CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Kanawha County Public Library is celebrating the city of Charleston’s Slovakian sister city.
The downtown Charleston branch of the library officially dedicated a new collection and display commemorating the special relationship between the Capital City and the City of Banska Bystrica in Slovakia.
One of the Sister City Alliance Coordinators, Paul Sheridan said this special relationship between the two cities began developing through the 1990s shortly after the fall of the “Iron Curtain” in Europe.
Sheridan said this relationship shows you can have a strong sense of connectedness no matter how far apart.
“I just love this notion of citizen diplomacy, of, you know, people connecting, person-to-person, city-to-city, family-to-family,” Sheridan said.
Sheridan said the relationship with Banska Bystrica truly started to form when Charleston residents Christine and Chuck Daughterty went there in the 90s as part of a United States Agency for International Development (USAID) project.
During the three-year trip, Sheridan said the Daughterty’s worked with the people there, helping them in many ways following the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992.
“They were helping these Slovaks learn about aspects of democracy as they were sort of trying to build a new society in the wake of the Soviet system,” he said. “They spent three years there doing various kinds of community development stuff, mostly civic society.”
Sheridan said it was a relationship that happened organically with more and more West Virginians starting to join in and visit the Slovakian city as well.
He said this led to the city councils of both Charleston and Banska Bystrica make an official decision to develop a formal relationship 15 years ago and Banska Bystrica received an official recognition as Charleston’s “Sister City” by proclamation of the Charleston City Council in October 2009.
The proclamation “encourages the people of Charleston to engage in citizen diplomacy by learning more about the people, history and culture of Banska Bystrica and by exploring new opportunities for cultural, educational and commercial exchanges between Bansta Bystrica and Charleston.” The City of Banska Bystrica enacted something similar in return.
Sheridan said that similar to West Virginia, Banska Bystrica has had a complex history with a lot of struggles.
He said it has often been an overlooked part of Europe in many ways.
“I think as West Virginians we kind of relate to that a little bit, we feel like we’re an overlooked place and yet a place that when you get to know it and get to know the people, it becomes much more appreciated,” Sheridan said.
Barbora Osvaldova is Banska Bystrica’s Tourism Information Officer and she has come to visit the area and the country as a whole for the first time.
She presented items from her home city to the library Thursday during the dedication.
Osvaldova agrees that Banska Bystrica and West Virginia have much similarities such as the mountains and the history, as they too have been a mining region.
She said another big similarity is the way they both treat their people and their visitors, and really try to make it feel like home. 
“Of course I went and visited many places, but I didn’t feel like a tourist,” Osvaldova told MetroNews. “It’s because you had locals around you and that’s something that Charleston and Banska Bystrica have in common as well, yeah, maybe we will show you the touristic places, but we will show you something only maybe locals would know, and you get it from the personal level.”
Osvaldova was going to be traveling back home Thursday, but she said during her time here she did some sightseeing in downtown Charleston, went to the Clay Center and the state Culture Center and even got to experience the Sternwheel Regatta.
She said she then ventured out to the Kanawha State Forest, the New River Gorge National Park, and Hawks Nest State Park.
Osvaldova said she loved all the scenery here.
“Everything was so beautiful, which reminds me of home as well, but we don’t have the exact same type of nature, it’s a little bit different, but still, when you drive around it feels like you’re home,” Osvaldova said.
Residents from both cities only continue to visit one another.
Last month, the West Virginia Youth Symphony performed in Banska Bytrica as part of their European tour and they stayed with families during their visit.
Currently, two Charleston Capital High School students are on a summer exchange program there, and later this summer, two Slovak students will make their way to Charleston for a visit.