Visitors from Charleston's sister city in Slovakia, Banska Bystrica, visited the Chamber of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia on October 20, 2009. 

Justice Thomas McHugh talked to them about the Supreme Court, the West Virginia court system, and the history of the Chamber itself. The group also spent time with Charleston city officials; toured the Charleston Civic Center, Charleston Area Medical Center, the University of Charleston, and West Virginia State University; attended a West Virginia Symphony concert; and met Governor Joe Manchin III during their week in Charleston. 

Some of the visitors spoke English, others communicated through an interpreter. Julia Raticova is director of the foreign relations office in Banska Bystrica, a regional capitol of about 85,000 people. She was accompanied by Jaroslav Sihelsky, Stefan Sevcik, Miriam Sevcikova and Jan Chorvat Jahn. 

Charleston resident Christine Weiss Daugherty directed a rural economic development program in Banska Bystrica from 1996 to 1999, and in 2006 she proposed the sister city relationship with that city and Charleston. 

Banska Bystrica is in the middle of Slovakia, a country in Central Europe that was part of Czechoslovakia from the End of World War II until 1993, when Slovakia and The Czech Republic peacefully split.




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