Amanda Rivkin

Slovakia

Images shot in May-June 2010 for Spectacular Slovakia annual travel guide, a special magazine-length travel guide produced by the Bratislava English language newspaper The Slovak Spectator.

Copies of "Spectacular Slovakia 2010" available on The Slovak Spectator's website for 6.50 EUR or $9.50 USD.

KOSICE, SLOVAKIA. An old woman or babka walks down the Main Street early in the morning on June 3, 2010.
   
BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA. A little boy taunts pigeons outside a luxurious Tesco shopping mall named My downtown on May 20, 2010; Tesco is very much the Wal-mart of Central Europe.
   
KOSICE, SLOVAKIA. Customers prepare to drink a fire water at the Nebra bar, a local favorite among the twenty something crowd, on May 31, 2010.
     
  
KEZMAROK, SLOVAKIA. A wedding party prior to the exchange of vows outside the Kezmarok castle on May 29, 2010.
   
BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA. Customers at Axioma, a centrally located cafe, take turns smoking from a hookah on May 16, 2010.
   
MODRY KAMEN, SLOVAKIA. Actors performing for a visiting school group in the children's toy museum in the Modry Kamen castle on May 25, 2010.
     
  
BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA. Slovaks gathered en mass to cheer for their national team in Slovakia's World Cup debut in South Africa against New Zealand in a tied match 1-1, where New Zealand scored a last minute goal stifling Slovakia's attempt at a victorious open match, as an independent nation in Eurovea Square on June 15, 2010.
   
MALACKY, SLOVAKIA. The one-time synagogue at the edge of a Lidl parking lot is surrounded by other communist-style buildings on June 14, 2010. The town's mayor tells a tall tale about how the local Jewish community disappeared after the local rabbi couldn't afford to feed his 12 children and committed suicide, causing the remaining Jews to move to Bratislava rather than being forced into concentration camps or into hiding during the Second World War.
   
MOCHOVCE, SLOVAKIA. Construction workers inside the former church in ruins near the Mochovce Nuclear Power Plant on June 18, 2010. While the former communist regime was willing to uproot the living to construct the nuclear power plant on the site of the former town of Mochovce, it was unwilling to tamper with the dead and only two relics of the former town remain: the cemetery and the church. By national law, people are prohibited from living in a three kilometer radius of all nuclear power plants in the event of a Chernobyl-like catastrophe.
     
  
BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA. Slovaks gathered en mass to cheer for their national team in Slovakia's World Cup debut in South Africa against New Zealand in a tied match 1-1, where New Zealand scored a last minute goal stifling Slovakia's attempt at a victorious open match as an independent nation in Eurovea Square on June 15, 2010.
   
BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA. The men's section of the only remaining synagogue still in use on May 18, 2010.
   
LEVOCA, SLOVAKIA. Preparing for a wedding party inside the evangelical church in the main square on May 29, 2010.
     
  
KOSICE, SLOVAKIA. Slovaks at a degustation or wine tasting of Tokaj wines from souther Slovakia at a wine bar on June 2, 2010. While the Tokaj region includes lands in northern Hungary and southern Slovakia, a dispute between the two countries over EU quality control standards was resolved only when Slovakia agreed that it could apply the "Tokajsky" label to wine from its part of the Tokaj region provided it agreed to Hungarian quality control standards on products it applied to.
   
BANSKE, SLOVAKIA. Orchestra members of the Roma or gypsy theater Romathan set up in the gymnasium at the Banske Elementary School with a Roma or gypsy majority student body to perform for young children in "Dwarf" on June 2, 2010.
   
HRUSOV, SLOVAKIA. A Hungarian child on a field trip sleeps in the middle of the afternoon alone in a 19th century period museum on June 5, 2010. Located on the Hungarian border, Hrusov like many nearby villages in southern Slovakia has a dual heritage.
     
  
MURAN, SLOVAKIA. Wildhorses at pasture on May 24, 2010. Despite unbelievable natural beauty and nearly untouched forest preserves in the surrounding state park, locals have nearly no desire to develop tourism infrastructure to the region and the countryside remains untouched and pure, most desireable attributes to Dutch tourists who are said to trek to Muran and surrounding villages for extraordinarily longer stays than other tourists.
   
BETWEEN KOSICE AND BANSKE, SLOVAKIA. Members of the Roma or gypsy theater Romathan on their way to perform for young children in "Dwarf" at the Banske Elementary School with a Roma or gypsy majority student body in Banske, Slovakia on June 2, 2010.
   
BANSKE, SLOVAKIA. Members of the Roma or gypsy theater Romathan change into costume in Banske, Slovakia to perform for young children in "Dwarf" at the Banske Elementary School with a Roma or gypsy majority student body on June 2, 2010.
     
  
BANSKE, SLOVAKIA. Young children enter the gymnasium at the Banske Elementary School with a Roma or gypsy majority student body in Banske, Slovakia for a performance by Roma or gypsy theater Romathan in "Dwarf" on June 2, 2010.
   
KOSICE, SLOVAKIA. Members of the Roma or gypsy theater Romathan perform for young children in "Dwarf" at the Banske Elementary School with a Roma or gypsy majority student body in Banske, Slovakia on June 2, 2010.
   
NEAR HERLANY, SLOVAKIA. Karol Adam, director of the Romathan Theater, a Roma or gypsy theater in Kosice, Slovakia, is the only one allowed to smoke a cigarette on the group's bus on a winding road near Herlany, Slovakia as the bus winds its way back to Kosice, Slovakia after a performance for young children in "Dwarf" at the Banske Elementary School in Banske, Slovakia with a Roma or gypsy majority student body on June 2, 2010.