August the 7th, 2021 - Croatian food prices have been steadily rising, and some footstuffs and ingredients that everyone regularly purchases and has in the kitchen cupboards have risen by a staggering 100 percent.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, key foodstuffs and common ingredients such as cereals and oilseeds have risen dramatically of late, and their prices in Croatia are currently 20 to 100 percent higher than they were just one year ago, according to weekly indicators from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Given that cereals and oils are an integral part of many food products, experts fear that the jump in their prices in the autumn will trigger a number of subsequent jumps in Croatian food prices in many stores, which has the potential to jeopardise the living standards of the country's residents.

For example, in the week ending on August the 1st, one kilogram of wholesale wheat cost 1.4 kuna, which is 21 percent more than at the end of July last year. Corn is currently being sold for 1.63 kuna per kilogram, which means that it is 42 percent more expensive than it was just 12 months ago.

This is the highest wholesale price of corn recorded in Croatia in the last seven years, Tugomir Majdak, state secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture, recently noted.

The price of barley jumped 28 percent. Sunflower seed meal, which sold for 2.8 kuna per kilogram in the spring, has actually become cheaper in recent weeks, but it is still 27.5 percent more expensive than it was last year. The price of soybeans increased by about 100 percent in a year, while rapeseed oil rose by 53 percent at the same time, Novi list writes.

Consumers were surprised when they recently noticed the price of a liter of oil had jumped from 11 to 16 kuna overnight, signalling legitimate concerns about more Croatian food prices rising, especially as this is one of the main worries people have about Croatia joining the Eurozone.

However, it should be said that other food products have not become significantly more expensive, as it often takes several months for retailers to run out of supplies and to put new, more expensive consignments of food obtained from producers on their store shelves.

For more, follow our lifestyle section.

August the 7th, 2021 - A significant amount money for the Croatian livestock industry is set to flow in thanks to a recent decision made by the European Commission (EC) through various alterations to the Rural Development Programme.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Ministry of Agriculture reported that the European Commission (EC) has approved an additional 220 million kuna in aid for livestock farmers and the Croatian livestock industry, in addition to existing aid mechanisms. The industry has, much like the majority of other sectors, been hit by the ongoing pandemic, and this EC-approved cash sum hasn't come a moment too late.

“The European Commission has approved the final changes to the Rural Development Programme, which, after lengthy and successful negotiations with the EC, approved this additional aid to the livestock sector in the amount of an additional 130 million kuna through the Animal Welfare measure and an additional 90 million kuna for new support for the use of livestock manure on arable land,'' the aforementioned ministry said in a statement on the matter.

The ministry also recalled that in addition to implementing regular support measures, since the beginning of the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic, the ministry has adopted a number of support programmes which directly involve and include the Croatian livestock industry, worth almost 450 million kuna, as well as various support programmes for the poultry and dairy sectors.

In addition to the above, due to the increase in prices of cereals and other components of typical animal feed, at the last meeting of the Council of Ministers of Agriculture and Fisheries of European Union member states, Minister of Agriculture Marija Vuckovic called on the European Commission to examine all of the possibilities for granting financial support to stabilise the Croatian livestock sector and properly ensure the equal position of Croatia's manufacturers on the demanding global market.

For more on both Croatian and European Union (EU) politics, make sure to follow our dedicated politics section.

August the 7th, 2021 - The Czech private equity fund, EMMA Capital, has invested in our very own ''Amazon'', the Croatian Bazzar platform. Global expansion is now on the cards.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes, the Czech private equity fund EMMA Capital, which is primarily focused on emerging markets in Central and Southeastern Europe, concluded an investment in the Croatian Bazzar platform, an online shopping platform and Croatia's counterpart to Amazon, on Tuesday the 3rd of August, 2021.

The amount of the investment remains a secret for now, and as explained by the Croatian Bazzar platform, the Czech EMMA Capital is joining as a new shareholder, while the founders will continue to manage the business and retain significant stakes in the company.

''Based on a joint development plan that will enable the company to benefit significantly from accelerated growth, the revenue will be used to further strengthen Bazzar’s market position here in Croatia, as well as to expand into international markets with a special focus placed on Southeastern Europe. EMMA Capital's investment in the Croatian Bazzar platform underscores its strategy of focusing on growing companies with the potential for international expansion,'' they said from Bazzar.

The Croatian Bazzar platform is under the parent company Prati me d.o.o. (Follow me) launched back in 2015 by brother and sister Viktor and Tana Zimmermann who had previously announced an extensive expansion. Bazzar.hr has also regularly found itself on the prestigious European rankings for tech companies for several years now.

Thus, back in pre-pandemic 2019, the Croatian Bazzar platform was named the fastest growing technology company in all of Croatia according to the Deloitte Fast 50 CE list. In the same year, at Deloitte’s Technology Fast 500, which ranked the 500 fastest growing technology companies in the EMEA region, which includes Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Bazzar ranked 39th, which is the best result of all Croatian companies.

Based on their business results, in 2020, Bazzar remained on the Deloitte list of the fastest growing technology companies in Central Europe and they closed last year with more than 50 million in revenue.

For more, follow our dedicated business section.

August the 7th, 2021 - Mirko Drmic went to extreme lengths in order to create his very own craft beer brewery, and the coronavirus pandemic didn't throw a spanner in the works. Mirko believes that you only regret the chances you didn't take in life, so he threw caution to the wind and it has paid off.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes, Mirko Drmic is just 26 years old, and this young Zagreb brewer opened the Local Craft Brewery in Crnomerec in Mikulici last year, in the midst of the global pandemic, under the slogan "Think Globally, Drink locally!/Misli Globalno, Pij Lokalno!".

Craft brewing has been gaining firm momentum in the last few years in the world and right here in Croatia. A large number of people have started producing beer for their own needs, but it takes a lot of courage and will to enter the increasingly competitive market with craft beer.

One of those who was encouraged by this move was Mirko Drmic, and the main stars of his small neighbourhood brewery are the hoppy red ale beer Drma (6% alcohol) and the summer refreshment of Tauk (4.5%) from the Session IPA category. In the autumn, he says, this collection will be joined by the new Purger beer, with which this young brewer plans to win over his neighbouhood, and this winter will be marked by his very first black beer.

But, where did this all start? After graduating from high school in economics, and then from the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb, Mirko Drmic was sure of one thing - he wanted to start doing something of his own.

He fell in love with craft brewing a few years ago, and he decided to turn that idea into reality back in 2017 when, as a student, he worked as a waiter in the USA through the Work & Travel programme. He returned two years later having earned enough money to open his own craft brewery.

“The goal was to make money to build my own brewery and start production. Thanks to the programme for self-employment through the CES, I received 75,000 kuna and additionally invested more than 130,000 kuna of my own money ", states Mirko.

The inspiration for the name of his first beer came, symbolically, from his surname, Drmic, ie the family nickname Drma, and Mirko's father Ivan had the honour of being on the label of the first bottle designed by Mirko's friend Duje Brecic.

"I knew Drma would be my first beer. I filled 20 0.33L samples and carried it to few cafes each to see if they'd like it. Everyone said they did, and that's how the story started,'' the young brewer explained.

The period when he worked in the USA and learned about craft brewing was the inspiration for the name and label of another beer. He worked in the small town of Montauk, or Tauk for short, where the small local craft brewery, Montauk Brewing Company, was located.

The Tauk label also includes a lighthouse, which is a symbol of this place and which is also the oldest lighthouse in the entire state of New York from the time of George Washington.

Admittedly, the time taken to start the company and present the beer was quite challenging for the determined Mirko Drmic despite his initial enthusiasm. It took place back at the beginning of March 2020, just before the first lockdown when restaurants put their keys in their locks for almost two whole months.

He had already produced Drma by then, but had to wait until the end of August 2020 just to make his first sale. It was challenging during the lockdown due to waiting for the suppliers of production equipment because, as Mirko explained, suppliers procure production material from Italy, which was the most affected country in terms of the pandemic at the time.

“I’d been waiting for equipment since March, but I used that time to see where I was and how I might organise some other things until everything came to life again. At the end of August, I sold my first barrel in Zagreb's Harats Beer Boutique. It went well until the second lockdown came towards the end of the year,'' recalled the brewer.

After Drma, he also introduced Hoptimus (American IPA) in March, a 500-litre special that quickly sold out, and then in the summer, Tauk arrived.

Currently, his beer can be found in a total of 25 stores and restaurants across Croatia, most of which are in Zagreb (Harats Beer Boutique, Beer & Snacks, Fakin Craft Bar and more) and thanks to distributors, Mirko Drmic's craft beer can also be found in Rijeka, Djakovo, Zadar and Split.

He produces 1,000 litres of beer in a 40-square-metre office space inside his own family house in Mikulici in Crnomerec. The space in the first part consists of a kind of brewery where he brews and produces the beer, while in the second part, the beer matures in bottles and barrels.

“It takes about a month from brewing beer to it going into a bottle. I’m just focused on brewing and I want everything I’ve started to be taken to the next level. It's all slowly starting to come to its own now. It's been challenging because I had to start twice, after two lockdowns.

Beer requires a lot of investment. When you fill the beer in the bottle, it must also mature in the bottle and in the barrel. You have to do three batches to make sure you always have stock. By the way, the capacity is 2000 litres per month of Drma and Tauk, and now I'm at 1000. I hope that the market will demand more. Fortunately, Zagreb is a big city, and I'm still a small producer,'' Mirko Drmic said.

For more, follow Made in Croatia.

August 7, 2021 - Professor David Marshall arrived in the City of Zagreb to do a WEAA Black Lives Matter Croatia report and TCN reporter Ivor Kruljac meet up with him, providing on-record statements and research assistance as TCN partner up with WEAA to bring this story to the American public.

''So this is the statue of King Tomislav, our first Croatian King,'' I said to the visiting American when we arrived at Zagreb's ''Tomislavac'' (King Tomislav Square). He ruled back during the 10th century and he reigned over the biggest territory that encompassed today's Croatia, as well as what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina.''

''How did you say you pronounce his name?'' asked me the American.

''Tomislav'' I repeated, noticing he had a bit of an issue pronouncing the name, so I broke it down the best way imaginable.

''So, it's Tomi, you know like the name Tommy, and slav, like slavs, as in Slavic people, so its Tomislav,''

''So... Tomi-slav?'' he asked.

''Exactly. Basically, he's a Slavic Tommy,'' I added.

''Slavic Tommy! I love it!,'' said our American visitor to the capital. 

 Professor David Marshall with TCN reporter Ivor Kruljac in Zagreb

Croatia: Expressing solidarity and understanding global problems

Dr. David Marshall is Professor and Chair of the Department of Strategic Communication in the School of Global Journalism & Communication (SGJC) at Morgan State University in Baltimore, USA.

He worked on an assignment for WEAA, a radio station that, under the slogan ''Voice of the community'', brings its audience a programme of jazz, gospel, reggae, and public affairs. In the sea of many interesting issues WEAA covers, they collaborate with Morgan State University on a project entitled ''WEAA on assignment''. One of these assignments takes a look at the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement around the world, which brought professor Marshall to Croatia.

With TCN writing about the 2020 protest in Zagreb in support of BLM triggered by the horrible death of George Floyd which shocked the world, it was only logical to partner up with WEAA on their story in Croatia. Check it out yourself in the video below:

The BLM movement in Croatia may come as a bit of a shock to those who know that Croatia is the most racially pure caucasian country in the entire world (with 99.3% of the population being ethnic Croats). That said, the country still has a black community.

With Total Croatia News being totally about Croatia, we even covered what it's like for black people living in Croatia and listed some unfortunate incidents that black people have experienced in the country. For example, the case of Nigerian students that participated in World InterUniversities Championships who were exiled from Zagreb to Bosnia, as they were thought to be refugees, or the case of two black members of the US Air Force that were attacked at a Nightclub in Zadar (with police reports stating that they were not attacked because of their race, but rather because they were twerking in the club, and attackers thought they were gay, which is just as awful).

Thus, the BLM support protest in Zagreb wasn't just about global solidarity, but about associating the injustice and discrimination in the US with the discrimination in Croatia. Homophobia and the questionable treatment of refugees seeking asylum in Croatia being the most widely known issues of discrimination and inequality here.

Croatia: Full of news stories 

As TCN continues to cover Croatia in the most total sense possible, encompassing both the good and the bad, we were honoured to be recognised by WEAA and we were more than glad to able to assist them in their reporting. If you yourselves are journalists and reporters coming to Croatia to cover a story, don't hesitate to contact us, and we will help as much as we can. The best way to reach us is via e-mail address This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., but you can also contact us through Facebook.  

Check out our new Total Croatia website that brings you detailed reports on Croatia, covering destinations, culture, history and much, much more.

For more news about Croatia in English, make sure to follow TCN.

ZAGREB, 6 Aug 2021 - The southern municipality of Biskupija and the Serb National Council (SNV) on Friday held a commemoration in Uzdolje near Knin for civilian victims of the 1995 military and police Operation Storm, at a site where eight Serb civilians were killed on 6 August 1995.

In 2017 the SNV branch in Biskupija and the association of the families of missing persons "Protiv zaborava" (Against oblivion) unveiled a memorial commemorating the civilians killed at Uzdolje.

Today a religious service was held for the victims at the site and wreaths were laid and candles lit at the memorial by local ethnic Serb officials and Serb minority MP Anja Šimpraga.

The SNV recalled in a statement that the Documenta - Centre for Dealing with the Past nongovernmental organisation in August 2017 filed a criminal report against unidentified perpetrators for the crime committed at Uzdolje.

"The criminal report, which no institution has yet acted on, relies for the most part on facts about the crime on which light was shed in an investigation by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), primarily by witness statements," the SNV said.

It recalled that the investigation by the ICTY showed that three men, wearing camouflage uniforms with Croatian Army insignia on them and armed with machine guns, arrived by car in Uzdolje's hamlet of Šare in the morning of 6 August 1995.

They started abusing and intimidating elderly people they found in the hamlet, taking away a group of villagers to a location near the Knin-Drniš road, where one of the three men opened fire at them, killing seven, including three women. One person survived and managed to escape to a nearby forest.

Another person, an elderly woman, was killed in her house.

The SNV said it was not clear what prevented prosecutorial authorities to further investigate the crime and called on them to do so.

For more on politics, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 6 Aug 2021 - Croatia on Friday sent a firefighting plane to Greece to help in putting out disastrous wildfires that have spread despite efforts by local firefighters, reaching Athens.

The Defence Ministry said a Croatian Air Force Canadair CL-415 plane with nine crew on board left for Greece around 2pm. The ministry made the decision on the deployment of aircraft following consultations with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and based on a request from Greece. Another Croatian Air Force crew is in Turkey, helping put out wildfires in that country.

For more news, CLICK HERE.

ZAGREB, 6 Aug 2021 - Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković said on Friday that the parliament would pass laws aimed at enabling the demographic revival of rural areas, including the Dalmatian hinterland.

Jandroković made the statement during a visit to Split, where he met with Split-Dalmatia County head Blaženko Boban to discuss ways to stop emigration from the Dalmatian hinterland.

He noted that the state had sizable EU funds at its disposal, underlining the importance of preparing good projects to ensure that people, notably young ones, stayed in the Dalmatian Zagora region and started a family there.

Jandroković expressed confidence the plan would be achieved through joint efforts by local government units, county authorities and the central government, while the parliament would pass laws geared towards securing better living standards in the region.

"What is encouraging is the ample funding that we will obtain through the multiannual financial plan and the recovery and resilience plan, and we are talking about dozens of millions of euros, to be used smartly to create conditions to make Croatia attractive to live in," said Jandroković.

He also underlined the importance of infrastructure projects for people to stay in the Dalmatian hinterland, adding that he and county head Boban were agreed that aid to the Dalmatian hinterland should be provided in a similar way it was being provided for Slavonia, Baranja and Srijem.

Many people who left the country have started returning due to the pandemic, Jandroković said, adding that a large number of non-Croats were also arriving in Croatia, which needs labour.

"It would be ideal if a part of those who are now coming to work in Croatia were Croats, but cooperation is necessary and Croatian policy-makers must create conditions for return," he said, expressing a wish for a large number of members of the Croat expatriate communities to return.

For more on politics, CLICK HERE.