Slovakia is my Homeland

Firstly, we are going to talk just about general knowledge. Slovakia is located in the heart of central Europe. It also shares its border with 5 other countries, that are Czech Republic, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and Austria. The area of Slovak republic is about 49 000 square kilometres and it is home to more than 5 million people. It gained its independence in the year of 1993. Furthermore, it is also part of some international organizations such as United Nation, European Union, NATO.

Political system in Slovakia is parliamentary-presidential republic. Citizens of Slovakian vote their representatives into parliament. Also, they vote for their president. Capital city of Slovakia is Bratislava, and it is located near the boarders with Austria. Slovakia has 4 states symbols, that are Slovakian flag, Slovakian emblem, Slovakian seal and also Slovakian anthem. The Slovakian flag consists of three stripes, white, blue and red, and the nation emblem that has red background with 3 blue mountains and white double cross on top of them.

Another important thing we want to talk about is population of Slovakian. The majority of the population consist of Slovaks, but there also some minorities. The biggest minority is Hungarian. This minority is located on the south of Slovakia near the borders with Hungary. Another minority in Slovakia is Roma people, Ruthenians, Czech people, Ukrainians and many more. Furthermore, it is also important to mention in our opinion that many Slovaks have many prejudices against there minorities.

Slovakian traditions are mostly celebrated in villages. One of the traditions that is celebrated in Slovakia is burning and drowning of “Morena”. This symbolizes the end of winter and coming of Spring. The most known holiday celebrated in Slovakia is Easter. Our Easter is special in one way in comparison with UK celebrations of Easter. On the Easter Monday boys and men goes around their hometown whit braided birch twigs and willow whips decorated with ribbons, and whip girls and women with them. Also, they can pour water on them two. By doing this they are believed to be giving them good health and luck in rest year. In Slovakia we don’t celebrate Halloween that much, but instead of it we celebrate All Saints Day. We celebrate this holiday by going to cemeteries and light up candles for our dead oved ones. Special parts of folklore also include special clothes called “kroj” with this is also connected with our specially decorated folk hatchet called “valaška”. You can also check out the Maturita topic called Multiculturalism where are even more holidays celebrated in Slovakia.

Slovakia is best known for mountain range that starts in this country called Carpathian Mountain range. Part of this mountain ranges are Tatra mountains, Greater and Lesser Fatra. This mountain ranges also creates some lowlands called Danubian Lowland and Eastern Slovak Lowland. The highest peak of the Tatra mountain range is “Gerlachovký Štít”, which is also the highest peak of Carpathian Mountain range.

We also think it is really important to mention some important people from our country. From political field we picked Milan Rastislav Štefánik, who helped to create Czechoslovakia, but was also a pilot and a general. From literature we picked Ľudovít Štúr, because he helped to create Slovakian language, also from this field we picked Dominik Dán, because he is a modern author of thrillers. From science field we think is important to mention Jozef Murgaš, who created wireless telegraphy, and another inventor who is worth mentioning is Štefan Banič, because of the invention of parachute. From sport we picked Jozef Adamec, Pavol Demitra and Petra Vlhová.

In the last paragraph we are going to talk about Slovakia joining the European Union, because it is important organisation. Slovakia joined European Union on 1 May 2004. The result of this has been economical stability, easier access of foreign investors to our country, financial resources from European funds that are dedicated to improving infrastructure, education and many other institutions in our country. We also adapted currency euro in 2009. On the advantage we haven’t already mentioned is that our citizens can travel easier to other countries in European Union. ON the other hand, we have become more dependent on the other countries and European regulations and norms. Furthermore, it has became more difficult to our local companies and farmers to success when they have economical competition from other European countries. But there are many problems that are not caused by European Union, such as high corruption rates, low salaries, low quality of healthcare, unemployment and also big differences between our capital city and other cities and villages on the east of Slovakia.