At the Cathedral of St Elizabeth in Košice, Estern Slovakia

 Lawmakers in Slovakia approved a defense treaty with the U.S. earlier this month (on 09 February), making it the last NATO member on the alliance's eastern frontier to enact such a pact. The treaty allows U.S. forces to use two airports in Slovakia, which shares a short mountainous border with Ukraine.

====================================================================
(in eastern Slovakia) A landlocked country of central Europe, Slovakia is roughly coextensive with the historic region of Slovakia, the easternmost of the two territories that for more than seven decades (from 1918-1992) constituted Czechoslovakia. Although World War II thwarted the Slovaks’ first vote for independence in 1939, sovereignty was finally realized on 01 January 1993, more than three years after the Velvet Revolution. Slovakia is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, and Austria to the southwest. Its former federal partner, the Czech Republic, lies to the west. Though a review of the Czech-Slovak relationship reveals more discord than harmony, there was one splendid moment when the two nations stood firmly together -- in the summer of 1968, when the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia and crushed the Prague Spring, the period during which a series of reforms were implemented by Communist Party leader Alexander Dubček, perhaps the best-known Slovak in the world.

+ The Western Carpathian Mountains dominate the topography of Slovakia. They consist of a system of three regions of east-west-trending ranges (Outer, Central, and Inner) separated by valleys and intermontane basins. Two large lowland areas north of the Hungarian border, the Little Alfold (called the Podunajská, or Danubian, Lowland in Slovakia) in the southwest and the Eastern Slovakian Lowland in the east, constitute the Slovakian portion of the Inner Carpathian Depressions region. More than four-fifths of Slovakia’s population are ethnic Slovaks. Hungarians, concentrated in the southern border districts, form the largest minority, making up less than one-tenth of the republic’s population. Small numbers of Czechs, Germans, and Poles live throughout the country, while Ruthenians (Rusyns) are concentrated in the east and northeast. In addition to Hungarian, Polish, German, Ukrainian, Rusyn (related to Ukrainian), and Romany are among the other languages spoken in Slovakia. (The year 2004 was a momentous one, as the country joined both NATO and the EU.)

+ Featured here is Eastern Slovakia, where a sizable and relatively mobile population of Roma ("Gypsies") reside. Eastern Slovakia (Východné Slovensko) is one of the four major regions of Slovakia. It was created at the same time as were Košice and Prešov, its sub-regions. Slovakia's untrammeled east, home to hundreds of hidden caves, and the best wine region you've never heard of. Freethinking Košice, Slovakia's second-largest city, is the main reason to visit, with waterfall-blessed Slovenský Raj National Park close behind. Depicted here, is the Cathedral of St Elizabeth in Košice: