General Information About the Town of Svidník

At present the town of Svidník with almost 12000 inhabitants is a natural administrative, economic, cultural, recreational and sports center of the region. There is an important international road leading through the town of Svidník to Vysny Komarnik – Barwinek which is the biggest border crossing from the Slovak Republic to Poland. There is also an airport built on the edge of town of Svidník. The town's biggest companies are SVIK Ltd. and PSS, a.s. Nowadays the development of business enterprising and private business is expanding especially in manufacturing industry, trade and services and agriculture.

While in the past the health care in the town of Svidník was provided by one or two doctors, now there is a modern hospital and a polyclinic medical center that was opened in 1981.

In the town there are four public primary schools, Specialized Primary Boarding School, St. George Primary School (church school), Elementary School of Arts and seven secondary schools – Secondary Grammar School of Dukla Heroes, Secondary Vocational School of Clothing Industry, United School – Business Academy, United School – Hotel Academy, Blessed Mother Teresa Grammar School, Secondary Medical Church School of Good Samaritan and as well as Secondary Vocational School of Clothing Industry of Army General L. Svoboda and Secondary Technical School. There are also other primary and secondary schools in the town of Giraltovce and other villages on the region.

Besides the two museums (SNM – The Museum of Ukrainian Culture and The Military Museum) found in Svidník there is also The County State Archive keeping valuable resources and documents from the period in between 1918 - 1990. The Dukla Library in Svidník being the first in Slovakia implements the Holland-Slovak project of Biblio-Buses and its mobile system of borrowing library items.

In the summer time the nationwide Festival of Ruthenian-Ukrainian Culture of Slovakia is the most attractive for tourists. It is being held in the local open-air amphitheatre since 1956.

The town and surrounding villages are not characterized by noble and artistically rich secular buildings, all the more sacral, brick and wood in particular buildings fully reflect the local genius of folk architecture. Eleven wooden churches of the Eastern Rite in the region, mostly in Eastern part of Slovakia, are in the category of national cultural monuments.

Some churches of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Roman Catholic churches and actually peasant farming buildings of wooden folk architecture as well have been declared for cultural monuments. Other national cultural monuments are the Dukla Memorial of Czechoslovak Army and the surrounding park and the Red Army Memorial with its cemeteries. In Hunkovce there is the cemetery of fallen German soldiers in World War II.

Above the open-air amphitheatre in Svidník there is open-air ethnography exposition SNM-ŠMUK – the Skanzen (open-air museum). Other cultural monuments include the manor house built in 1795 and the building of the district court which is now the residence of the Dukla Tutorial Centre. It is the functional building from the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries with the predominance of neoclassical elements. There is another building from the 19th century in the centre of the town specifically the original building of the permanent exposition of the Museum of Rusyn-Ukrainian Culture.

The statue of Army General Ludvík Svoboda, being the only one in Central Europe, dominates the city centre. There are other architectural landmarks such as two Orthodox Catholic Churches restored in 1993 – 1996, Holy Trinity Eastern Orthodox Church built from August 1993 to August 1994 and the Sacred Heart of Jesus Roman Catholic Church ordained in July 1996.

At the present time there are ongoing works on the reconstruction and city development. There was a bridge built between the two housing estates Dukla and Utra in 2003. Part of the building of new house of culture was completed and it is the residence of branch offices of Employment, Social and Family Matters Department and Slovenská Sporiteľňa a.s. (the bank).

In Svidník, sports enthusiasts can enjoy themselves on tennis courts and in outdoor summer swimming pools.

The region around Svidník is not so big however it was represented by some great personalities. Among the prominent personalities we can mention Dionýz Ilkovič – the Academician of SAV (Slovak Academy of Science) a native of Šarišský Štiavnik, František Gibala – the physicist, the co-founder of polarography, the Academic sculptor - a native of Krajná Poľana and Laur - Vasiľ Škurla – the bishop of the Eastern Orthodox Church a native of Ladomirova working in the USA. The prominent communist politician Vasiľ Biľak was born in Krajná Bystrá. The national artist - the painter Dezider Milly - also worked in Svidník. His artworks and paintings can be found in a gallery bearing his name.

The region surrounding the town of Svidník provides opportunities of getting to know and understand the folk traditions and customs, the artwork of painting the Easter eggs as well as it provides good conditions for hiking on marked pathways, camping, biking, mototourism, swimming in summer and skiing in winter as well as sledging. The forests are full of various forest fruits and other forest food.

2008 © Town of Svidnikrealization © GRAND STUDIO, s.r.o.