CZECH AND SLOVAK REPUBLICS: Medzilaborce - Even Ruthenia gets 15 minutes of fame

THE TRAIN trundled into Medzilaborce, after a two-day journey into Ruthenia - a forgotten corner of Slovakia at the back end of Europe. I was the only one here. The Carpathians, and their forests loomed over the town. Gesturing up the sole windswept street was the cardboard sign: "Andy Warhol'.'

Trusting it, I turned a corner, and there it was. I was still reeling from the effects of last night's Slovak hospitality, a little too much 52 per cent-proof, local fire water slivovice (plum brandy), but this was no hallucination. A large concrete building was guarded by two 10- foot high…