STA, 11 April 2021 - AK Automotive, a Turkish-owned company, to expand production and has recently purchased a production facility in Koper it used to lease from Cimos. It plans to invest more than EUR 20 million in the location within a year.

AK Automotive was set up in 2018 by Kücükoglu Holding, which acquired Cimos's kinematics business the same year.

The company now manufactures car parts for Audi, Daimler, Volkswagen and Aston Martin, AK Automotive director Bülent Göral has told the STA.

Apart from the existing facility, the company intends to build a new one on some 2,000 square metres to install a new machine for the manufacture of larger car parts and chassis segments.

"Given the factories of our clients, we see this factory as having a strategic location," Göral said.

The company did not reveal its financials, but Göral said it had finished the past two years in the red, as expected.

The number of employees is expected to increase from 75 to 95 by the end of 2021 and to 220 by the end of 2023, of whom around 30% would be engineers and technicians.

STA, 15 March 2021 - As part of its preliminary procedure, the corruption watchdog has established there were no corruption risks or breaches of the integrity law when Interior Minister Aleš Hojs bought a piece of land on the Slovenian coast in July 2020.

The Commission for the Prevention of Corruption said in Monday's statement that based on the preliminary procedure, the case will not be further processed.

The commission launched the procedure late last year after receiving a report of suspicion of irregularities in the Koper municipality's sale of a piece of land.

It then obtained explanations and documents from the municipality and the Slovenian Institute of Auditors, checked the sale procedure and talked with the appraiser of the land, only to conclude that no breaches within its purview could be established.

It did however detect "certain risks", so it recommended to the municipality to ask appraisers to clearly state in their reports whether the price as appraised includes VAT or not.

Hojs's purchase was problematised last September by Mladina weekly, which alleged he had bought it cheaply because Mayor of Koper Boris Popović was his acquaintance.

It said the city of Koper had decided to sell a building plot which could not be even accessed by road, arguing that had it serviced it before selling it, it could have asked more than EUR 300 per square metre for it rather than just EUR 67.5.

At the April 2017 auction, the land was bought by Rjeckon, a company owned by Russian citizen Marat Idrisov, as the only bidder at the asking price of EUR 262,920 (VAT excluded).

Soon afterwards, the city started serving it with a road and a sewage system, while Idrisov divided it into smaller pieces and sold it on to four buyers, two of whom were Hojs and Popovič.

Hojs bought his 882 square metre piece of land for EUR 75,910 (EUR 86 per square metre), while the price could have been almost 3.5 times higher, said Mladina.

At the time, Hojs told the left-leaning magazine he had reported the purchase to the corruption watchdog. He also denied Popovič had helped him get hold of the land.

STA, 28 February 2021 - Slovenian olive oil Vanja produced by Koper-based olive grower Vanja Dujc has won the prestigious Olio Nuovo award for the best olive oil in the northern hemisphere in 2021, the contest's organisers announced.

The award was presented on Thursday. The accolade is the recognition of quality and brand, said the organisers, who lauded Dujc's oil as "wonderful, complex oil, balanced and with a fiery kick at the end".

The jury, comprised of olive oil experts and top chefs, is chaired by Michelin-starred chef Eric Briffard, the head of the Paris Le Cordon Bleu institute.

The contest is held twice a year - in February the best oil in the northern hemisphere is picked and in August the winner of the southern hemisphere is selected.

Dujc has been producing olive oil since 1984 in village Malija in the coastal Izola municipality. His orchard boasts some 1,200 trees and produces 3,300 litres per year, according to the organisers.

Having won a number of international awards for his oil, Dujc has been dubbed "olive oil guru" or "olive oil whisperer". The first time he became an olive oil world champion was at the first olive oil world championship organised as part of the Expo 2010 in Shanghai, newspaper Delo reported.

The website is still under construction, but here’s the Facebook page

STA, 31 January 2021 - Several hundred people gathered in Koper to protest against closure of schools on Sunday after the Obalno-Kraška and Zasavje regions slipped back into black tier last week. The government decided schools should return to remote teaching and kindergartens close on Monday after pupils in grades one to three were allowed back for only four days last week.

The protest was initiated on social media and drew parents, as well as children and other protesters, carrying banners saying "Schools must remain open", "Enough! Zoom is cancelled!" and "Open kindergartens, shut down government!".

V Kopru se je zbralo večje število ljudi in zahtevalo odprtje šol. Tako kot v soboto v Trbovljah tudi koprski protestniki zahtevajo vrnitev otrok v šole in vrtce.
➡️ https://t.co/Woiwy7khai pic.twitter.com/PR3slkulM6

— TVSLOinfo (@InfoTVSLO) January 31, 2021

"This is not an uprising, this is not a revolution. This is a fight for the basic rights of all of us, but especially our children. We're here today to say no to additional destruction of our children's future," one of the parents said.

The protest in Koper comes a day after some 200 people protested the closure of schools in Trbovlje. Moreover, posts on social media suggest that today and tomorrow parents will be protesting in other parts of the country as well.

Prime Minister Janez Janša responded to the Trbovlje protest in a tweet this morning, labelling it "irrational and dangerous exploitation of children for political purposes in a time of epidemic."

Nerazumno in nevarno izkoriščanje otrok v politične namene v času epidemije. Poleg tega še nezakonit shod. Ravno zaradi take neodgovornosti se stanje v posamičnih regijah poslabšuje namesto obratno. https://t.co/Za3s4zmZEl

— Janez Janša (@JJansaSDS) January 31, 2021

"The rally is also illegal. It is such irresponsible behaviour that worsens the situation in individual regions," Janša added, also retweeting a tweet saying that the organiser of the Trbovlje protest ran for the opposition Marjan Šarec List (LMŠ) in the 2018 local election.

In nine of Slovenia's 12 administrative units, kindergartners and pupils in first three grades of primary school were allowed to return on Tuesday, after more than three months.

But on Thursday, the government decided to once again close the schools in Zasavje and Obalno-Kraška regions following an increase in coronavirus cases that pushed the regions back into tier black.

STA, 18 September 2020 - Interior Minister Aleš Hojs has purchased a plot of land on the Slovenian coast for less than a third of the price the Koper municipality could have potentially fetched with the sale, Mladina reports on Friday. It suggests that Boris Popovič, the mayor of Koper at the time the land was initially sold to a Russian company, is involved.

The weekly says that Hojs purchased last July building land in the village of Kolomban, which overlooks the Slovenian coast near Koper.

The property was purchased from the Russian national Marat Idrisov, whose company had bought a larger piece of land in April 2017 at a public auction from the Koper municipality, which decided after the auction to service the land with a road and a sewage system.

The municipality, which was run by Boris Popovič at the time, sold a total of 3,894 square metres of land in Kolomban. Idrisov was the only bidder, as the land had not even been accessible by road at the time.

His company, Rjeckon, purchased the land at the asking price of EUR 262,920 or EUR 67.50 per square metre, which is a lower than the Koper municipality usually sells land plots to its residents, the weekly adds.

It notes that Rjeckon "is an unknown company, without particular references, and which prior to 2017 actually had no noteworthy revenue or assets expected from a company registered for real estate deals".

Idrisov is an acquaintance of Popovič's infrastructure advisor Radivoje Anđelković, who is believed to have helped the Russian buy the land. For instance, Anđelković allowed Idrisov to register his company at his home address in Ljubljana.

When the land was sold to Idrisov, it was still inaccessible by car, but after the sale the municipality decided to build utility infrastructure there - including a road to all land plots sold and a sewage system, the weekly notes.

Idrisov had thus actually purchased land for which other interested buyers could not have possibly known or predict that it would be provided with infrastructure at the municipality's expense.

Moreover, instead of a plot on which the local authorities built an access road, Idrisov was given the remainder of the available adjacent land to improve the functionality of the entire land plot.

Idrisov then divided his land into several plots and sold it to four persons, including Popovič, Anđelković and Hojs. The interior minister purchased 882 square metres for EUR 75,910, or EUR 86 per square metre.

Had the municipality serviced the land before selling it at auction, it could have fetched more than EUR 300 per square metre or more than EUR 1 million. In that case Hojs, would have to pay EUR 264,600 for his plot, according to Mladina.

The minister has told Mladina that he had reported the deal to the Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, that he had financed it with his own assets and a loan, and that Popovič had not helped him with the purchase.

In a response, Hojs told the press in parliament he had nothing to add because everything is written in the opposition Left's online bulletin - Mladina.

Hojs is defending some of his past actions in the National Assembly as MPs are discussing the opposition-sponsored motion of no-confidence in him.

Remember the wooden statue of Melania Trump that was commissioned by the American artist Brad Downey and handcrafted by Aleš Župevc, the one got burned down, just like the one of her husband?

Now vandals will have to rely on dynamite or a tow truck to remove the intriguing figure, which has been returned to its pedestal in Rožno, a hamlet about 8 km outside Melania’s hometown of Sevnica, in a new, more resilient bronze form, along with a plaque that reads  “dedicated to the eternal memory of a monument to Melania which stood at this location”.

The bronze reproduction of the original is said to have cost Brad Downey around 10,000 euros, and - like the wooden version - has not been met with universal acclaim. A spokesperson for the Municipality of Sevnica, while expressing thanks for the publicity Melania Trump has generated for area, added that although artistic expression is "the free will of each individual, as long as it does not interfere with the dignity of another individual, but...the sculpture that has been erected, removed and now re-erected does not reflect these values. Even worse, it is completely inappropriate, and we believe that opinion is shared by the majority of the residents of Sevnica. In addition, the Municipality of Sevnica is associated with this project completely involuntarily, as the installation area actually lies outside its borders."

If you’d like to see more of Downey’s work then you’re in luck, as until 30 September 2020 you can visit a retrospective of his work in Koper with the title “Fuck off Illusion”. It can be found in Libertas, the former salt warehouse in Koper, with more details here.

STA, 8 September 2020 - The EU Commission has given a go-ahead for an investment worth EUR 80 million out of the cohesion fund to co-finance the new rail section from Divača to Koper, said the Commission on Tuesday. The funds will be spent on building a tunnel and two viaducts on the track, which is to improve rail interconnection.

The project would not only boost rail links in Slovenia but also support the internal market by strengthening economic and social cohesion, said European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms Elisa Ferreira as quoted in a press release.

"The new section is vital for managing the growing demand along the track and for linking the key corridor in the core network and maritime routes," said Brussels.

Ferreira pointed out that the EU's investment was necessary for strengthening rail links between Central Europe and port operator Luka Koper, with the latter being an important nexus of cargo and passenger traffic.

By switching from roads to railways, the project will moreover help reduce emissions and improve air quality in line with the Green Deal targets, which are also pursued by cohesion policy, said the Commission.

The price tag of the entire Divača-Koper project, the biggest publicly-financed construction project currently under way in Slovenia, is estimated at EUR 1.194 billion.

The investment will be financed from various sources, with Slovenia expected to invest the biggest share. The amount of state funding will depend on potential cooperation with another EU country along the corridor.

The project will be moreover funded by EU grants, loans by international financial institutions, commercial banks and SID Bank, the state-run export and development bank.

The National Review Commission has recently shortened the list of suitable bidders for the principal construction works on the rail section. While some bidders will reportedly be asked to supplement their bids, one bidder each from Slovenia, Turkey, China and Austria remain in play.

More details on the state of the project will be presented at a press conference of Infrastructure Minister Jernej Vrtovec scheduled for tomorrow.

STA, 20 August 2020 - The 19th Tartini Festival will get under way tonight as part of more than 60 events dedicated to the 250th anniversary of the death of Piran-born Italian Baroque composer and violinist Giuseppe Tartini (1692-1770).

The opening concert will be given at St George's Church in the coastal town of Piran by the Venice Baroque Orchestra and acclaimed violinist Giuliano Carmignola.

The festival's series of 13 concerts connecting Piran and Koper will then wrap up in Ljubljana on 3 December at the Slovenian Philharmonic Hall.

The concert will feature Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss am Rhein, a German chamber orchestra, and its artistic director, Dutch violinist Isabelle van Keulen.

Apart from Tartini, it will feature Beethoven as part of Beethoven's Year, as well as Dvoržak, Bartok and Slovenia's contemporary composer Aldo Kumar.

To make the anniversary especially festive, some of the greatest European violinists specialising in Tartini have been invited to the festival.

Artistic director Jasna Nadles highlighted Giuliano Carmignola and Giorgio Fava from Italy, David Plantier from France and Laszlo Paulik from Hungary.

Music lovers will also get a chance to hear the sound of Tartini's violin which was made by Italian master luthier Nicolo Amati and is kept at Piran's Maritime Museum.

It will be played at the 29 August concert given by I Solisti Veneti, the festival's regular guest from Italy, which has prepared a special tribute to the composer.

Several young musicians will meanwhile play jazz arrangements of Tartini music at two concerts as part of a Tartini Junior series.

With the exception of the opening and closing concerts, all concerts will be held in the open air.

One of the highlights of Tartini 250, organised by the Piran municipality and partners throughout Tartini's Year, meanwhile took place before the festival.

On 2 August Portorož hosted the Roma Philharmonics (I Filarmonici di Roma) with acclaimed soloist Uto Ughi, who played a Tartini violin.

The concert coincided with the day 124 years ago when the Tartini monument was unveiled in Piran's square bearing the composer's name.

Tartini, the most famous Piran resident, was christened on 8 April 1692 at St George's Church, which is considered his birthday. He died in Padua on 26 February 1770.

Check out the website or Facebook page, with the full programme here, and find another great reason to visit the small but perfectly formed Slovenian coast.

This year marks the 250^th anniversary of the death of Giuseppe Tartini, the Piran-born violinist and composer whose namesake square is the focus of much activity in the town. The 19^th Tartini Festival is thus a special one, with a program that stretches from the man himself to the present day, from Slovenia to beyond. What’s more, Tartini’s original violin will be taken out of the Maritime Museum and played – although note this is not the Stradivarius the Piran composer was the first owner of, which has gone down in history as the Lipinski.

Tartini Square was once part of the sea, as in this photo from sometime in the late 19th century (source: Wikipedia). More old photos of the square.

With the exception of the opening night on August 20 – which is in St. George's Church in Piran – all the concerts will take place outdoors. The historical ambiance of the Slovenian coast, with its Venetian style, thus provides the backdrop to the performances at Piran’s Minorite Monastery (Minoritski samostan sv. Frančiška v Piranu) and Koper’s Praetorian Palace (Atrij Pretorske palace), the beautiful architecture just the most visible aspect of the area’s rich cultural heritage.

Since Tartini’s instrument was the violin the program features outstanding European violinists performing in various ensembles. The opening concert, on August 20, 2020, will feature the Venice Baroque Orchestra and violinist Giuliano Carmignola.

The program then continues with performances from artists such as Isabelle van Keulen, Giorgio Fava, I Solisti Veneti, Paolo Perrone, David Plantier, and László Paulik – with the full schedule and tickets on the Tartini Festival 2020 website.

Moreover, the Tartini Festival’s own ensemble, Il Terzo Suono, will once again be performing baroque music on period instruments and aiming for historically correct interpretations, as seen and heard in the videos accompanying this story.

In addition to established artists, the festival also supports the future of Slovenian music with workshops, masterclasses and the opportunity to gain experience of playing live. The Tartini Junior is supported by the Municipality of Koper.

Check out the website or Facebook page, and find another great reason to visit the small but perfectly formed Slovenian coast.

STA, 26 July 2020 - The Covid-19 pandemic has dealt a huge blow to the Koper port's passenger terminal, as cruise line operators have been postponing planned voyages. The first cruise ship is due in Koper on 30 August.

The first planned arrival this season is Marella Explorer, the cruise ship operated by Marella Cruises which has a capacity for 1,900 passengers and 900 crew members.

A further 14 passenger ship arrivals are scheduled in Koper until 22 November. However, the port operator Luka Koper says the shipping companies remain cautious. Nor will the ships be fully booked.

Luka Koper had initially planned to open the passenger season in early April with 61 arrivals originally announced by cruise ship operators until the end of the year.

This comes after more than 115,000 passengers arrived in Koper last year on 72 ships, an all-time high.

The port follows a strict nationally-coordinated coronavirus protocol with detailed procedures prescribed for the event of an infectious disease being discovered on a ship.

The incoming ships need to submit their health declaration to the Maritime Administration even before their arrival. If an infection is suspected, the procedure is taken over by an epidemiologist from the National Institute of Public Health who decides whether the ship can enter the port, and gives instructions to everyone involved.