News digest: Fake tickets for Rammstein's 2023 Slovak concert have already appeared

‘Mini-Pompidou Centre’ becomes a protected cultural monument, symbolic closure of a bridge over the Morava will recall the totalitarian regime, and a historic building's conversion wins an award.

(Source: SME.sk / Hej,ty)

Good evening. Here is the Friday, November 4 edition of Today in Slovakia – the main news of the day in less than five minutes.

For weekend events and news on travel and culture in Slovakia, see the latest edition of our Spectacular Slovakia newsletter.

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Nová Tržnica market hall in Bratislava is awarded national cultural monument status

The Monuments Board of the Slovak Republic has granted the market hall building at Trnavské Mýto Square in Bratislava the status of national cultural monument. The authority described the so-called New Market Hall ('Nová Tržnica') – sometimes dubbed the ‘mini-Pompidou Centre’, given its passing resemblance to the eponymous Paris cultural complex – as a unique public space with an exceptional architectural concept reflecting the primary intention of building a structure that would represent the prototype of a market space at the end of the 20th century. The hall opened in 1983.

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“The architect designed a progressive construction system that gave the building a unique expression,” the board wrote in its decision.


Today's feature story

Economy Minister: Slovakia set to become major power exporter

A major question during the ministerial reshuffles in September, after the ruling coalition shrank from four to three parties, was who would become Economy Minister.

It is not often that any minister has had their main task so clearly cut out for them: with war raging in Ukraine, energy prices skyrocketing, and winter around the corner, the new minister’s top priority would be to help lead the country through the current energy crisis.

The new minister, Karel Hirman, is one of Slovakia’s leading experts on the energy industry. He has been speaking to The Slovak Spectator about the country's near- and long-term strategy.

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Economy Minister: Slovakia set to become major power exporter Read more 

More stories on Spectator.sk:

  • IT: Researcher Xialou Hou from the Faculty of Informatics and Information Technologies at the Slovak University of Technology explains why there are relatively few women in computer science.
  • TOURISM: What does genuine Goral culture look like?
  • V4: One way for companies to harvest the Visegrad Group region's potential could be clusters.
  • BRATISLAVA: A property within Bratislava's Železná Studnička recreational area has recently been the focus of one of the biggest deals of the last few decades.

If you like what we are doing and want to support good journalism, buy our online subscription. Thank you.


Picture of the week

The Pradiareň 1900 project has won the Industrial Conversion Award (I.CON.A). The authors of the project, which transformed a historic industrial building in central Bratislava into a modern office complex, were Juraj Almássy, Peter Bouda, Richard Čečetka and Ivan Masár.


Other news

  • Parliament passed a bill on subsidies for companies facing high energy bills on Thursday, November 10. Companies will have to apply for the subsidy. Its maximum amount, the length of the period for which companies will be eligible to receive it, and the eligible costs for determining the amount of the subsidy will be decided by the Economy Ministry.
  • Austria has extended border checks with Slovakia until 12 December.
  • Fake tickets for next year's Rammstein concert in Slovakia have started showing up, Lucia Tobolková, marketing director for sales agent Ticketportal, told the TASR newswire. She explained that all authentic tickets are registered in the names of their holders. Those going to the concert scheduled for June 14, 2023 in Trenčín, will have to show their identity cards upon admission and if the name on the identity card doesn't match the one on the ticket, their ticket will be considered invalid.
  • Bratislava's municipal public transport operator, DPB, has launched a new feature on its most modern vehicles, which are equipped with coloured LED displays above the windscreen. When parked at head stops these will now show, for the benefit of passengers (and drivers on their breaks), the number of minutes before the bus departs the terminal, and the bus's destination.
  • Bratislava will recall the history of the Iron Curtain during a festival, Weekend of Closed Borders, this weekend. One event will be the symbolic closure of the border between Slovakia and Austria on a cycle bridge that crosses the Morava river at Devínská Nová Ves. The closure will take place on November 13, to commemorate victims of the Iron Curtain and the communist regime in former Czechoslovakia.
  • Police in Trenčín Region imposed an €800 speeding fine on a 37-year-old driver. He was caught driving his Audi at 202 km/h on the motorway, exceeding the speed limit by 72 km/h.
  • The rapid growth of energy and commodity prices in Slovakia will increase production costs and erode the purchasing power of households, thereby reducing real GDP growth to 1.9 percent in 2022, 0.5 percent in 2023 and 1.9 percent in 2024, according to an autumn economic forecast published by the European Commission on Friday.
  • The launch of the court map reform will be delayed by five months, from January 1, to June 1, 2023, based on a legal amendment concerning new seats and districts of courts approved by parliament on Thursday, November 10.

If you like what we are doing and want to support good journalism, buy our online subscription. Thank you.


Anniversary of the week

Slovakia today marks the Day of War Veterans, coinciding with the 104th anniversary of the end of the First World War on November 11, 2020. In Slovakia poppy flowers are used as a symbol of veterans; to reflect this, Bratislava castle will be illuminated with these red flowers this evening.


If you have suggestions on how this news overview can be improved, you can reach us at editorial@spectator.sk.

Top stories

Janka, a blogger, during the inauguration of the first flight to Athens with Aegean Airlines at the airport in Bratislava on September 14, 2023.

A Czech rail operator connects Prague and Ukraine, Dominika Cibulková endorses Pellegrini, and Bratislava events.


Píšem or pišám?

"Do ľava," (to the left) I yelled, "Nie, do prava" (no, to the right), I gasped. "Dolšie," I screamed. "Nie, nie, horšie..." My Slovak girlfriend collapsed in laughter. Was it something I said?


Matthew J. Reynolds
Czech biochemist Jan Konvalinka.

Jan Konvalinka was expecting a pandemic before Covid-19 came along.


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