Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
themselves simply as 'Muslims' and many citizens of former Yugoslav republics who
'lost' their nationality after independence for fear that Slovenia would not grant them cit-
izenship. The status of many as noncitizens in Slovenia - the so-called
izbrisani,
or
'erased' - remains extremely controversial.
The Italians (0.1% of the population) and
Hungarians (0.3%) are considered indigenous
minorities with rights protected under the con-
stitution, and each group has a special deputy
looking after their interests in parliament.
Census figures put the number of Roma,
mostly living in Prekmurje, at about 3500, al-
though unofficial estimates are double or even triple that number.
Ethnic Slovenes living outside the national borders number as many as 400,000, with
the vast majority in the USA and Canada. In addition, 50,000 or more Slovenes live in the
Italian regions of Gorizia (Gorica), Udine (Videm) and Trieste (Trst), another 15,000 in
Austrian Carinthia (Kärnten in German, Koroška in Slovene) and 5000 reside in southw-
est Hungary.
Every third Slovene regularly takes part in some
sort of active leisure pursuit; 3500 sport societies
and clubs count a total membership of 400,000 -
20% of the population - across the nation.
Sport
In the land of its birth,
smučanje
(skiing) remains the king of sports. The national heroes
have been Primož Peterka, ski-jumping World Cup winner in the late 1990s, and extreme
skier Davo Karničar, who made the first uninterrupted descent of Mt Everest on skis in
2000. More recent people to follow have been Robert Kranjec, who won the ski-flying
World Championship in 2012, and Filip Flisar, who took out the ski-cross World Cup the
same year. Two women have also helped put Slovenian skiing on the world map. The first
is Petra Majdič who, in 2006, was the first Slovenian skier to win a medal in a World Cup
cross-country race and has gone on to collect two dozen more. She took bronze in the
classic sprint at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver after falling and breaking several
ribs, winning the admiration of her countrymen. The second is Tina Maze, who won two
silvers at Vancouver and is the current world champion in giant slalom.
Until not so long ago Slovenia was one of
the few countries in Europe where
nogomet
(football) was not a national passion. But in-
terest in the sport increased after the national
team's plucky performance in the 2000
European Championship. In the qualifying
match for the 2010 World Cup, Slovenia beat
For the latest on Union Olimpija and Slovenian
basketball see the Eurobasket
website.
