January the 24th, 2022 - Pasman island which lies among several others in Zadar County is set to receive a generous amount to be spent on the enhancement of traffic safety.

As Morski writes, back in September last year, the working group in charge of implementing the National Road Safety Plan of the Republic of Croatia for the period from 2021 to 2030 published a call/invitation for applications for projects in the field of road safety in Croatia.

Out of over 200 registered projects for 2021 and 2022, about 70 were selected, and one of them is the project of the Municipality of Pasman - The installation of new vertical signs and equipment in Dobropoljana, which will be co-financed by the Ministry of Interior (MUP) in the amount of 164,500 kuna, while the total value of the project stands at 235,000 kuna, as was explained from Pasman island.

The Mayor of Pasman, Kresimir Cosic, stated that this is the third tender of the Ministry of the Interior in which a project from Pasman island has been accepted.

''We're constantly working on road safety in the area of ​​our municipality, so this is the third time we've managed to pass a tender from the Ministry of the Interior for the reconstruction of potentially dangerous places in terms of traffic. We participated for the first time back in 2018 when we received funding for the calm traffic zone on the part of the D110 state road in Nevidjani near the Vladimir Nazor Elementary School. Then, back in 2020, we received 172,000 kuna from another tender from the Ministry of the Interior for the installation of traffic lights from the main entrance to the centre of Pasman,'' said Cosic.

The municipality applied for this project due to the need to increase traffic safety in the zone of the kindergarten positioned along the LC 63 136 local road that connects the D110 state road with the centre of the settlement positioned there. There are no pedestrian paths along this road, meaning that parents and their children need to walk along the pavement to the kindergarten, and since the pavement is sloping down towards the sea, drivers passing can easily further endanger overall pedestrian safety.

An agreement between the competent services of the Ministry of the Interior and the Municipality of Pasman will soon be drafted and signed, on the basis of which the project will be co-financed.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

January the 24th, 2022 - PM Andrej Plenkovic has claimed that his government (HDZ) has pushed life for Croatian islanders in a better direction, adding that the digital transition is a huge chance for Croatian islanders in many ways.

As Morski writes, after visiting the moonlike island of Pag and participating in the "Croatian Island Product" for 2020 and 2021 award ceremony, Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic stressed that this initiative, which has been going on since way back in 2007, is a great example of promoting island economies, indigenousness, cuisine and agricultural products - all that makes up the true identity of not only the islands but Croatian islanders themselves.

The Croatian island product label, he added, is a guarantee of quality and originality, and is proudly placed on products from the islands of Brac, Hvar, Vis, Korcula, Pag, Krk, Lastovo, Dugi otok, Rab, Cres, Lošinj, Prvic, Ugljan, Mljet, Solta, Zirje, Pasman, Iz, Murter, Olib, Kornati, Rab, Silba and Zlarin and the Peljesac peninsula.

He pointed out that the maritime orientation of Adriatic Croatia is important for understanding Croatia and its differences, but above all - its riches and what it has to offer.

"The government wants the sustainable management of island resources"

''Croatian islands are among the riches of this country that many of our friends have come to love and appreciate. In terms of tourism, the islands are always among the most attractive destinations, visited by many tourists, and they want domestic products,'' said Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, talking about the meaning of the Croatian Island Product initiative which emancipates the tradition of Croatian islands and Croatian islanders in a visible and recognisable way.

He said that his government had partly continued and partly improved the strategic, legal, programmatic, project and financial framework for improving life on the islands and providing more support to Croatian islanders.

He added that the islands are also part of Croatia's National Development Strategy until the year 2030, which emphasises the direction of development of smart and sustainable islands, fully incorporated into global and European Union (EU) trends. The government also wants the sustainable management of island resources, respect for specifics and the greater availability of infrastructure and public services.

''In the future, the islands will be the focus of one of the most important global topics - the issue of climate change,'' he pointed out.

''The digital transition is a huge opportunity for Croatian islanders''

In addition to the green transition, Prime Minister Plenkovic emphasised, the digital transition is also important for the country's many inhabited islands. He said that it was a huge opportunity for island inhabitants, noting the fact that Croatia was the first to embrace digital nomads, given that today, internet platforms for work and more or less everything else can be used from anywhere in the world.

Croatia also has a National Island Development Plan, added Prime Minister Plenkovic, which aims to improve the availability of health and social services and strengthen all of the brimming potential of the islands that will have an impact on demographic trends and economic revitalisation. It will also work to further encourage the creation of the proper entrepreneurial infrastructure for island economy development, competitiveness, innovation, and increase the recognisability of island products and services. On top of that, it will work for the protection of nature and the environment and the use of renewable energy sources.

One of the key topics, Plenkovic also pointed out, is the mobility of Croatian islanders and frequent transport connections, not only from the islands to the mainland but also between the islands themselves.

He stated that 1.8 billion kuna had been invested in transport and transport connectivity, 300 million kuna had been invested in the economy and employment, 262 million kuna had been invested in agriculture, 166 million kuna in energy, 162 million kuna in water management, while when it comes to the budget, another 560 million kuna had been invested, and 206 projects worth as much as 118 million kuna had been co-financed through the Island Development Programme.

''We're going to continue to do everything to keep our people living on the islands and to make life better for them,'' he said, emphasising that fact that the island of Pag is one of the great examples of recognisability in this way.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

January the 24th, 2022 - Koogle blown glass from an area of Zagreb called Gornji Stenjevec is making a comeback. This old family craft which was once one of very many dotted all over the capital, from shoe repairs to key cutters, is returning in the digital era, and taking full advantage of that.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Lucija Spiljak writes, once upon a time, the City of Zagreb was a city full of crafts, where everyone could sew trousers and make tailor-made shoes with guaranteed quality. Today, we're sadly witnessing more and more padlocks being forever placed on the doors of the once esteemed crafts. That said, some are still resisting these harsh, new times of mass production.

Among them is Koogle blown glass, a trade for the production of blown glass items in Gornji Stenjevac in Zagreb. It is a family glass-blowing craft which is almost 60 years old, run by Martina Simunkovic. It used to be a glass-blowing oasis, where, after the Second World War came to an end, about 200 households worked for a cooperative that would buy their products and place them on the market.

However, when it was extinguished not so longer after in the 1950s, the same fate befell the small workshops. Martina's grandfather was among the last to continue his work, and eventually, he was the only remaining one. In addition to glassblowing, in the late 70's and 80's, he also introduced machines for the production of ground plastic items.

The business was then taken on and continued by his son, Martina’s father, and back in 2014 she brought the craft back to life, as the third generation of glassblowers in the family. Today, she makes various decorations using the technique of heating a hollow glass tube and blowing air out of her mouth.

By profession a historian, artist and ethnologist, she previously worked as the head of the Department for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Ministry of Culture.

“Art historians and ethnologists are always attracted by passion and hunger for beauty, and glass is an ideal medium where as a creative, I can express myself and make an object not only interesting to me, but something I'd would buy myself. For the last 15 years, our craft has been ''asleep'', so to speak. With the advent of large shopping centres and retail chains, the need for handmade products has sadly disappeared; there's now mass production and it's all imported and in other forms. We couldn't compete with that, so my father closed the business down,'' Simunkovic revealed.

Back when she worked in the aforementioned ministry, she was aware of the value of traditional crafts, but also how endangered and unstable the micro market is. However, she noted that customer interest in handmade items was beginning to return.

"Decorative items don't really have an essential function, people buy them for details and aesthetics. I realised that customers were starting to turn more to these products and that there were more and more small family stores out there on the market that started offering these items from local workshops. That's where i saw an opportunity to revitalise the Koogle glass blowing family business I grew up with, which would also satisfy my desire for creativity. I suggested to my father that we see how the market goes, and he was delighted when he pulled out some glass after a long time, quickly remembered everything and returning to his old routine. He taught me all of the techniques, and then in 2014, the story began again.

We've adapted to the market and to the wishes of our customers, but the backbone of our craft has remained the same - minimalism in decoration and natural and ecological materials. There are few of us glassblowers who make hollow blown glass products and decorations related to seasonal periods. Mine were exclusively Christmas decorations. It was hyperproduction, the whole family was involved, along with some outside glass blowers. The market was the former Yugoslavia, and some was exported elsewhere. We had enough customers considering the production capacity, a series of 100,000 pieces. We were based primarily on and around Christmas. At the end of the year, we had to sell what we'd produced throughout the year,'' Martina recalls.

Today, the largest concentration of Koogle blown glass' production is set aside for Christmas decorations, because that particular festive period is the most commercially viable for it. Considering that so far everything in the trade is done within it, their capacity is smaller, but they do try their best to cover the seasonal demand. Martina therefore decided to supplement the assortment, so she has different decorations for Easter as well.

The Koogle blown glass team also offers terrariums where plants can be grown, and Martina even joined the O2 Project, which aimed to raise awareness about forest conservation, and her creations proved to be the ideal incubators for seed growth and development. Today, her products are ordered by private individuals, but more and more, she says, she notices that companies need them at the time of giving gifts to their employees, partners and clients, with numerous inquiries for personalised gifts.

There is interest from outside of Croatia and the former Yugoslavia as well, and she is currently in negotiations with the European Entrepreneurship Network run by the Science and Technology Park of the University of Rijeka, which would connect her with potential associates and clients outside of Croatia and its immediate region.

For more, check out Made in Croatia.

January 23, 2022 - A tribute to one of the greatest minds of Croatian science, born on this day 165 years ago

In 2007, an initiative was launched in Zagreb to erect a monument to Andrija Mohorovičić, a world-renowned geophysicist and founder of modern seismology. It’s been a minute, but the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts has finally announced that the project will be implemented in the capital city this year to mark the 165th anniversary of the birth of the researcher (HINA).

As we're waiting for one of the greatest minds of Croatian science to get a tribute he deserves, let's look at his life and career before another 15 years go by. Who was this great man and what is his legacy? 

Mohorovičić was born in 1857 in the small Croatian town of Volosko (near Opatija) and finished secondary school in Rijeka. He was a talented pupil from an early age and spoke fluent Italian, French and English by the time he was 15; he'd go on to learn Latin, Ancient Greek, Czech and German later on.

Childhood home of A. Mohorovičić in Volosko

He studied mathematics and physics in Prague, then went on to teach high school in Zagreb, Osijek, and at the Royal Nautical School in Bakar (near Rijeka). This was a turning point in his scientific career, as that’s where he developed a strong interest in meteorology and established a weather station in Bakar as a result.

In the 1890s, he requested a transfer to Zagreb where he soon took over the reins of the Meteorological Observatory, all the while teaching courses on geophysics and astronomy at Zagreb University. What equipment he didn’t have, he designed and built on his own, such as a nephoscope, an instrument for observation of clouds he used to collect readings for his doctoral dissertation.

Mohorovičić was the first person to establish a public time service and also the first to publish weather forecasts in newspapers. He’s remembered as a meticulous researcher who unified the weather service in Croatia and set high standards for further development of meteorology.

Portrait of Mohorovičić in Opatija

And then, another turning point at the beginning of the 20th century. Even though he continued to consistently record meteorological observations, Mohorovičić shifted his interest to seismology and essentially started from scratch where his career was considered, as this particular field was not much developed in Croatia at the time.

It’s not really known what inspired the scientist to turn to a completely new field of research, but it’s believed it was the lively seismic activity around Zagreb that piqued his interest. Mohorovičić installed the first seismograph at the Meteorological observatory in Zagreb, effectively founding a seismological station in 1906.

He soon replaced the instrument with two more advanced seismographs, which he would use to record data during the Kupa Valley earthquake in 1909.

Those readings, together with others recorded all over Europe, led to his biggest scientific discovery: the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or Moho for short, the boundary between the Earth’s crust and the mantle. The same boundary on Mars and the Earth's Moon also bear his name. 

Having studied the effect of seismic activity on buildings, Mohorovičić was also a strong advocate of earthquake-resistant construction. He held a series of lectures at the Croatian Society of Engineers and Architects starting from 1909, in which he set out to explain ‘how the Earth trembles, and how these tremors affect buildings, and draw attention to some principles that both architects and building contractors should follow’.

Quite a straightforward concept today, but a groundbreaking approach in the early 20th century, especially given that he urged developers to ‘consider the earthquake hazard and spend more, in order to make buildings more resistant and safe’. Over 100 years later, we still haven’t learned our lesson.

Mohorovičić was truly a man ahead of his time, a visionary and a scientific pioneer in many ways. He was one of the few Croatian scientists of international renown to remain based in their homeland for their entire career; he taught at university level, published papers and remained a member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts until he retired in 1921.

Owing to his greatest discovery, a crater on the far side of the Moon bears his name, as well as an asteroid, a secondary school in Rijeka, and a training ship of the Croatian Navy.

This article is mainly based on an essay written by Davorka Herak and Marijan Herak of the Andrija Mohorovičić Geophysical Institute. 

ZAGREB, 23 Jan 2022 - The world drumming sensation Kodō will play Zagreb on 6 February with its new performance "Tsuzumi", a part of the Kodo One Earth Tour 2022 featuring masterpieces that have marked the troupe's 40-year-long career.

Based on Sado Island, Japan, this professional taiko drumming troupe has had a role in popularising taiko drumming, both in Japan and abroad. They regularly tour Japan, Europe, and the United States.

The traditional Japanese drum taiko, the heaviest weighing as much as 300 kilograms and spans a meter and a half wide, constitutes a link between nature and man that can not be illustrated better or more precisely than with the art forms of the exceptionally dedicated Kodō drummers, said the "Vatroslav Lisinski" concert hall, where the troupe will perform.

In Japanese, the word "Kodō" conveys two meanings: "heartbeat" and when read in a different way, "children of the drum".

Since its founding in 1981, Kodō has held more than 6,000 concerts in 50 countries worldwide.

Admission to the Zagreb concert will be possible exclusively with valid EU COVID certificates (electronic or paper form) and an ID document. Fast antigen testing at a price of HRK 50 will be available on the day of the concert at the concert hall from 6 to 7.30 pm.

For more on lifestyle, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 23 Jan 2022 - On Sunday, the Croatian Trade Union of Migrant Workers, whose Croatian acronym is HSRM, accused local tax offices of malpractice and miscalculations in tax returns, claiming that such cases of negligence amount to violations of double tax avoidance agreements.

The HSRM says that it has come to this conclusion based on the findings made by its legal experts who analyzed cases of migrant workers whose tax returns were miscalculated.

The union issued a press release signed by union leader Franjo Lazar, stating that the state-level tax administration seems to be ignorant of cases of malpractice.

The union calls on its members to wait for some time before submitting their tax returns to the relevant authorities as negotiations are being conducted with the Finance Ministry, regarding the nine requests presented by the union with the purpose to improve the status of migrant workers.

According to the HSRM, an estimated 20,000 migrant workers come back to Croatia weekly or monthly and bring up to a half-billion euros annually.

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ZAGREB, 23 Jan 2022 - Dalibor Matanić's new TV series "The Silence" (Šutnja), based on a trilogy by investigative journalist Drago Hedl, has been listed among 14 television series of the Berlinale Series Market Selects at this year's Berlin International Film Festival.

The Berlinale Series Market Selects is part of the European Film Market. It is dedicated to TV series and offers industry experts, right holders, buyers, and creatives a platform for discussing current developments in the world of series.

The programme will take place online, in parallel with the European Film Market, also taking place online, from 10 to 17 February. The event will include talk shows, showcases by international production companies, streaming platform and series events, online screenings, and a curated selection of high-quality series on the market, the Croatian Audiovisual Centre (HAVC) said.

Among the 14 selected projects, there are also series from Brazil, South Africa, and Israel.

The producer and one of the creators of the series, Nebojša Taraba, said that entering that market was a huge personal success, but they were even happier that this confirmed the international success of Croatian drama series such as "The Paper" (Novine), "Success" (Uspjeh), "The Last Socialist Artefact" (Područje bez signala), were no longer an exception but becoming a rule.

"Croatian television productions are not only the most successful in the Adria region but beyond, I dare say in Central and Southeast Europe," he said.

The eighth edition of the Berlinale Series Market (BSM) will take place from 14 to 16 February with an exceptionally international and diverse selection of series, according to European Film Market according to director Dennis Ruh.

"The Silence" is a six-part TV series based on Hedl's trilogy, which is described as a combination of police procedural novels and political thrillers.

The series will start broadcasting on Croatian Radio Television (HRT) on 7 March. It is produced by Drugi Plan and HRT and co-produced by Beta Film, Star Media, and OLL.TV, ZDF/ARTE. Series creators are Nebojša Taraba and Miodrag Sila (Drugi Plan), with the screenplay written by Marjan Alčevski. The series also stars Kseniya Mishina, Goran Bogdan and Darko Milas.

Congratulations Dalibor, and all the team behind the production of "The Silence"!

For everything you need to know about filming in Croatia, in your language, be sure to check Total Croatia's page.

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ZAGREB, 23 Jan 2022 - The Palagruža association, based in the town of Komiža on the island of Vis, preserves and promotes the maritime heritage of the local community which includes making replicas of historical boats. The association has completed the building of models "Sandula" and "Ofalkono Gajeta" and is now in search of partners to build "Leut" and "Loja" replicas.

The association is also active in collecting and preserving traditional tools and promoting local crafts, artisanal products, and cuisine.

The head of the association, Miro Cvitković, recently told Hina that in the beginning, members made replicas of more simple traditional boats such as the "Gundula". Upon completion, this was followed by building replicas of "Sandula" and "Ofalkono Gajeta-učilo" vessels.

The association takes part in many festivals and events abroad to promote Croatia's maritime heritage.

For instance, its members attended the European maritime festival in the Gulf of Morbihan, France, to promote the "Sandula" vessel. On this occasion, they also managed to establish cooperation with the French town of Rochefort-sur-Loire.

"Sandula" is a "work boat" which was used for everyday fishing activities and short voyages along the local coast.

"Loja" is a boat used in fishing for oily fish, or for communication between bigger vessels during fishing activities.

Cvitković has said that currently the association is trying to find partners for its project to build replicas of "Leut" and "Loja" vessels.

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