(source: SME.sk / Hej,ty)
Good afternoon. The weekend is coming and we have prepared a quick summary of the main news of the day in our Friday, October 22, 2021 edition of Today in Slovakia. We wish you a pleasant read.
For weekend tips and reads, check out our Spectacular Slovakia weekly roundup. This week, Peter Dlhopolec is writing about a German adventurer travelling with his donkey to Iran, the first Slovak au pairs, and this year's Biennial of Illustrations Bratislava.
Bratislava's Old Town presents its most beautiful trees (source: Courtesy of Old Town )
The Bratislava borough of Old Town wants to present its most beautiful trees in a special way. It released its My Seven Trees in Old Town game on October 21, the Day of Trees. These seven trees are proposed to be included in the Slovak list of protected trees.
“Old Town is full of beautiful trees; from these thousands, we have selected seven that we would like to present to the public - seven trees like the seven wonders of Old Town,” said Old Town Mayor Zuzana Aufrichtová, as cited in the press release.
Those who play the game will find these trees in various places in Old Town - in Medická garden, Slubek garden, at the M. Hodža Elementary School on Podjavorinská Street and in the park on Škarniclova Street. One of the most beautiful trees - the majestic European beech - awaits players in the evangelical cemetery Kozia Brána (Goat Gate).
Anniversary of the day
Marking the 25th anniversary of one of the biggest accidents in water transport. (source: TASR)
Former colleagues, family members and others commemorated sailors who drowned during the accident of the Ďumbier towboat near the unfinished dam of the hydropower plant Freudenau close to Vienna.
On October 22, 1996, shortly before 20:00, the tugboat Ďumbier with a ship carrying 750 tonnes of bone-meal missed the channel leading to the lock chamber and the strong current drove it to the overflow weir that regulates the amount of water. There, the ship loaded with cargo got caught on the walls of the second and third watergates, while the push-boat with the crew was pulled by the current through the fourth watergate.
Feature story for today
John Hudanish does not remember many of the Slovak words he learnt as a child. However, the 82-year-old third-generation Slovak American can still count to ten in Slovak. He also recalls the phrase ísť spať (go to sleep) and the Slovak word for rascal, huncút.
By the time he was ten, all of his grandparents, three of whom sailed to America at the turn of the 20th century from what is now eastern Slovakia, had passed away. It was the immigrant generation that spoke Slovak, or one of many Slovak dialects, and had to learn English to get by, working in mines, factories and as domestic servants. Their American-born children were fluent in English, not so much in Slovak, though they understood their parents’ language.
“My own parents were uneducated. They were struggling to put bread on the table,” the Vietnam war veteran, Hudanish, said, “They had no time to teach me Slovak, and it did not seem essential to them that I learn to speak it.”
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Coronavirus and vaccination news
The Covid pass is not consideredhealth documentation and thus visitors of restaurants, shops and other outlets are obliged to show the results of their Covid tests or documents proving that they are vaccinated against the novel coronavirus, if asked, Zuzana Eliášová, a spokesperson of the Health Ministry, said. The ministry made this clarification after some people claimed that the Covid pass is health documentation so people shouldn't be obliged to show it.
The State Institute for Drug Control (ŠÚKL) on Thursday (October 21) registered a fifth case in which a death has been linked to vaccination against Covid-19. The case concerns a 71-year-old man with a chronic disease who received the Comirnaty vaccine from the Pfizer/BioNTech consortium. ŠÚKL has now registered five deaths related to vaccination among 2.4 million vaccinated Slovaks. In three cases a causal link was judged to be possible, while in two others it was deemed probable.
7212 people have received the third Covid-19 vaccine shot as of October 21.
3,470 people were newlydiagnosed as Covid positive out of 14,282 PCR tests performed on Thursday. The number of people in hospitals has increased to 1,102. Three more deaths were reported on Thursday. The vaccination rate is 45.21 percent. More stats on Covid-19 in Slovakia here.
Other news
The construction of the traditional ice house at the Hrebienok ski resort in the High Tatras, made from 25 tonnes of ice, has started. The popular attraction will open on November 19. Its organisers have not revealed its main motif yet.
Students and activists in Bratislava, Banská Bystrica, Trnava, Prešov, Žilina and Žiar nad Hronom will hold climate strikes on Friday, October 22. They are calling on politicians and world leaders to take swift and radical action to combat the climate crisis.
The Bratislava-based companyVoltia has partnered with Stellantis to extend its e-van portfolio. On Wednesday, October 22, it announced the launch of five new XL models of e-vans with a volume of 11 m3 on the carmaker's platform.
In August, hotels and boarding houses in Slovakia had a record number of domestic guests, but there was still a drop in foreign guests, the Statistics Office reported.
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