July 29, 2022 - The 1^st Fisherman's Night was held in the charming small port of Pomena on the island of Mljet on Sunday.

This event was organized by the Mljet Tourist Board with European Union funding from the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund. Admission to the event and food consumption were free of charge.

There were a lot of foreign and local guests enjoying sardines, mussels, black risotto, Pelješac and Mljet wines, and delicious local olive oil.  Music band Versa entertained the guests until late into the night.

The 2^nd Fisherman's Night will be held on August 21. 

Photo credit: Visit Island Mljet, Croatia & Ane Stražičić Rodriguez 

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July 29, 2022 – think of Croatia in the summer. Fun in the sun, refreshment in the shade, perfect swimming temperatures, and a sandy beach. All that followed by a night out at a film festival, craft beers and some quality rock music in the forest. Dalmatia or Istria? Surprise surprise, and once again, welcome to Vukovar! We got your weekend sorted.

This Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the Bara Film Association as the organisers of Klein Short Film Festival are bringing something unique and exciting to the venues, pubs, and parks of Vukovar. The event of the weekend from the 29^th until the 31^st of July combines short films and good music for the perfect summer atmosphere.

The program for the competition section of Klein Film Festival (photo credit: Klein)

Kicking off on Friday at 20.30 at the City Museum, this international film and music festival presents a variety of short feature, animated, and documentary films. The films were split into two main categories – competition and accompanying programs, with 16 and 35 films, respectively. The category of competition films will feature pieces produced in the last two years, while the accompanying program will consist of representative pieces produced before 2020. The venues include the City Museum and the Serbian Cultural Centre in Vukovar, as well as the Đorđe Očić House in the village of Dalj. The organisers underline that the main focus of the festival is the idea, along with its consistent realisation in the film. The name of the festival is an homage to Hugo Klein, a theatre professor, theorist, and psychiatrist who was born in Vukovar.

As for the music portion of the festival, there will be something for everyone. The pub Kibic Fenster is opening its back terrace for mini-concerts, while the park forest Adica will host some big names. On Friday, Sinj’s own Mort will be there to remind us that punk is not dead, on Saturday it’s Repetitor, and to round it up, Atheist Rap from Novi Sad will play on Sunday. All concerts start at 22.30.

The main sponsors of Klein Film Festival include the City of Vukovar, SDF (Serbian Democratic Forum), and HAVC (Croatian Audiovisual Centre), and the association also expects international support. Bara Film is a young cultural association of audio-visual artists who hope that this ambitious project will help further support and enrich their work.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, 29 July 2022 - Prime Minister Andrej Plenković visited the construction site for the second tube of Učka Tunnel on Friday, voicing his satisfaction with the progress in the drilling of this segment of the 5.6-kilometer-long tunnel necessary to complete the dual carriageway of the Istrian Y motorway.

The construction of the second tube is worth €200 million.

Plenković highlighted the importance of this motorway for connectivity between Istria and Zagreb and for the local tourist industry.

The Bina Istra company's CEO Dario Silić said that to date 2.4 kilometres of the second tube had been drilled.

So far 1.3 kilometres of the tunnel have been drilled from the Istria side and an additional 1.1 kilometres from the Kvarner side.

The drilling of the tube is to be completed by September 2023, and the whole project is expected to be finalised in June 2024. 

Plenković was also pleased with the fact that a majority of the 500 workers on the construction site are from Croatian companies.

Plenković continued his day-long visit to Istria, accompanied by Transport and Infrastructure Minister Oleg Butković, Economy Minister Davor Filipović, and Health Minister Vili Beroš.

For more, check out our politics section.

ZAGREB, 29 July 2022 - President Zoran Milanović on Friday dismissed the statement by MP Veljko Kajtazi that in his criticism of the government's energy conservation plan he insulted the Roma community.

Milanović said he had no ill intentions and would not apologize because he did not offend anyone.

"Did I say that Roma were thieves? Did I spread prejudice and stereotypes? It is well known who steals in this country and who steals metal. Did I say that Roma were stealing. What was I supposed to say, that Roma have a PhD? I myself do not. Enough of this affectation and apologising. Where is the end to all this apologising for this and that, for Jasenovac, for Srebrenica. One must apologise all the time. Who should I apologise to and why?" Milanović said in response to questions from reporters during a visit to the southern town of Imotski.

Criticising the government's energy saving scheme on Thursday, Milanović said that if air conditioners would need to be set to 25 degrees Celsius, they had better be sold to Roma. "They will make a profit out of it. Roma are very skilled in these matters," he added.

Commenting on Kajtazi's reaction that he offended the entire Roma community, Milanović said that the question is "whether he is Roma at all".

He recalled saying several times that Kajtazi was the only member of Parliament with respectable voter support because out of some 10,000 Roma in Croatia, he received 3,000 votes in elections. "Given the large number of children among the Roma population, it turns out that almost everyone voted for him," Milanović said.

For more, check out our politics section.

ZAGREB, 29 July 2022 - Croatia has registered 1,467 new coronavirus cases and 11 COVID-related deaths in the last 24 hours, the national coronavirus response team reported on Friday.

The number of active cases in the country stands at 10,516, including 671 people who are being treated in hospital, of whom 25 are placed on ventilators, while 6,108 people are self-isolating.

Since 25 February 2020, when the first case was reported in Croatia, 1,184,303 people have been registered as having contracted the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus, of whom 16,288 have died and 1,157,499 have recovered, including 2,009 in the last 24 hours.

To date, 59.57 per cent of the total population, or 70.84 per cent of adults, have received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, while 68.81 per cent of adults have received two doses.

For everything you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, bookmark our dedicated section and select your preferred language if it isn't English.

July 29, 2022 - Sunčani Hvar Hotels are the first group in Croatia to join the UNESCO Sustainable Travel Pledge, or UNESCO's sustainable tourism program.

This program, promoted by UNESCO and Expedia, one of the leading online booking platforms, is the first of its kind created to promote sustainable tourism and heritage conservation on a global scale. Signatories implement sustainable practices in their business and encourage positive change in the travel and tourism industry.

Through this program, all Sunčani Hvar Hotels received the UNESCO "Sustainable Travel Pledge" certificate, which signifies their commitment to achieving international sustainable development goals. The aforementioned includes a whole range of activities such as supporting the local community and suppliers, energy saving through green renewable energy sources and advanced energy efficiency systems, implementing waste separation and disposal systems, implementing digital solutions for improved business processes, and minimizing the use of plastic packaging, to name a few. 

"As a company, we are proud to be the first hotel group in Croatia to join the UNESCO sustainable tourism program. Green entrepreneurship is the future of business and is the key direction of the long-term development strategy of Sunčani Hvar. So this year, we opened an eco-hotel in the town of Hvar, Beach Bay Hvar, designed according to the principles of sustainability, which offers guests a unique, luxurious, and ecologically conscious vacation," said the President of the Management Board, Gordana Tomičić.

Beach Bay Hvar Hotel is the first green hotel in the town of Hvar that strives to be environmentally friendly. It is located in a quiet bay in the center of Hvar town with carefully designed interior details and natural materials. One of the goals during the hotel's renovation was to achieve the hotel's energy independence, which was achieved by installing a solar power plant, the first of its kind on the island of Hvar. Through the efficient use of energy, water, and materials and by providing quality service, Beach Bay Hvar offers its visitors an environmentally conscious vacation based on natural resources.

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July 29, 2022 - Index.hr writes about a vegetarian pop-up restaurant opened in Zadar by chef Paul Ivić.

Paul Ivić is an Austrian chef, one of the most renowned chefs in Vienna, where his vegetarian restaurant Tian in the very center of Vienna proudly carries a Michelin star. In June, he opened a vegetarian pop-up restaurant Bistro Tian Am Meer in Falkensteiner's Resort Punta Skala, which is to be open until September 18.

Ivić says he has long dreamed of getting closer to Croatian cuisine - the cuisine of the country where his father was born and where he spent several weeks a year as a child. When the Falkensteiner Hotel in Zadar approached him with the idea of ​​opening a summer pop-up restaurant, he did not want to miss the opportunity. 

As in many other places, the desire for vegetarian food is growing in Zadar. Bistro Tian Am Meer really wants to attract locals. It is quite logical for Ivić: the Croatia of his childhood has the taste of fresh vegetables and fruits ripened in the sun, and meat was eaten only on special occasions - often on Sundays, always on holidays.

He visited the region around Zadar several times with his colleagues in order to find producers with the best quality local ingredients. Most of the food comes from small family farms (OPGs, as they're known in Croatia) that do not have international distribution partners and often do not even have a website. Many do not even know that they are growing old varieties, some of which are on the brink of extinction. They are not networked and do not engage in any kind of marketing. Ivić wants to teach them to appreciate what they have.

When he first discovered the common glasswort (the literal translation of the name in Croatian would be "the sea asparagus) in Nin, he started collecting it. That fresh smell of salt - that's what he wanted to serve to his guests in the evening. "We didn't want to come here and modernize Croatian cuisine," says Ivić. We want to stay true to Viennese Tian's cooking style, which means we don't serve mushroom-based vegetarian kebabs or similar dishes that imitate meat. Instead, there are reduced vegetable dishes where every ingredient has a chance to shine.

The bistro serves vegetable soup, olive oil emulsion and ajvar. Then, stuffed zucchini flowers, grown by the chef of the hotel's fish restaurant, as well as Sandra Babac's jams. The bread is from the Kroštula bakery in Zadar. Employees at the hotel were "super excited" after the trial run on opening day, even though many said they eat meat every day, Ivić said.

July the 29th, 2022 - Swearing in Croatian isn't quite the same as swearing in English. What makes you sound like an uneducated idiot with a poor grasp of proper vocabulary in the English language is quite the opposite in Croatian. Swearing in English is likely to make the pearl clutchers blush and the Karens come out in full force. Swearing in Croatian is much more acceptable, speaking generally of course, and it is used extremely creatively in many cases.

We're going to take a look, letter by letter, at some ways swearing in Croatian differs quite extremely from swearing in English, and try to explain (in the most politically correct way we can manage), what some of these mean, and in what type of situation they are usually used. 

First, let's delve into the P word. We've already looked at the J word in the past, with it being perhaps the most versatile of all Croatian swear words. P is a close second, but then again so is S, and so is K... but we'll look into them all in time. So, back to the P word... The P word is a term which centres itself around the female sexual organ, usually to refer to something bad happening, or as an expression of a negative emotion.

Pizdarija - This is used if ''netko je napravio pizdariju'' (if someone has well and truly f*cked something up) or when something going badly or something unwanted is happening. It can also be used to describe something toilsome that can't be dealt with or fixed very easily, or indeed the opposite of that. Context is your friend here.

A u picku materinu! - Oh God, what have I done?! Oh for f*ck's sake! It can even be ''Ouch!'' when you drop something on your foot. (I won't include the direct translation of this, it's much too vulgar. If you're curious, do Google it).

Ona picka materina - Something you're supposed to fix, deal with or do that you can't do now for whatever reason and the thought alone is irritating to you, particularly if you can't remember something about it.

Dobar u picku materinu - Something that is just great.

Pickotehnicar - A gynaecologist. 

Razbiti pizdu - When something collapses, falls, breaks or is in some other way destroyed.

Dobiti po picki - To be beaten up or to get into some sort of (usually) physical altercation in which you lost.

Pizdin dim or pickin dim - Something very easy. It can also be used to describe something useless, worthless, or of very little of either of the aforementioned. If you want to use the much more child friendly term, you could say that something very easy is ''macji kasalj'', which literally translates to ''a cat's cough.'' In British English, these terms would be ''a piece of piss'' (non child friendly) or ''easy peasy (lemon squeezy)'' (child friendly).

Ma idi u picku materinu! - In kinder terms (and if you're actually saying this to another person) it means to go back to wherever you came from, to get lost, to p*ss off, to go forth and multiply. If you're saying this to yourself, it can be an expression of surprise, or anything from ''holy shit'' to ''damn'' to ''f*ck me!'' to ''get out of here, no way!'' to ''jeez!''. Context, as ever, rules.

Mrs u picku materinu - Much like the above, this one has a much clearer intention as it is said to someone else. So, read the first line of the above explanation to catch my drift.

Pizdjen/a - To be in a foul mood, or in some other way defeated and not feeling very positive.

Pripizdina - A similar term to vukojebina, which is literally ''where the wolves f*ck'', meaning some God forsaken, middle of nowhere, rural area that nobody has ever heard of. It's commonly used when you really can't remember the name of the place you're referring to.

Pickarati - To be vulgar, unpleasant, to pout or be in a mood. This term originates from Rijeka, but is more widely used.

Pijan 'ko picka - To be extremely drunk.

Popizditi/Popickati - To lose your mind, to go crazy, to be extremely angry, to lose your sh*t.

Placipicka (sometimes plasipicka) - Someone who is easily scared or spooked. An anxious person who is always worried that something is going to happen to them, or that something bad is going to unfold in general. 

Popickatari se - To argue or get into a heated situation with someone, especially in a stupid and primitive way, with vulgar expressions and swear words (such as all of these) being used. 

Strasipicka - A coward.

Spickati se - This one has multiple meanings. It can be in reference to how someone has got dressed up (scrubbed up well), or if they've met some sort of misfortune, such as crashing their car into a road sign or falling off their bike into a puddle. 

For more letters and to learn more about swearing in Croatian, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.