be involved in the implementation process (their decisions on resource allocations, staff motivation/rewards, etc.) For larger organisations it is advisable to monitor the project via a steering committee or project control group, with participation of a senior board representative(s). The board may require some IT and/or project management training to understand the background of the project.

What's on in other regional cities

Vital Telecom Law clears parliament

Having been debated, shot-down, revisited and mulled-over for almost a year, the most recent draft of Slovakia's new Telecom Law finally received parliamentary approval on May 19. The law's passage marks the clearance of the first major hurdle on the way to the privatisation of the state-owned fixed-line telecom monoploy Slovenské telekomunikácie (Slovak Telecom - ST). President Rudolf Schuster was expected to give his stamp of approval during the week of May 22, and the law is anticipated to go into effect in early July.Negotiations and alterations to the submitted draft continued until the final hour before it finally received approval. Those involved in its ultimate configuration expressed an overall satisfaction, with only minor criticisms. The most vocal critics of the draft, mobile-phone operators Globtel and Eurotel, refused to comment on the law's acceptance, yet many of their concerns were said to have been addressed.

News Briefs

US stance on Slovakia's OECD bid still unclearSDĽ boss says cabinet must improvePolice say 701 foreigners must leave Slovakia

Higher education: Make it cheap, you make it contemptible

Anyone who has taught at a university in Slovakia need not be told that the higher education system is in crisis. Textbooks simply don't exist, unless one counts the disintegrating Communist-era tomes in short supply in underfunded libraries. Photocopies are considered a luxury, chalk is as precious as gold, and in the winter students come to school bundled up, as much against the outer frost as against the clammy cold of the nations' classrooms.The Education Ministry issued a report in early May describing the calamity fairly and accurately, and outlining proposals to correct the graver ills. Two of these deserve close attention.Perhaps the most important innovation is to put universities on a credit footing, meaning that students will be given electives and can pick and choose among the various disciplines on offer. Apart from making it possible from students to transfer from one university to another and not repeat semesters or entire years, it will introduce an important element of choice to how the system works.

Review: New café to jazz-up night life

During the second Punic war between Rome and Cartheage, Hannibal, the legendarily cunning general from North Africa, attacked the Romans from the north, surprising and defeating them in a series of battles. Although never actually taking Carthage itself, he scared the wits out of its citizens when he reached the city walls, at which point someone, as the story goes, yelled "Hannibal ante portas!" (Hannibal is at the gate.).Carried down through the ages in tandem with the Latin language, the story turned up several months ago in the pocket of an hoary old Slovak gentlemen doddering through Michalská brána (Michal's Gate) gate in the Bratislava Old Town. He had heard of a contest to name a new café just outside the city's old walls, but didn't have a computer with which to e-mail his answer in. But when the owners heard the name he suggested they knew they had a winner.

Cafés

The café culture in Bratislava has blossomed over the past few years, with more and more activity spilling out onto the streets and courtyards, and since the spring is here, more outside seating will become available. Listed below are a few of our favourite cafés in the nation's capital.Be aware that most cafes serve several different varieties of coffee (káva). To help you decide, keep this phrases in mind: strong Turkish coffee (Turecká káva) with the grounds at the bottom, is what you sometimes get when you don't specify, but more often you'll get espresso (presso). Delicious Viennese (Viedenská) is coffee with whipped cream. Other choices include coffee with milk (kava s mliekom), Algierian (Alžírska) with egg liqueur, and cappuccino.

Real issues from many sources

Real property issues that Slovak individuals face come from many sources. Over-worked and under-trained personnel and under-staffed real estate registry offices represent one of the major problems both for buyers of commercial real estate and of houses and apartments. Not only does a lengthy registration process make some transactions very unattractive, but it provides an opportunity for a host of unpleasant things, some natural and some contrived, to spring up between the time of entering into a contract and the time of registry of a title.Several of these issues have been addressed in our previous columns. At the end of the day, efficient practices protecting titles to real property are a mainstay of a pro-investor environment.

Letters to the editor

Charge of hypocrisy not supportedOne last fly to end the debate

Western firms finding right balance

While large foreign companies continue their influx into Slovakia, the concept of western management styles and business practices - characterised by a customer- and service-oriented philosophy - often remains foreign to a domestic workforce schooled in the supply-driven communist era.The challenge for foreign investors since 1989 has thus been to bring native employees up to speed with practices developed in the highly competitive western business environment, all the while keeping a domestic flavour to business - tasks that involve bridging many cultural differences. This objective has often been accomplished by appointing experienced expatriate managers that are eventually phased out to leave the company in local hands.

Police ready for fans at under-21 tourney

Organisers of the Slovakia-based European under-21 football championships have said that they are fully prepared for any possible violence at the event, with police officers from across the country ready for the expected influx of fans.Fears grew in recent weeks that the championships, being held in Bratislava, Trenčín and Trnava from May 27 till June 4, could see bloody clashes at the match between England and Turkey, scheduled for May 29, a possible flashpoint following the recent killings of two British football fans in Istanbul.Ľudovít Zapletaj, the head of the Police Corps Presidium Disciplinary Department, said that over 1,000 policemen would reinforce the normal standing police corps in Bratislava in order to prevent any potential problems.

The infamous Slovak 'Brain Drain': Fact or Fiction?

Poring over the usual pile of letters, faxes, memos and company directives she receives every day, 30 year-old Renata looks up and tries to recall why, before Czechoslovkia even split, she left her hometown of Nitra for the Czech capital Prague."My original reasons were firstly emotional reasons. But I stayed mainly for job reasons," explains Renata, a successful executive and head of press relations at one of the many foreign firms established in Prague. "I was never that strongly attracted to Bratislava as a town, and compared to Prague, the opportunities were not equal in Bratislava. There were not many business opportunities - that's why I've stayed."

HR Notes

Figures show largest monthly fall in unemploymentGovernment moves to stave off SLK job lossesPepsi expansion to bring in new jobsNational Labour Office claims up to 8.6 billion crownsWhirlpool plans to expand Poprad production