Skiing in Bánkút

Hungary is famous for a lot of things: Music, food, thermal baths, wine, and many other things.
One thing Hungary is not famous for? - Skiing.

I have been snowboarding twice in Hungary - one of them was today, when I took Rosemary, Nate and Felicia to Bánkút ski area in the Bükk mountains, mostly to let Nate try out skiing.
A few years ago I went snowboarding on the highest peak in Hungary, Kékes tető (1014 m/ 3330 ft). It wasn't so great.

I spent the first hour today in Bánkút teaching Nate how to ski, and then I decided to buy a lift ticket and take a few runs myself.
There was actually much more snow there than I expected, considering that it is not far from Eger, and in Eger there is no snow at all.
Nonetheless, I kind of felt like I was snowboarding on frozen grass. There wasn't much of a base, to say the least.

But, there are a few positive things I would have to say about Bánkút:

• It was CHEAP. I paid 1000 HUF (3.23 EUR) for my lift ticket - which lets me ride the lift 6 times, any time between now and when they close in March (providing that they have snow until then. They could close earlier if there is not enough snow). Also, I was able to rent skis for Nate for 1000 HUF too. That is cheap.
• It was CLOSE to Eger. It was a short 1 hour drive from our house.
• It is a great place to teach people how to ski - especially kids. If you are going to be teaching someone how to ski or snowboard, it makes a lot more sense to go to Bánkút rather than spending a lot more money on gas and lift tickets to go to bigger mountains in Slovakia or Austria, when all you really need to teach them is a minimal amount of snow and some short runs. There is nothing more frustrating than driving a long way to an awesome ski mountain, only to not be able to ski on it because you spend the whole day on the beginners' hill teaching someone the basics.

So, I thought up a few possible slogans for Bánkút:

• "Bánkút: The Most Frozen Grass in Hungary!"
• "Bánkút: Ne válaszd műsípályát - inkább gyere hozzánk és válaszd FŰsípályát!"

Here is a video of our trip today to Bánkút. Nate even did a bit of skiing on his own, but we didn't get video of that.

Border Lines

It seems that this Ukrainian tea company doesn't believe in the existence of Hungary or Slovakia.

Probably it is a conspiracy from Romanian nationalists... :-)

Border Crossing with Kids - Határátkelés...Gyerekekkel

This past weekend when we went to Serbia we had a little problem at the border, and I'm writing this in the hope that it will help someone to avoid the problem that we had.

Múlt hétvége amikor elmentünk Szerbiába, volt egy kisebb problémánk a határnál, és ezt azért írom, hogy segítsek másoknak elkerülni egy kellemetlen helyzetet.

I'm pretty sure that changing laws is the main hobby of all politicians.

Úgy tűnik, hogy megváltoztatni a törvényeket minden politikus fő hobbija.

When I first moved to Hungary in January 2002, I was told not to bother getting a visa for Hungary in the US, but to just go to Hungary and then get my Hungarian visa in one of the consulates in a neighboring country like Slovakia or Romania. When I arrived in Hungary I found out that the law had been changed on 1 January, and now you could only get a Hungarian visa in your country of origin. I didn't have the money to get a ticket back to the US, so I stayed as a "tourist" for 8 months by "border hopping".
By August 2002, the law had been changed again and had reverted back to the old way - so I was able to get my visa in Slovakia.

Amikor ide költöztem Magyarországra 2002 januárjában, azt mondták nekem az USÁban, hogy nem kell magyar vízumot intézni Amerikában mielőtt megyek - hanem csak menjek el Magyarországra, és majd valamelyik szomszéd országban intézzem el a vízumot egy konzulátusnál, pl Romániában vagy Szlovákiában. Amikor megérkeztem, megtudtam, hogy 2002.január 1-jén megváltozott a törvény, és a magyar vízumot csak abban az országban lehetett igényelni ahonnan származott az illető. Mivel nem volt pénzem visszamenni Amerikába, itt maradtam "turista"-ként 8 hónapig, úgy, hogy néha átmentem Romániába egy egy pecsétért.
2002 augusztusában megint megváltoztatták a törvényt és visszaállt a régi rendszerre - így Szlovákiában tudtam elintézni a vízumomat.

So, here is what happened this weekend:
Rosemary and the little ones are dual citizens, but we never bothered to get Hungarian passports for the kids - we always just used their US passports whenever we traveled, and had no problems. This time when we were leaving Hungary, the border guard told us that we have to prove that our are Hungarian citizens, because otherwise it seems that they have been living in Hungary illegally without visas.
In the past it had been enough to show their Hungarian address cards, but this time they said it was not enough. We would have been able to prove that easily by showing their birth certificates, but those were back in Eger - 320 km away.

Szóval, ez az ami most történt a hétvégén:
Rosemary és a kicsik mind kettős állampolgárok, viszont soha nem igényeltünk magyar útleveleket a kicsiknek - mindig csak az amerikai útleveleit használtunk amikor utaztunk valahová, és soha nem volt ebből probléma. Most, ahogy elhagytuk Magyarországot, a határőr azt mondta nekünk, hogy be kell bizonyítanunk a gyerekek magyar állampolgárságukat, mert különben úgy tűnik mint ha illegálisan tartozkodnak Magyarországon vízum nélkül. Eddig elég volt megmutatni a magyar lakcímkártyait, de most azt mondták, hogy ez már nem elég. Simán be tudtunk volna bizonyítani az állampolgárságukat a születési anyakönyvi kivonataival, de azok otthon voltak Egerben - 320 km-re tőlünk.

In the end, the border guards were very understanding, and after making some phone calls were able to let us through by leaving a note at the border that we should be allowed through, as it was clear that the kids were ours and Rosemary was able to verify her Hungarian citizenship.

Végül nagyon rendesek és megértőek voltak a határőrök, és egy kis telefonálgatás után átengedtek bennünket, mert nyilvánvaló volt hogy a gyerekek a miénk és Rosemary be tudta bizonyítani a magyar állampolgárságát.

The point is this: if you have kids who are dual citizens, you need to get them a passport or a photo ID card. It used to be that they only issued these ID cards to people over 14, but now the law has changed and they can be issued to newborn babies as well.

A lényeg az, hogyha kettős állampolgárok a gyerekek, igényelni kell nekik vagy egy útlevelet vagy egy fényképes személy igazolványt. Régebben csak 14 évesen lehetett kapni személy igazolványt, de most már az újszülött babáknak is lehet kérni.

Camping Trip to Slovakia and Poland

Two weeks ago I took a few days off and went up north to the border of Slovakia and Poland with Balázs and Dani for a few days of camping, hiking and sightseeing.


We started out with the idea of wanting to go white water rafting, and after looking into it, we found that the closest options were Bosnia, Slovenia, or Slovakia/Poland. The former two options are about 7 hr drives from us, but SK/PL is about half of that.

Our destination was the Pieniny mountains, a national park which spreads across the border of the two countries. The Dunajec river forms the border for some kilometers, particularly in the Dunajec Gorge, which is the pearl of the whole national park, and is on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.


There is a long history of rafting in the Dunajec gorge - about 150 years ago rafting trips began on the river for the guests of the Polish spa town of Szczawnica. The traditional rafting is done on wood rafts tied together, and although it is interesting and traditional, the wooden rafts are mostly for seeing the canyon, not for riding the rapids - they try to avoid them as much as possible so as not to damage the boats.

We decided to go with rubber rafts, and tried to hit all the biggest rapids and get as wet as possible. We had a great time, and the scenery was beautiful.

We also climed Trzy Korony, the most famous peak in the region.


One of the best things we did was to take mountain bikes with us. There were 3 of us, and we were only able to bring 2 bikes, but that wasn't a problem. There were times when 2 of us would go biking and one of us would stay back - other times we were able to rent a third bike. It definitely made the trip a lot more fun - both in the mountains and in the cities we visiting.


When we weren't climbing mountains we went to the cities of Bardejov, SK (also a UNESCO site) and Zakopane, PL.






All in all it was a great trip. I miss the mountains already, and can't wait for the next time I get to get back up in the hills.

Back on the Snow

One of the things I like about living in Eger is that we are relatively close to the Tatra mountains in Slovakia, which means we can be at decent ski areas in the High Tatras in 2 hours drive from our house.
For the first few years we lived in Eger I got a fair number of days in on the snow, but last year, with everything that happened with the pregnancy and Felicia, going snowboarding was not a priority.

Yesterday Balázs, Dani and I went to Jasná in the Low Tatras - for Balázs this was his first time snowboarding, for Dani and I it was our first time back on the snow in almost 2 years.

We had a good day, Balázs learned the basics with an instructor, and Dani and I enjoyed good conditions.

Afterwards we stopped in the biggest little town in Eastern Europe: Liptovský Mikuláš, and ate some good Slovak food: pirohy and halušky.

I (heart) the Tatras!

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Together

Rosemary and I both enjoy taking photos, but we don't have enough pictures of just the two of us as a couple. Today was an exception. We filled up all 7 seats of the Dacia and headed up to the mountains in Slovakia for the day. On the way home we stopped at the top of the Dobšiná pass and took this photo.

Eger Rally

One great thing about Eger, is that there is always something going on. During the summer, there is some kind of festival happening every weekend - from the most obvious: the wine festival, even to things like a coffee and cigar festival.

One of the biggest events of the year is the Eger rally. It's a pretty big deal; most of the teams are from Hungary, but there are very many from Slovakia, and some from Poland, Czech Republic and Romania too. Here's the website for it - which has video of the racing on it too.

Every year we've always talked about going and checking it out, and this year we finally went down to the main square for the closing ceremony. Here are some pictures of the cars coming into the main square:

Slovak Language Act

There is more and more tension between Hungary and Slovakia these days.
In addition to what happened last week - yesterday Slovakia passed a new language act, which "fines anyone misusing the Slovak language and limits the use of the Hungarian language in public." (Source)
Slovakia is being criticized for this law by many, even within the European Union, whereas the Slovak government claims that the law is being misrepresented and misunderstood. Here's the critics' view and the Slovak response.
I'm like Rodney King - I wish we could all just get along :)
Maranatha!

Egyre több feszültség van Magyarország és Szlovákia között manapság.
Azon felül, hogy mi történt a múlt héten, tegnap vezették be az új nyelvtörvényt, ami "bírságot követel azoktól akik helytelenül használják a szlovák nyelvet, és korlátozza a magyar nyelv nyilvánosságban való használatát." (Forrás)
Sokan kritizálják a szlovák kormányt e-miatt, meg az EU-n belül is, miközben a szlovák kormány azt állítja, hogy ezt a törvényt félreértik és média hamisan írja le.
Itt a kritika nézete és a szlovák válasz
Én olyan vagyok mint Rodney King - azt kivánom, hogy mindenki kijöjjön a másikkal :)
Maranatha! (Jöjj el, Uram!)

Denied

Last week, on August 20, the President of Hungary, Sólyom László was refused entry into Slovakia.
The president was going on a private visit to a town in southern Slovakia with a majority ethnic Hungarian population to unveil a statue of St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary.
The reason the Slovak government gave for refusing entry to the Hungarian president was the day he chose to come on. The Slovak government told Sólyom László that he could come on any other day, just not August 20th. When he came anyway, he was turned away at the bridge where he tried to cross into Slovakia.
This is the complication - because whereas for Hungarians August 20th is Saint Stephen's day - one of their most important holidays, when they remember the founding of the Hungarian kingdom, which used to include the territory of modern Slovakia and Transylvania - in Slovakia August 20th is the anniversary of the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, in which the Hungarian army also invaded Czechoslovakia to shut down the "Prague Spring" - an attempt by Czechoslovakia to move away from communism and Soviet domination.
The problem is that Hungary and Slovakia are both EU members, and Slovakia's denial of entry to the Hungarian president is contrary to EU law which permits freedom of movement between countries.
This isn't even the first time this kind of thing has happened to Sólyom László. On March 15, he went to Romania, to celebrate Hungary's national day with Transylvanian Hungarians, and while his plane was in the air, he was refused landing permission, and ended up having to come into Transylvania by car. Pretty embarrassing for a president...
Both Romania and Slovakia are sensitive to Hungarian territorial claims to their land, and view moves like these by the president as challenging their territorial sovereignty.
I can personally understand why Slovakia and Romania are concerned about Hungarian claims to their land. I can also understand the Hungarians, who don't want to lose touch with fellow Hungarians who were separated from Hungary not by their own choice.

What do you think? Was Slovakia justified in doing this? Is the president of Hungary challenging the sovereignty of these nations by his visits there?

Glacier

'A glacier is a large mass of ice moving slowly over some land surface or down a valley, formed over long periods from the accumulation of snow in areas where the amount of snow that falls exceeds the amount that melts. Glacier ice is the largest reservoir of fresh water on Earth. Glaciers are found in mountain ranges of every continent except Australia' (Souce: Wikipedia)

On Monday I took Andy, Kim, and Balázs to the High Tatras. Andy and Kim came to help with our English Camps, and since there is a one week break between the 2 camps, they wanted to see some cool stuff in the area.
Every now and then I have to go get my mountain fix up in Slovakia - it kind of reminds me of home.

We went to Tatranská Lomnica, and took the lift up to Skalnaté Pleso - a lake which collects the water from the glaciers near the peak. I've been up there quite a few times, but had never actually seen the lake, since its frozen and covered with snow in the winter. It was beautiful.
From the lake we could see the glaciers, probably about 700 meters up the mountain, so we decided to hike up to them. Kim had never seen glaciers before, so we figured we might as well go see it from up close.
Up on the top of the mountain we saw some deer and a fox. I caught a frog.

All in all, it was a great time. The only thing missing was Rosemary...:(
Here are the photos:

Cyril and Methodius Day

Yesterday was Sts. Cyril and Methodius Day in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Cyril and Methodius, were, in my opinion, pretty cool. I think they deserve a holiday.
They were brothers, born in Greece, in the 9th century, who became missionaries to the Slavic people. They have been called the "Apostles to the Slavs".
Cyril and Methodius translated the Bible into the language of the Slavs - now called Old Church Slavonic, and created an alphabet - the Glagolitic alphabet - which was suited to match the specific features of Slavic language. They evangelized the Slavic people, and are seen as heroes throughout the Slavic world to this day.
As a missionary, I can't help but be impressed with that. They did what He said to do:
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Tegnap Szent Cirill és Metód napja volt Csehországban és Szlovákiában.
Véleményem szerint, királyok voltak. Szerintem megérdemlik egy ünnepnapot.
Testvérek voltak, akik Görögországban születtek a 9. században, és missziónáriusok lettek a szláv népek között. Valamennyien a "Szlávok Apostolai"-nak hívják őket.
Cirill és Metód a szlávok nyelvére fordították a Bibliát - ma ezt óegyházi szláv nyelvnek hívják, és kitaláltak hozzá egy saját ábécé rendszert - a Glogolita ábécé - ami alkalmas volt a szláv nyelv sajátosságaira.
Ők evangélizálták a szláv népet, és a mai napig hősöknek tartják őket szerte a szláv világban.
Mint missziónárius, ez nekem nagyon tetszik. Ők azt csinálták, amit Ő mondott:
18Jézus hozzájuk lépett, és így szólt: "Nekem adatott minden hatalom mennyen és földön. 19Menjetek el tehát, tegyetek tanítvánnyá minden népet, megkeresztelve őket az Atyának, a Fiúnak és a Szentléleknek nevében, 20tanítva őket, hogy megtartsák mindazt, amit én parancsoltam nektek; és íme, én veletek vagyok minden napon a világ végezetéig."

Slovenský Raj

Balázs had his spring break around Easter, and since he's never really been anywhere yet, I took him to one of my favorite nearby places to hike - Slovenský Raj (Slovak Paradise) national park in Slovakia.
He had a great time, except that the hike lasted 6 hrs, and 1 hour into it he started asking if we were almost at the end yet...
I told him that by the end of this summer he will be a hiking machine :)
Here are the pictures:

Balázsnak tavaszi szünete volt a múlt héten, Húsvét előtt, és mivel eddig még nem nagyon járt túl sok helyen, elvittem az egyik kedvenc kiránduló helyemre turázni - a Szlovák Paradicsom nemzeti parkba, Szlovákiában.
Nagyon jól érezte magát, csak annyi volt, hogy ez egy 6 órás tura volt, és az első óra után Balázs elkezdett kérdezni, hogy "ott vagyunk már?"...
Mondtam neki, hogy a nyár végére, már tura-gép lesz belőle :)

Kiírás

Találtam ezt a kiírást egy Rozsnyói (Rožňava, SK) falon:

Elég régiesen van írva a szövege. Törtem a fejemet azzal, hogy kifejtsem mit mond, és ennyit sikerült megértemen belőle:
Istennek dicsőségére felépítette ezen rosnai (szerintem rozsnyói-t jelent) ispitalt (gondolom ez korházat jelent) Krasznahorkának eörökös ura, idősbik (idősebbik) Andrássy György.
Lett régi hiv szolgálja tisztanólja (fogalmom sincs mit jelent - talán azt, hogy a régi hiv szolgálja tiszetelére lett építve?)
Rózmáni Industriálja által (gondolom, ez egy akkori cégnek a neve).

Mivel nem vagyok egy vérbeli madjar, lehet hogy ti tudtok jobban megérteni ezt a kiírást.
Mit szóltok hozzá?

Fresh and Easy

In Hungary and some of the surrounding countries, as far as supermarkets go, Tesco is the biggest show in town.
In Eger we have a big Tesco store, where you can get pretty much anything.

Although Tesco is a British company, their biggest stores are actually based in Eastern Europe - the biggest one of all being in Budaörs, Hungary.
Tesco also has stores in many other countries, especially in Asia, which usually don't go by the Tesco name, but are nonetheless Tesco-owned.

Tesco is now the world's 4th largest retailer after Wal-Mart (USA), Carrefour (France) and Home Depot (USA).
And now Tesco is making their move on the American market under the name Fresh and Easy.
The first Fresh and Easy stores opened in 2007 in California, Nevada, and Arizona, and Tesco's American headquarters is in El Segundo, CA.

I went to a Fresh and Easy for the first time tonight in Vista, CA. We were looking for baby food, and curious what an American Tesco store would be like.

Firstly, it was nothing like the Tesco stores in Eastern Europe (which, by the way, are nothing like the Tesco stores in the UK).
Fresh and Easy is a discount grocery store with an environmentally friendly angle to it.
At Fresh and Easy there are no casheirs - only self-checkout machines.
And the food there is CHEAP. But I guess I understand why they didn't choose to name the store Cheap and Easy, as that might have another connotation!

All in all, I think Fresh and Easy is pretty cool, and would shop there again in a heartbeat.

A New One

I know its kind of late to be writing about the New Year, but we've been very busy here in California, so I haven't had a lot of time to sit and write.
So, once again, this post will contain some pretty random thoughts.

• Rosemary and I are officially geezers. Or maybe misers. Whatever - we are old and boring.
  Our New Year's Eve of 2008 was not spent partying like it was 1999, but rather going to bed around 10pm, because we were tired and bored. We watched a movie, and then around 10 decided to just go to bed.
  I remember that my parents used to do this same thing, and I thought they were so old and weird. Now that has become us...
  

• As the clock struck midnight and 2008 gave way to 2009, a few things changed in Europe:
  - As 2008 passed into history, so did the Slovak Koruna, as Slovakia became the first of the former Warsaw Pact countries to integrate to using the Euro currency and join the Eurozone. Congrats to SK! Hungary is still not going to be getting the Euro for many years to come...
  - On Jan 1st, Czech Republic became the first of the former Warsaw Pact countries to take over the 6-month rotating EU presidency. One of their stated goals is working towards EU membership for the Balkan nations, specifically for Serbia.
  - Vilnius, Lithuania and Linz, Austria became the new European Capitals of Culture.
  

• This has nothing to do with the New Year, but I was turned on to a very funny blog by a friend of ours: www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com
  It has pictures of professional cakes, some with mistakes, others just unbelievably weird, etc...
  Browse through it if you have time; some of the stuff on there is really funny - we cracked up.

Anyways, I hope you had a happy New Year, and pray that your 2009 will be blessed.

Shopping Abroad

One of the main things we do when traveling to any other country is spend a lot of time in a grocery store, finding local specialties and things we can't buy in Hungary.
In Slovakia, we always spend a long time in Tesco loading up on:

• certain nuts (I know, it sounds nuts...)
• Rajo brand yogurt
  
• Knedli (steamed bread)
• Ewe cheese
• Kofola (Czech and Slovak national soda - made from some coffee byproducts - its an acquired taste!)
• Slovakia brand chips (ironically made in Czech Rep.).

By this point, we know what things we can buy in certain countries, which we can't get elsewhere - sometimes American products and sometimes specific national products:

• Slovakia = Dr. Pepper
• Bulgaria = Doritos chips (they have different flavors than in the States) and Digestive cookies (Rosemary's favorite)
• Romania = Skittles (I went to the border once when I lived in Debrecen just to buy some)
• Croatia = Oreos
  
• Former Yugoslavia = Cockta

I'm sure there are many more than these.
What about you? Are there any products you make sure to buy when you visit certain places?

Rožňava & Krásna Hôrka

There's something I inherently love about Slovakia.
Probably its because of the mountains - I know that I live in the "mountainous" region of Hungary, but in SK they have some serious mountains - the kind with snow on them 12 months a year. And I like that - it makes me feel at home.
We live about 45 min from the border, and we go to Slovakia probably about once a month - sometimes more sometimes less, depending on the time of year. In ski season, I obviously go there more often - I can be at Tatranská Lomnica ski area in 2 hrs, door to door.

The closest part of SK to us is the Gemer/Gömör region, which is right on the border and full of caves and castles. Its an area I'd love to spend more time in.
The city of Rožňava/Rozsnyó is the capital of the Gemer region, and the Hungarian noble Andrássy family had a couple of nice castles right outside of the city - one in Betliar/Betlér and one of them being the amazing hilltop castle of Krásna Hôrka/Krasznahorka.

Here are some photos from our recent trip to Rožňava & Krásna Hôrka:

Répášska Huta

Eger sits right in between two of Hungary's few mountain ranges - the Bükk and the Mátra.
If you are heading north through the town, if you turn left off the main road you will be in the Mátra, and if you turn right you will be in the Bükk.
Even though neither of them are very high, they are both very nice, especially after having suffered through years of living in the "alföld" (the plains) in Debrecen - which for a mountain boy was like a slow painful death on the inside.

This past weekend we went for a drive with Shane and Marianna, through the Bükk to enjoy the fall and the changing of the leaves.
On the way, we visited one of my favorite villages - Répáshuta, also known by its Slovak name: Répášska Huta, as this is one of only a few villages in Hungary with a significant ethnic Slovak population.

In Hungarian, the word "kisebbség" (minority) is usually used as an offhand way of referring to Gypsies, since they are the largest minority group in Hungary. There are however other national minority groups in Hungary, but their populations are quite small.

At one time, it would not have been anything special to find villages in Hungary with ethnic minorities in them. Hungary used to be a bigger place, with many different nationalities.
If you talk to any Hungarian for more than 10 minutes, there is a pretty good chance that you are going to hear about the Treaty of Trianon - a peace treaty made at the end of World War I, in which the Great Powers divided up the teritory of the Kingdom of Hungary (on the losing side of the war). As a result, Hungary lost about two-thirds of its territory, and new borders were drawn according to ethnic lines.
Here's a map of the "distribution of races" in Austria-Hungary in 1911:You can see from the map, that the nations which were formed after WWI, were formed for the most part along ethnic lines - with a few exceptions.
One of these exceptions was the Germans living in what became Czechoslovakia, and the other is the Hungarians who ended up outside of the borders of Hungary, in almost all of the newly formed countries - leaving Hungarians as the largest national minority population in Europe, but leaving almost no ethnic minorities in the new Hungarian state, as you can see in this post-WWI map:
Even now, almost a hundred years after Trinanon, you can go across the borders of Hungary and find significant Hungarian populations in all the surrounding countries. Which, from our point of view is kind of nice, that we can travel for quite a ways outside of Hungary and still get by many times using Hungarian.
These exceptions - the Germans in the Sudetenland and the Hungarians outside of Hungary led to problems in WWII.

And getting back to Slovaks - Hungary and Czechoslovakia were on opposite sides during WWII - Hungary was Axis and Czechoslovakia was Allied. As a result, Czechoslovakia issued the Beneš decrees, which declared the Hungarians (and Germans) living in their country to be traitors and enemies of the state, which led to much of their land being confiscated. This led to a "population exchange", in which about 70,000 Slovaks from Hungary were "relocated" to Slovakia and 70,000 Hungarians from Slovakia were transplanted in Hungary. Thus, a country which was already very homogeneous, became even more so, as most of the Slovak population left.

Today, the estimated population of Slovaks in Hungary is around 50,000.
That's why Répášska Huta is such an interesting place in Hungary - a village where half the population is Slovak and 38% speak the Slovak language as their mother tongue.
Besides all this stuff, its also just a cute little village tucked away in the mountains, and a great place to visit.