1 January 1989 A town, eleven months before the revolutionMesto jedenásť mesiacov pred revolúciou

On 1 January 1989 Hriňová was granted the status of a town. That date is worth pausing on. The decision was made under a communist government with eleven months left to live: in November of the same year the Velvet Revolution brought the regime down. Hriňová therefore spent its first year as a town in one political system and every year since in another. It is also a town in law with very little town in it — a small valley centre, and most of its people out on the hillsides.1. januára 1989 sa Hriňová stala mestom. Pri tomto dátume sa oplatí zastaviť. Rozhodnutie padlo za komunistickej vlády, ktorej zostávalo jedenásť mesiacov života: v novembri toho istého roka zvrhla režim nežná revolúcia. Hriňová teda strávila svoj prvý rok ako mesto v jednom politickom systéme a všetky ďalšie v inom. Je to zároveň mesto na papieri s veľmi málo mestom v sebe — malé centrum v doline a väčšina ľudí hore po stráňach.