Glass pyramid to save space power
If all goes to plan, residents in this city of 20,000 in central Slovakia should have a glass pyramid by the year 2000 that, according to a locally-famous therapist, will hold within its walls healing powers for the public.
According to Ján Pravda, the therapist, the pyramid will built along the design of the Cheops pyramid in Egypt, and would bring in and save the energy from space. Pravda, who claims to have magical powers, said he then will harness this curing energy and use it to heal humans.
Pravda also explained that it was important for the this energy center to be in a shape of a pyramid, because his therapeutic powers can only work inside a building of that design. The pyramid should be 30 meters tall, Pravda added, and made out of glass and stone.
According to Miroslav Grznár, the treasurer of the Foundation Pyramída Pravda, which is overseeing the project, the organization to date has collected 150,000 Sk, a sliver of the at least 7 million Sk needed to construct the pyramid.
But Grznár said several entrepreneurs have expressed interest in financing the pyramid's building, though the majority of them do not agree with using the building as a healing center.
Man sets body on fire after lewd act
The regional court in this eastern Slovak metropolis of 240,000 handled in the last week of March likely one of its most bizarre cases involving necrophilia. The case stems from an incident in which a 34-year-old man from Bohdanovce was accused of having broken into a morgue on October 8, 1996 where he split open a coffin housing the dead body of a 68-year-old woman, had sex with it and set it on fire.
According to the perpetrator's confession, he drank eight shots of borovička that night and several beers. He said he felt like a woman, but added he didn't know why he headed for the morgue.
Even though the dead body was burned to ashes, the man's sperm survived the flames, and the subsequent DNA analysis convicted him. Even the man couldn't account for a screw that remained in the teeth of the deceased, with which he tried to open her numb mouth.
Psychiatric specialists have concluded that since this was the man's third rape, he suffers from the initial stages of necrophilia.
The conviction, however, won't be easy. Due to the absence of a section in the Criminal Code covering a crime of this type, the defendant was convicted instead of disturbance and damage to personal effects and was sentenced to 22 months in prison.
Ghosts and ghouls gather for festival
From April 24 to May 4, this town of 5,000 in central Slovakia will become a haven for supernatural beings. At least 25,000 people are expected to attend the annual festival celebrating ghosts and other ghouls, said Ján Papco, museum director at Bojnice Castle.
The story of this event is that once upon a time Marco Polo was travelling in China and India, and met a king named Kubla Khan. The two hit it off and decided to trek to Bojnice. While on the journey, they met monks and strange-looking oriental creatures. "It may be that the idea of Marco Polo in Slovakia seems to be strange," Papco conceded, "We just thought that it would be a good idea to join European and Oriental cultures, and Marco Polo was a good one to join these two different worlds."
Compiled by Andrea Lörinczová from Slovak press reports
