Around Slovakia

Vandals destroy Jewish cemetery again
Crow and deer become best friends
Musicians arrested for damaging cars
Eleven migrants squeezed into a hatchback
What was on the menu seven millenia ago


PETER Haber from Michalovce checks Jewish graves for damage.
photo: TASR

Michalovce
Vandals destroy Jewish cemetery again

UNKOWN vandals have caused damage in a Jewish cemetery in the eastern Slovak town of Michalovce leaving about two dozen gravestones kicked to the ground, completely destroying four others and even digging up one of the graves.
The local Jewish community is shocked and appalled by the act.
Peter Haber, the son of Michalovce's Jewish community chairman told the Slovak daily SME: "Such an act can only conceived in a sick mind. It is most likely that [the perpetrators] were primitive vandals and that is why they not only kicked down the tombstones but also opened one grave where they were probably looking to find some precious objects."
The town's tiny Jewish community consists of about 20 elderly people and lacks the money to fix the damage.
"At the moment I am not able to estimate cost of the damage, but it will certainly not be low. Some of the tombstones were 150 years old," Haber said.


Pohronský Inovec
Crow and deer become best friends

A CROW named Fric and a doe called Katka have become best friends after living in a gamekeeper's lodge in a forested area of central Slovakia.
Forester Milan Dobiaš and his wife Zdenka Dobiašová told the daily SME that the two have cultivated their friendship for years and today Fric is even allowed to sit on Katka's back. The deer seems very happy to carry the black bird around the lodge.
The married couple live in a forester's house near the Pohronský Inovec. The deer entered their lives after having been found wounded in the forest.
Dobiašová said: "Katka's leg was apparently cut while someone was mowing a meadow. We took her home to give her treatment but she has stayed here ever since. We've had her here for two years now and she is very attached to us."
Fric on the other hand joined the Dobiaš' clan after the couple's son, who studies at the Slovak Agricultural university in Nitra, brought the bird home from his school where he had started a club helping wounded birds.
Fric loves candy, and is a friendly bird according to Dobiašová, but he sometimes plays jokes on the other members of the Dobiaš household by pecking them.


Bratislava
Musicians arrested for damaging cars

MEMBERS of British-French band Asian Dub Foundation spent 12 hours with Bratislava police after they were arrested for damaging four cars in Bratislava.
Police spokeswoman Silvia Miháliková told the Slovak daily Nový čas that members of the band, consisting of three Brits and two Frenchmen, were arrested by the police at 2 am on May 9.
They were drunk and damaging cars parked in the Old Town area.
The daily wrote that it had tried to contact the band for a comment over the matter but was allegedly told that the band would only talk to media about its musical achievements.
Aréna theatre where the musicians performed on the evening of May 9 was also unwilling to comment on the incident but one source has told Nový čas that the musicians had allegedly "touched some cars".


Prešov
Eleven migrants squeezed into a hatchback

POLICE arrested a smuggler who was transporting 11 adult Indian migrants squeezed into an Opel Omega combi car on May 7.
Police say that the smuggler, Milan M., 26, from the eastern Slovak town of Nižný Hrušov, took the group from an as yet unknown Ukrainian smuggler in the eastern town of Michalovce and promised to drive them into central Slovakia for a reward of Sk15,000 (€366).
From there the group was scheduled to be taken by another member of the gang and then probably be smuggled out of the country.
On the same day, police in Prešov also arrested another illegal migrant group from Armenia that consisted of 16 people, including a two-month-old baby boy. On their arrest, the migrants requested asylum in Slovakia.
Since the beginning of this year police in the Prešov region have caught more than 350 illegal migrants. According to Migration Office statistics most migrants, 104, came from China, Chechnya, 73, and India, 44.


Žemberovce
What was on the menu seven millenia ago

A GROUP of Slovak archaeologists aims to find out what the nation's forefathers ate 7,000 years ago as part of their research at a historical site in western Slovakia.
Archaeologists participating in the project are carrying out their research in the village of Žemberovce near Levice in western Slovakia.
Archaeologist Mário Bielik told the daily Nový čas that his team would examine artifacts from the site for traces of food.
"In the middle of the site there is a pit from which our ancestors extracted clay. Right next to the pit they would have built their huts. We also found the remains of containers that were probably used for storing food and grain.
"We have taken a lot of samples to find out what people ate here seven thousand years ago," Bielik said.
People interested in helping the team with their uncovering of the past may do so and will be given a certificate to commemorate their help at the excavation.

Author: Compiled by Martina Pisárová from press reports

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