If you woke up this morning feeling like you hate the whole world, your stupid dog who barks in the garden, the stupid birds that keep flying next to your window, your stupid ex boyfriend who got married before you did, horrible traffic in Dubrovnik during the spring season, local elections and the new candidates, tourists who ask you where to find the Rector’s palace why they are standing in front of it…
Relax, you are not having a heart attack or a mental breakdown, it’s just that… Hmm, it’s just kind of… windy today.
You can simply blame the jugo, a southeasterly wind that blows across the Adriatic when a cyclone develops over the Adriatic Sea.
If you’re one of the unlucky ones like me who have the blood pressure of a 90-year-old woman, you will be immediately affected by the wind as the air pressure drops followed by the rain. There is a difference between normal jugo wind and dry jugo: they can both last two to three days, but the dry jugo does not bring rain.
The famous cold Bura wind vertically descends the slopes of the coastal mountains and moves towards the sea blowing in gusts. The pilots and sailors are always aware of this wind since it brings cold and heavy air, but its main problem is the fact that the wind is unexpected, but jugo is a constant wind blowing from the south which gains strength with the passage of time.
Jugo is said to cause strange moodswings, depression, grumpiness and sometimes physical aches in the body. On the bright side, it serves as a perfect excuse for not pretending to be super happy when you meet someone you’re not fond of: one only needs to know those magical words “A jugo je!” (It’s jugo!)
One might even change the cliché breakup excuse “It’s not you, it’s me” into “It’s not you, it’s jugo!”
It is interesting to know that during the the of the Dubrovnik Republic, people who were accused of committing a crime, could add the wind jugo as part of their legal defense. It is said that while the jugo winds are blowing, people become unreasonable and even mentally incompetent. This is why no laws were passed in the Dubrovnik Republic during the “jugo” period since the bad consequences of the wind could affect people's judgement.
We might apply this rule these days too when the Croatian government seems to struggle to be united and come up with some reasonable solutions.
Shall we blame it on the jugo too?
