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KOSICE |
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| Slovak towns often never amount to much more than their one long
main square, and even KOSICE , Slovakia's second largest city, is no
exception. Rather like Bratislava, Kosice was, until relatively recently,
a modest little town on the edge of the Hungarian plain. Then, in the
1950s, the communists established a giant steel works on the outskirts
of the city. Forty years on, it has a population of over 250,000, a
number of worthwhile museums, the best cathedral in the republic, and a
lively cosmopolitanism that can be quite reassuring after a week or so
in the Slovak back-of-beyond. Just 21km north of the Hungarian border,
Kosice also acts as a magnet for the Hungarian community - to whom the
city is known as Kassa - and the terminally underemployed Romanies of
the surrounding region, lending it a diversity and vibrancy absent from
small-town Slovakia, and only recently viewed as contributing positively
to the town. |
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