Slovakia
The Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic went their separate ways after 1 January 1993, an event sometimes called the Velvet Divorce. Slovakia has remained a close partner with the Czech Republic. Both countries co-operate with Hungary and Poland in the Visegrád Group. Slovakia became a member of NATO on 29 March 2004 and of the European Union on 1 May 2004. On 1 January 2009, Slovakia adopted the Euro as its national currency.
Tuzex
The Czechoslovak koruna (crown) was a soft currency, that is, not exchangeable for other currencies outside the country. In 1948 shops were established under the name Darex to sell goods to foreigners for foreign (hard) currency only (based on the earlier Torgsin shops in the Soviet Union). Later, these became open to ordinary citizens, but not for crowns. In 1950, to speed up transactions and limit fraud, foreign currency was first converted into Darex vouchers in values of crowns.