All About Czechia & Slovakia

Slovenia is not Slovakia! But the two European nations have been plagued by confusion about their identities ever since their creation in the 1990s. Anthem Errors A quick search on Google will uncover dozens of tweets about US First Lady Melania Trump's Slovakian heritage - which doesn't exist. She was born in Sevnica, a Slovenian town (the president's ex-wife, Ivana, was born in Czechoslovakia, but we'll get there). A curse on both nations, though, is that the wrong flag or the wrong anthem has appeared at many events. In 2017, it was the Ice Hockey World Championships in Germany, where angry Slovaks were forced to drown out the Slovenian anthem with boos and whistles. They were later told their anthem wouldn't be played due to "technical problems". And the confusion is nothing new. George W Bush famously once talked about his meeting with the Slovak foreign minister - a meeting which never happened. In 2003, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi intro...

  Krtek, a Communist Mole in Czechoslovakia What animal is Krtek?  "Krtek" (The Mole) is the Czech answer to Mickey Mouse. Created by animator Zdeněk Miler in 1954, he made his film debut at the 1957 Venice Film Festival with "How The Mole Got His Trousers" and even won a price there in 1966 with "The Mole and the Rocket". The cartoon mole Krtek found huge appeal as an advocate of friendship, morality and decency when introduced in Czechoslovakia in the 1950s. Although you may never have heard of Krtek, he's a legend in some parts of the world. Also known as "The Little Mole," Krtek (pronounced KURR-teck) could probably be considered the Czech Mickey Mouse and is an important cultural relic of the Soviet Bloc communist countries during the Cold War. Created by a Czech artist in 1954, Krtek's cuteness weirdly belies his communist origins, not unlike Disney's Mickey Mouse gas masks, but the fact that Krtek is still hugely popular may be...

Podbiel Village Podbiel is a village in Orava in northern Slovaki a.   "Bobrova Raľa" in the Orava village of Podbiel is the largest preserved complex of original folk architecture in Central Europe. The original wooden houses, which visitors have the opportunity to see, date from the end of the 19th century. The village was first mentioned in 1556. They are embedded in the beautiful mountain nature, which together with them completes the picturesque, almost fairy-tale character of the village. Most of the wooden houses are currently no longer inhabited, some are used for recreational purposes. The houses are built in a typical two-row street with a triangular square around the church. The development of houses is in depth, starting with an open yard towards the road, then two or three houses follow one another. They are followed by farm buildings, which enclose the yard with a barn. Bubrovnícka farmstead was mentioned in the urban register from 1626 as one of the nine Wall...