FOREIGNERS are discovering Slovak architecture and buying local historical buildings for reconstruction.
Over the last two years since Slovakia's entry to the EU, foreigners have bought dozens of historical buildings and plan on living in them.
The most attractive towns include Banská Štiavnica, Levoča, and other towns in areas such as the eastern Slovak Spiš region, but authorities do not have exact statistics on how many houses foreigners bought.
Sights experts say that unlike many Slovak owners, foreigners are often more considerate to the old architecture and when reconstructing the houses, they respect their advice.
Ľuboslav Škoviera from the State Sights Institute says that over the last two years foreigners bought many "mainly cloister buildings" in the old mining town of Banská Štiavnica. The most interested are buyers from Austria, Great Britain, Spain, and France.
Bigger historical buildings are sold infrequently. Only recently, however, a Cypriot company bought a cloister in the village of Trstín, and the Slovak Presidential Office sold a cloister in Veľké Uherce once belonging to the Thonet family, which owned the building in the middle of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century.
Compiled by Martina Jurinová from press reports
The Slovak Spectator cannot vouch for the accuracy of the information presented in its Flash News postings.
