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SUMMARY OF THE FALL ISSUE

Volume 9, No. 3, Fall 2001

Slovak Heritage Live

A Newsletter of the
Slovak Heritage and Cultural Society of British Columbia
published four times a year

Fall issue was published in October 2001 and it was mailed to 1500 recipients world wide. 


Horses in Liptovska Teplicka


FROM THE EDITOR 
I am getting ready for my fourth and final 2001 trip to Slovakia. By the time you will be reading this newsletter the chances are I will be there. You can call me anytime while I am there at my cell: 011-421-907-297-508, if you need any genealogical research, ancestral videos or photography done or you can E-mail me at: [email protected]...

FROM THE MAIL BAG  
Read the correspondence received from our members...

MY SUMMER 2001 TRIP TO SLOVAKIA
I was flying stand by again. This time I flew to Calgary and then it was a smooth flight to Frankfurt as that is the one of the two European destinations Air Canada flies these days. The other is London. I had a little difficulty getting my car as I made the payment just hours prior to my departure and it didn�t come through yes. So there was a delay caused by overseas telephone calls, but at the end I did get Opel Astra as ordered and it was a diesel. Just fantastic. Soon I was sailing again the German Autobahn, I just love it. Since it was early afternoon and they are doing lots of Autobahn repairs in both Germany and Austria, as they do every summer, it took me about 8 hours to arrive in Bratislava...

ATTACK ON AMERICA-A TRIBUTE TO NEW YORK
When I was growing up in Czechoslovakia, since my childhood I was always dressed in American clothes thanks to my aunt or a distant relative of my grand mother who lived in Buffalo NY. My friends called me American because of my clothes. Yes I was different and I hated the communists and AMERICA was my idol of freedom and democracy. My lifelong dream was to one day at least visit AMERICA that I thought would be an impossible task and if it were possible it would be a dream come trough.

One thing I always dreamt about was walking the streets of the greatest city in the free world The NEW YORK CITY. That was my dream of dreams. I even got someone to send me a street map of New York City and I studied it for weeks and months. Learning what buildings were where, where were the attractions...

DETVA 2001 WHERE IS THE EXITEMENT? By: Ondrej Mihal
The annual folklore festival at Detva, Central Slovakia was held this year from July 13th to 15th, 2001. As is tradition, the festival started with the regional dance groups that make up the "Polana" region of Central Slovakia.  The locals come out in full force to cheer their favorite singers and dancers. The guests, from other regions of Slovakia, or the few "foreigners" get to revel in the magnificent sights, sounds and dances of this unique Central Slovak region...

Editors note: I was invited by the mayor of Detva Mr. Sufliansky to attend the festival, but I said before and I say it again I refuse to go and waste my time by watching MEGALOMANIOAC'S GRUSKA creations and I went to GREECE to island CORFU instead and I had a really great time there. I sure hope that the organizing committee of DETVA FESTIVAL 2002 finally wakes up and get rid of Mr. Gruska and won't allow him to destroy yet another year of festival with his MEGALOMANIAC CREATIONS.

SLOVAKS IN CANADA
The Slovak Canadian Cultural and Heritage Centre (SCCHC) has initiated the exhibit project named �SLOVAKS IN CANADA� whereby all interested Slovak Canadian organizations will jointly present the history of Slovaks in Canada over the last 120 years, in a major one-time exhibit.

The exhibit will foster awareness of Slovak Canadians, both in Canada and in the Slovak Republic.  Within the scope of the project are numerous exhibits in both Canada and Slovakia (Bratislava) composed of Slovak Canadian artifacts, photographs, works of art, literature, sports, as well as multimedia (WEB) and video presentations. As of May 2001, over 43 Slovak Canadian organizations have signed on to participate in this major undertaking.

The exhibit will premiere in Bratislava, Slovakia in the summer of 2002, tentatively July...  

OLD CASTLE-STARY HRAD VARIN
The ruins of the castle are high, 1425 feet above the seal level, on the hill above the river Vah. The castle already existed in the first half of the 13th century. It used to be called Varin. It is mentioned first time in 1267 and the lands of Varin, Teplicka above Zilina belonged to it. However it obtained its present name Stary Hrad after building of the nearby Strecno castle.

1968 THIRTY-THREE YEARS LATER NOBODY REMEMBERS
That was the year of my graduation form trade secondary school of electrical technology in Bratislava and also the year of PRAGUE SPRING. The feeling was in the air that the communists were loosening their tough grip on its people. Traveling to the west was becoming easier; there was less censorship in the news media, they started to promote the socialism wit human face. Everybody was hopeful that finally at least a little we would be freer. Even I, that never ever thought I would stay and live in Czechoslovakia after graduation, since I was a son of former very rich businessman having large holdings in Zvolen and being nationalized in 1948, started to thing that it might be great to stay here and have security and the pleasures of the western world in my hands. We were all exited. I decided to go to University in Prague and study diplomacy as I felt that I could live abroad and still be a citizen and have a good life. I had no connections at the University in Prague and to my and everybody else�s surprise even with my anti communist past I made the entry exams and was accepted.
..

"Velvet Revolution," that is what they refer to the events of November 1989. I may have the year wrong, but anyway, there was no revolution. How could people with no arms go against the army and the tanks and arms and everything, with nothing in their hands, if the communists wouldn�t want to allow it?? Communist knew everything around them is collapsing so they rung the keys to the country and gave it to the first guy that wanted them. It was all-fake. By doing that the communists bought themselves time and they are all back in both republics however under different coat, the coat of democracy.

In 1948 the communists stole from the rich capitalists and in 1990-91 and until now the communists stole from the state and still are stealing everything they can put their hands on.

  The poor people are still standing by as they been in 1968 and all the years before and after that. That is the way it is.

Saddest thing of all is, that 33 years after this act of terrorism, nobody remembers.

 

TRENCIN'S CASTLE
Picturesque scenery of the Middle Vah River Valley is further enriched by a number of cultural and historical monuments. Among them the Trencin Castle a National Cultural Relic, one of the mightiest medieval complexes in Slovakia, occupies an important place, second only to the Spis�s Castle.

Archaeological findings made on the territory of Trencin Castle prove its inhabitation already in the Early Bronze Age. In Roman times, namely in the 2nd century AD, Trencin falls to the sphere of influence of the powerful Roman Empire. A clear evidence of the Roman inhabitation of Trencin is the inscription carved to the castle rock glorifying the victory of the Romans over the German tribes (179-180 A. D.), which, at the same time, is an evidence of Roman Legions having spent some time at the winter camp near Trencin. The fate of this territory after the withdrawal of German tribes and before the advent of the Slavs is completely obscure. The discovery of a rotunda on the acropolis and the findings evidencing for the existence of crafts in the area of the lower castle speak of its inhabitation in the time of Greater Moravia...

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Copyright � Vladimir Linder 2001 
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