(source: SME.sk / Hej,ty)
Good afternoon. Here is the Friday, July 21 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 Slovakianewsletter.
Bratislava will get Slovakia's first public transport fleet of hydrogen buses
An illustrative photo of a SOLARIS URBINO 12 HYDROGEN bus. (source: Courtesy of SOLARIS Bus & Coach)
Dopravný Podnik Bratislava (DPB), the capital’s public transport operator, is to become the first carrier in Slovakia to operate a fleet of hydrogen-powered buses. The Investment Ministry (MIRRI, which acts as the governing body of the Integrated Regional Operational Programme - IROP), approved the project for the purchase of low-emission buses for the capital and signed an agreement with DPB on a non-refundable financial contribution, DPB spokesperson Martin Chlebovec reported.
DPB plans to order the first four hydrogen buses from the Polish company Solaris Bus & Coach. The company successfully bid €24.4 million to supply 40 buses. The first four buses could start operating in Bratislava by next autumn.
More stories onSpectator.sk
HOCKEY: Juraj Slafkovský, the young Slovak ice-hockey star, calls Montreal the best place in the world.
FILM: The communist regime did not discourage Dušan Hanák from portraying reality, though he paid the price. In the 1969 movie “322”, the Slovak director’s feature debut, he captured real life under communism through the story of a common man who regrets his past and tries to rediscover the actual meaning of life.
LITERATURE: Eliza Reid, Iceland’s First Lady, recalls how at an official event she attended with her husband, Gudni Jóhannesson, the presidential couple were given aprons as gifts.
TEXTILE: Another prominent Slovak manufacturer of socks is facing financial problems.
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Feature story for today
A TV series about former Slovak Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda that had been set to premiere on the HBO Max streaming service has been dropped by the channel.
Czech director Jan Hřebejk's series Víťaz (Winner) about Dzurinda was in post-production, and had been slated for release in the autumn.
Instead, it was cancelled as the American company took the surprise decision to halt all local productions in central Europe, including those which had already finished shooting.
Picture of the day
Some 20 firefighters, assisted by helicopters, are working to extinguish a fire in the Veľká Fatra National Park near Ružomberok. Slovakia has been recording temperatures in the high 30s in recent days. (source: TASR)
In other news
For the third day in a row, more than 1,000 positive PCR tests were detected. Laboratories evaluated 2,419 samples, and found 41.96 percent were positive. There are now 423 patients with Covid-19 in hospital, seven fewer than the previous day's sample. There were five deaths, the National Health Information Centre (NCZI) reported.
Bratislava Volkswagen will use a two-week company vacation starting on Monday for maintenance and investments. During the vacation, the oldest and biggest carmaker in the country will also prepare to start producing new Škoda Superb and Volkswagen Passat models.
Slovakia has purchased 25,000 packs of Paxlovid, an oral antiviral for treating Covid-19. The Health Ministry expects the medicine to be delivered in August. The government last week also decided to purchase 35,000 packs of Lagevrio, whose active ingredient molnupiravir has a similar effect. It should be available in August at the latest.
As of July 25, Tatra Banka is suspending the exchange of Ukrainian hryvnias. The National Bank of Ukraine is revoking the permission granted to Ukrainian commercial banks to purchase hryvnias in cash from foreign financial institutions. Tatra Banka ensured the exchange of hryvnias for euros through Raiffeisen Bank Ukraine. Since March 21, when it launched this service, more than 205 million hryvnias have been exchanged.
The EU has put Slovak national Jozef Hambálek - the head of the European arm of the Russian pro-Putin motorcycle gang the Night Wolves based in Slovakia - on its sanctions list.
A case of West Nile fever was diagnosedin a a man from Bratislava Region. It is not yet clear whether this is a domestic case or the person was infected outside Slovakia.
Russia has expanded its shortlist of so-called “unfriendly” nations, adding five European countries that Moscow says have taken actions “hostile” to it. The list of “unfriendly” countries, first established in May 2021 and including the United States and the Czech Republic, restricts the number of local staff that can be hired at the designated nations’ diplomatic missions in Russia. Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia and Denmark have now joined the list, according to an update published by the Russian government on Friday.
Anniversary of the week
The building on Ventúrska Street, in which the University of Istropolitana used to sat. (source: Sme)
On Wednesday, July 20, 555 years passed since the Universitas Istropolitana formally began operating in today's Bratislava (whose classical name is Istropolis). The university was founded to supply the state apparatus of the Hungarian Kingdom (of which Slovakia was then a part) with educated employees. The first university to be established in what is now Slovakia operated for less than three decades, but retains a prominent place in Slovakia's history. It later became known as the Academia Istropolitana.
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