CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Peter Pellegrini, the president of Slovakia, arrived in Iowa on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2024, as part of a multi-day celebration in Cedar Rapids.
Pellegrini participated in a ribbon-cutting for The Slovak Epic exhibit at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library with museum President and CEO Cecilia Rokusek and visited a recent acquisition to the museum’s library with library director David Muhlena.
The president is in Cedar Rapids in advance of Friday’s dedication of the museum’s renovated clock tower, along with Czech President Petr Pavel, who will arrive tomorrow. The public is invited to attend the dedication at noon Friday, Sept. 27.
Read: What you need to know to attend the presidential visit
Slovak President Peter Pellegrini, third from left, participates in a ribbon-cutting to open The Slovak Epic exhibit at the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library. (photo/Cindy Hadish)
Friday’s event is a reprisal, of sorts, of the landmark visit by three presidents — Czech President Václav Havel, Slovak President Michal Kováč, and President Bill Clinton — to dedicate the museum in 1995. The museum is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
Read more: Museum plans reprise of presidential visit
The clock tower, next to the Cedar River on 16th Avenue SW in Czech Village, has been transformed into a Prague-style astronomical clock, or orloj, with a dozen figurines representing immigrants that will rotate on the hour to the music of Czech composers Antonín Dvořák and Bedřich Smetana.
Both the Czech and Slovak presidents will speak for the dedication of the Buresh Immigration Tower, as the clock will be known for its lead donor, the late Ernie Buresh.
The $1.6 million transformation has turned the clock tower, installed in 1995 along the historic Czech Village business district on 16th Avenue SW, into an “orloj” clock, modeled after the astronomical clock in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic.
See inside the clock tower with the Slovakian artist and more from the Slovak president’s visit, below:
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