List of author's articles, page 11
Phone call lands former SIS officer in hot water
For a decade, Michal Hrbáček was one of Slovakia’s worst-kept secrets. He was rumored to have masterminded the brutal takeovers of companies like Slovglass and Chirana, to have orchestrated the kidnapping of the president’s son, and to have provided muscle for corporate raiders Istrokapitál. He was credited with vast power, connections and ruthlessness. He was untouchable, but no one was safe from him. “Be careful,” said a former police anti-corruption unit chief once said after an interview was over. “He’s the kind of guy who shoots first and asks questions later.”
Mixed feelings on returning to Slovakia
The only drawback to traveling, to long summer holidays, is that you eventually have to go home again. Home to beloved hearth and family, yes, but home also to the daily disputes, stresses, and discontents that make travel so necessary an escape in the first place.
Where have all the tourists gone?
George W. Bush once got Slovakia and Slovenia mixed up. Infamy, in Bratislava and Ljubljana, but understandable elsewhere in the world, where these two benign, pretty countries must compete with the Alps, the Amazon and the Eiffel Tower for a place on the tourist map.
Juraj Šmatlík’s business edge: Patience
During Communism, Juraj Šmatlík worked for the Institute of Technical Cybernetics at the Slovak Academy of Sciences, where he and his colleagues copied Western silicon chips. In 1991 he started afresh in software and the IT sector. In the mid-1990s he submitted a privatization project for BEZ with several friends, which was approved. He took over the company in 1997.
Not on my watch
A new guard contingent of 45 Slovak troops left in early September for Tarin Kowt, the capital of the southern Uruzghan province about 150 kilometers north of Kandahar, where Slovakia already has some 70 troops. Their assignment will be to look after 1,200 Dutch men and women in Camp Holland.
Gratification delayed
The headquarters of the BEZ Group transformers producer in Bratislava could use more than just a lick of paint. The executive parking lot is a patchwork of cracked asphalt, while the main office building, a stodgy Communist low-rise on the outskirts of the Slovak capital, advertises space for rent. Inside, the furniture and fittings date back to the 1970s.
Bratislava will not suffer Prague’s fate
Slovakia’s first five-star hotel – if one doesn’t count the Arcade boutique hotel in Bratislava – will be the Grandhotel Kempinski in Štrbské Pleso in the High Tatras mountain resort. Kempinski Slovakia director Konstantin Zeuke talked about his company’s prospects at a time when the hotel business seems to be entering a downturn.
Tycoons who helped Mečiar given jobs, land
IN PAST weeks, Margita Mečiarová, wife of three-time former prime minister Vladimír Mečiar, has been the target of jokes about her alleged stock-market smarts. Mečiarová, it was discovered earlier this month, sold a 10-percent stake in the Trend Tatry company for Sk60 million in 2005, only months after having bought it for its nominal value of Sk1 million. The windfall helped her husband pay off the Sk48 million he owed on his mansion, known as Elektra. But it appears that Mečiar owes more to the generosity of the original seller of the shares, entrepreneur Július Rezeš, than to his wife’s acumen.
Gender gap widening in Slovak labour market
WOMEN in Slovakia are more likely to have university degrees than men, are more interested in improving their IT skills, and are more likely to be willing to make concessions to keep their jobs. At the same time, they hold just 30 percent of the best jobs as managers, executives and legislators, and earn, on average, 27 percent less than men.
HR executives 'shouldn’t complain' about CEE talent
ACCORDING to Daniel Thorniley, the senior vice-president of the Economist Group, human resources in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) are “the best in the world” – well educated, and relatively deep in talent.
The procurement pork barrel
AN AUDIT of public procurement tenders held last year under former Agriculture Minister Miroslav Jureňa has turned up substantial evidence not only of graft but also of utter chaos in the registering of tender bids and state contracts.
Owner loses farm to ‘eastern justice’
THE OLD sheep farm at Kalná Roztoka, in Slovakia’s easternmost Snina district, once held over 2,000 sheep. Today, the farm buildings stand empty between clumps of weeds at the end of a rough track. The gate in front of the shuttered administrative building is chained and locked.
Business wants a jewel, locals a rough dia
IT’S AN OLD love that Slovaks feel for their High Tatras mountains, one that is bound up with the nation’s highland peasant roots, and that is renewed every year in the summer months by hikers beneath the dramatic alpine peaks.
'Sharks' still thrive in Slovak waters
RARELY a day goes by that they are not somewhere in the headlines, buying up assets, selling off investments, or meeting with ministers on yachts. But just how much influence do Slovakia’s ‘financial groups’ really exert on the country’s politics and economy?
PENTA: People remember
Like J&T and Istrokapitál, Penta also began as a small brokerage founded by four ex-schoolmates, two of whom had attended the Moscow Institute of International Relations. Unlike J&T, the Penta founders had no easy access to capital, but when the opportunity of a lifetime came along – the chance to take over the largest privatisation fund in the country, VÚB Kupón – they didn’t hesitate. Penta borrowed Sk350 million from SLSP, another 500 million from Slovenská poisťovňa, and talked VÚB into selling. All three state institutions at the time were under the control of nominees of Mečiar’s HZDS party.
J&T: From broker to banker
J&T was founded as a brokerage in 1994 by former schoolmates Patrik Tkáč and Ivan Jakabovič. From the beginning, they had relatively easy access to capital and contacts, as Tkáč’s father Jozef was head of the IRB state bank.
Sick man’s land attracts ‘friends’
PAVEL Bátorfi is not well. A patient of the Philippa Pinela Psychiatric hospital in Pezinok since June 5, he has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and a personality disorder. Behind the glass of men’s ward A, he talks and walks as if wading through water. In his pyjamas and slippers, he looks as if he belongs where he is.
What is the real estate mafia?
IN THE past few years, the term “real estate mafia” has gained public currency in Slovakia. Police and the media now use it to refer to organised groups that, lured by the rocketing value of land near larger cities, work systematically to cheat people out of their property.
Editorial
“Is another era of anti-Mečiarism beginning?”
Devín being squeezed by developers
“DO YOU like the Viladomy Devín residential neighborhood?” This provocative question was posed by the Swedish real estate developer Skanska, which as chance would have it is the developer behind the residential neighborhood in question. It confronts everyone who picks up the company’s PR pamphlet to read about “comfortable living on the slopes of vineyards” within sight of the Devín Castle, one of Slovakia’s most important monuments.
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- “Return not,” the ocean cried. But I returned for her
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- 3 free things to do in Bratislava in the next seven days
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- A café in an ice cellar, sand dunes and a flower shop at the border
- US giant pulls plug on Slovak factory, axing 137 jobs
- Hundreds of people ousted from Bratislava’s Volkswagen
- When to shop over Easter: Opening hours for supermarkets in Slovakia
- Danish shoemaker to shut Slovak factory, axing 650 jobs in fresh blow to struggling region
- Confetti, chants and history: Hejková’s dream goodbye after nearly 40 years at the top
- Slovakia’s public finances remain in deep trouble
- Ambulance hit by Russian drone goes on display in centre of Bratislava
- Why this gorge deserves a spot on your bucket list Photo
- The British Film Institute shines a light on Slovak cinema’s boldest chapter Video
- Bratislava’s embassy-backed events you don’t want to miss
- Water supply to be cut in parts of Bratislava’s Old Town in late April
- Slovakia's latest basketball star is destined for great things in the USA More articles ›
