August 24, 2021 - One Split taxi charges 900 kuna from the Radisson Blu Hotel to the Split Airport. The shocked passenger filmed the incident, which has now circulated around Croatian media. 

Taxi drivers working in the Kaštela and Split airport area were appalled by the actions of an illegal taxi driver who charged tourists 900 kuna to transport them from the Radisson Blu Hotel in Split to Split Airport. Taxi drivers note that the real price should have been around 300 kuna, reports Slobodna Dalmacija.

The passengers realized that it was illegal transportation when the driver did not want to take them to the airport but insisted on dropping them off at a nearby bus stop.

The passenger recorded the incident, and in the video, he emphasized that Split is a wonderful city and that, in his case, the problem is not the money but the incorrect behavior of the driver. Furthermore, he warned guests not to take illegal transportation so as not to find themselves in a similar situation.

The driver noticed that the guest was recording him on his mobile phone and asked him to delete the video, which he did not do, but shared publicly.

After paying the requested amount, the passenger greeted the driver with the words, “Don’t do that.”

You can watch the video (in English) below.

On the bright side, the local community has jumped in to show that this illegal taxi driver is not representative of the genuine hospitality in the region. 

One example comes from local tour guide Ives Cikatić, who replied to the tourist in the video posted in the Split Croatia Travel 2021 Facebook group. 

"Dear Sir

I am a local tour guide. I have worked in tourism since I was 17, that's 30 years now. I have witnessed all sorts of things and felt gutted for this kind of scam. Absolutely disgusting, disrespecting Croatia by acting like this, embarrassing all of us, working hard to present our beautiful country in the best possible way.

The thing is, even if he is illegal, if he charged 300kn, I could understand, but anything above it is an absolute rip-off, disrespectful and embarrassing. We are all humans trying to survive in these difficult times, while Corona messed up our lives. So I understand if someone is trying to make some money for a living, but this guy has gone way too far. I know he is not the only one.

However, for all the others, use other services like Cammeo taxi. They even have an app, and the price is 190kn. As a local, I use them often. In Zagreb, I have my favorite driver, and I call him the day before to let him know about the rides I will need. Also, there are others like Bolt, Uber, and regular taxis with taxi-meter in their cars.

The Airport Shuttle bus to Split port is I think 35kn, you can take rides mentioned above to dock in Trogir for the Bura Line & offshore boats, public transport from Trogir to Split by sea and enjoy the view and navigation to Split port. Also, use the public bus line number 37 that stops at the main road under the pedestrian Airport bridge www.promet-split.hr there are ways.

I am sorry, Sir, that you had to go through this. If you ever come back to Split, you and your daughter will have a free tour from me as a professional tour guide, and I invite you to my home for a typical local dinner with my family and friends. Feel free to contact me anytime.

Thank you for speaking well about our country as you will pass it on to others, and thank you for referring to the things that aren't good so we can improve. That is what matters and is most appreciated.

Thank you for visiting Croatia, especially my hometown, Split, and once again, please take my sincerest apologies for the inconvenience you had to go through.

Kindly,

Ives Cikatić"

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated travel section.

August 24, 2021 - Three Croatian diaspora footballers will join Igor Bišćan's U21 Croatia squad for the new qualification cycle. 

U21 Croatia coach Igor Bišćan has selected players for the new qualification cycle, which includes three footballers born and raised abroad - Luka Sučić, Josip Stanišić, and Marco Pašalić, announced HNS.

Red Bull Salzburg's offensive midfielder, Luka Sučić, already has 17 appearances for the young Croatia national team and was among the candidates for the U21 national team before the European Championship final, which he missed due to injury. Sučić played for the U15 Croatia national team for the first time in a friendly match against Austria, where he was born and raised.

"It is a special feeling to wear a jersey with red and white checks, and I am looking forward to continuing to represent Croatia," said Sučić, who is currently on the call-up list for the A national team coach with coach Zlatko Dalić.

Defender Josip Stanišić was born on April 2, 2000, in Munich, where he played for the first team of the Bavarian giants Bayern this season. He played for the German U19 national team in two friendly matches but chose to play for his parents' country:

"I am pleased to be invited to the U21 Croatia national team. I am honored to be able to wear the Croatia jersey," Stanišić said.

Borussia Dortmund striker Marco Pašalić also attracted the attention of the Croatian public this summer. Pašalić was born on September 14, 2000, in Karlsruhe, and so far, he has played in two friendly matches for the U17 Croatia national team.

"I can't describe how proud I am to play for the Croatia national team because I was raised from a young age that Croatia is my homeland. I am looking forward to the first gathering with the young national team, and it is up to all of us to prove ourselves with good games and dedicated work, first for coach Bišćan, and then potentially for coach Dalić," said Pašalić.

⬇️ Popis Hrvatske U-21 za rujanske utakmice ⬇️ #MladiVatreni pic.twitter.com/GmFRY7gGKi

— HNS (@HNS_CFF) August 23, 2021

The talented trio from the diaspora confirms the quality work of the Croatian Football Federation, said the president of the HNS, Marijan Kustić:

"We are aware that there is great potential in the diaspora, and young men like Sučić, Stanišić, and Pašalić show with their decisions to play for Croatia how strong the commitment of our families abroad is to the Croatia national team. Furthermore, by bringing Stipe Pletikosa as the technical director of the A and U21 national teams, we wanted to strengthen this segment of operations further because we are a small country, and we must successfully find every talent in Croatia or abroad."

The newly appointed technical director of the A and U21 national team, Stipe Pletikosa, has already held talks with Sučić and Stanišić, and this week he will also meet with Pašalić:

"I am extremely pleased that Sučić, Stanišić, and Pašalić have chosen to represent Croatia. We have a responsibility to develop our scout network further and nurture quality communication with guys who are potential for Croatia national teams, and organize as many activities as we can see them up close, such as the Memorial of Croatian Veterans in Vukovar. "

To follow the latest sports news in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

To learn more about sport in Croatia, CLICK HERE. 

August 24, 2021 - A tale of two countries by TCN contributor Margaret Walker, author of Through Forests and Mountains. 

Hats off to Slovenian author Goran Vojnović! I have just finished reading his best-selling novel Yugoslavia, My Fatherland which he creates with great literary skill and the insight of an excavator. He exposes human foibles down to their bedrock, and I hope he never writes about Australia because I'll be ducking for cover. The guy's a genius, but he has made me sad.

For the cynical, war-weary people he describes are not the Yugoslavs I remember when, as an adopted Croatian searching for the half of myself that originated there, I visited from Sydney in 1985. I desired to like Yugoslavia, I hoped that it would welcome me, and it is wonderful how often expectations like this bear fruit. To me Yugoslavia seemed fresh and new, its people warm and welcoming. After our trip, as the train trundled towards the Greek border and the magic still lingered, I watched these men and women tending their fields in the twilight and willed myself to retain that final image. Though Vojnović might argue that I saw only what I wanted to see, Yugoslavia in 1985 was no more an illusion to me than if I had mistaken a lush Bosnian valley for the dry eucalypts that soar from the river beds at home. 

I'll tell you why: because, one October afternoon three years ago, in a second hand book shop along a dusty street in Rijeka, I bought a book of poems written between 1941 and 1945 by Croatian Yugoslav Partisans. In these verses, I rediscovered the country I had loved.    

During those years, Yugoslavia was again at war – again divided along ethnic grounds – but there was one crucial difference from the war of the 1990's, and that was the stated aim of the winners: to create a pan-Slavic army to replace the old regional fighters. When I wrote my own novel about Yugoslavia, I named it after the book, Po Šumama i Gorama, Through Forests and Mountains (Penmore Press, 2021). It is the first of a trilogy about World War 2 in Yugoslavia and is set in Montenegro, Serbia and Bosnia. The second and third books are set in Croatia, in Split and Vis. I wrote Through Forests and Mountains to investigate the story my adoptive mother told me in 1970 about the Partisan women who fought alongside the men, and to reflect the Croatian Poems that had so captivated me.

What are their themes?

The most frequent is freedom. Running parallel to it are camaraderie and sacrifice for a cause higher than one's self. Beneath these, and most important to me, was love of the land the Partisans were fighting for, and that land is described in beautiful terms, just as I remembered it. 

The forests have become the graves of our fallen comrades, the sons of our land, and on them flowers have sprouted. We twitch the gentle stems, we roll up the small flowerets and think it takes us back to the warm streams of our childhood.

Cyclamen by Anđelka Martić, August 1943

The column of soldiers walks into the blizzard of angry ice with blistered feet and swift, firm steps. In their hearts they carry spring blossoms and their deadly rifles are loaded with freedom.    

The Battle at Twenty Below Zero. VIII Dalmatian Brigade

The words of the old oak from At the Grave by Andrija Nemit   

Dear comrades,

I am honoured and proud of these young lives. They stood up for freedom and justice. They gave themselves for the freedom of the young. They did their courageous duty before the world for the homeland. And little birds will give them glory in the summer. Let them glory in who they are. They gave their lives for the freedom of the people.  

Lastly, some memorable lines about women from A Woman Under Arms by Franjo Mraz                   

I hate the days of my leaden past and my unhappy youth. Now that I have a gun in my arms, you who burn my house and kill my sons, I promise I’ll pay you back, because I am no longer a slave. Oh my rifle, I will never part with you! You will be with me at the end of my wrist until my last day. Tremble, look, and listen to the woman warrior, the woman Partisan.      

One of the pitfalls in translating the surges of the heart that are at the root of poetry is that one becomes involved with the poets themselves, takes them home, so to speak, and thereafter commences a meditation on who they were and what their lives were like. I, their advocate, suffered righteous anger on their behalf, I rose to the justice of their cause, debated with the sceptics, fought the fascists until, at last, from sheer emotional exhaustion, I extricated myself from their embrace and returned to the twenty-first century. But I did not return alone. The Partisans came with me. 

Some of them were famous Croatian poets and artists, Josip Cazi, Anđelka Martić, Franjo Mraz, but most, I suspect, were people like you and me. Perhaps they fell in battle, ‘the holy sacrifices of our heroic column’, as Cazi wrote. Some may have been Enslaved in Istra - Porobljeno u Istri - from a note found in the pocket of a fighter named Čiković.  Other are verses composed by Branko Đipalović of the Eleventh Dalmatian Brigade just before he was hung, that I found both moving and frightening: ‘when this poem rises from the earth let out a great shout as the hero falls, to those who gave the righteous life.’ 

The poems and my own experience tell me not to accept war and ethnic hatred. I was adopted in 1960. When fifty years later I discovered my birth mother's history, it was a mixture of Slovenian, Croatian, Italian, and Venetian. My mother herself identified as Yugoslav, and later as Croatian. She was born in Tar, Istra. She told me that the family name Mikatović came from an island down the far south coast and meant ‘son of Michael’. Recently I discovered that Mikatović is a contraction of the Greek, Michael Taxiarhis, or Michael the Brigadier, the archangel, the commander of the armies of heaven. This island my mother spoke about was the Island of Flowers in the Bay of Kotor, upon which once stood an Orthodox monastery dedicated to this saint. Thus we have, Mikatović, son of Michael the Archangel.  

‘In recent centuries,’ wrote the Australian Ambassador Malcolm Booker in 1994, ‘European…Empires that have competed for access to the Balkan corridor have constantly provoked dissension…in pursuit of their own interests. This has created a social and political climate in which every community fears and distrusts every other.’ He concludes, 'The only hope for peace among the Balkan peoples is for them to be left alone...to develop their uniquely beautiful and productive region.'

Margaret Walker: Through Forests and Mountains | (mwalkeristra.com)

August the 24th, 2021 - One very young and very promising Zagreb entrepreneur has caught the eye of no less than the Croatian company Prostorija, all because of one very special product of his.

As Poslovni Dnevnik/Sergej Novosel Vuckovic writes, Leo Greguric from Zagreb's story first came to light in the Croatian media space one year ago, who then, after completing the third grade of high school, had been running the 3DGlobe company for 3D technologies for a couple of years.

Since then, he has graduated from the popular MIOC and enrolled at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, and progressed in the business segment as well. Everything, he says, opened up to him somehow.

“There's more and more cooperation going on with companies, we provide or sell them professional equipment for 3D printing, and I'm glad that I achieved my first big job in production. The Croatian company Prostorija, which produces furniture, decided to engage my company,'' Greguric stated. He received an order from this prestigious Zagorje-based manufacturer of furniture to make plastic elements for two items - chairs and sofas.

“These are smaller plastic pieces. We made about 2000 pieces of inserts that are installed under the handles of the chairs, and a larger model, but smaller in quantity, about 500 rosettes for the base of a sofa, which serves as protection for both the fabric and for the furniture below it on the ground,'' explained the talented young man.

His 3DGlobe company designed and imprinted elements in three dimensions. ''They weren’t geometrically complex, but it was a challenge to make so many of them. The first batch started last October, and we gradually went from smaller to larger orders,'' stated Leo.

He isn't even attempting to hide the fact that he's very satisfied with the aforementioned cooperation with the Croatian company Prostorija, whose items have won numerous Croatian and international design awards, can be found in a number of international luxury hotels and restaurants, and the French Prime Minister was sitting on no less than one of Prostorija's sofas. Greguric rightfully hopes to continue working with them.

"This cooperation is one of my most pleasant business experiences. All the people from the Croatian company Prostorija with whom I was in contact have been extremely kind and, most importantly, meticulous and very well organised,'' he stated, publicly expressing his satisfaction on social media.

It doesn't stop there, either, this talented young Zagreb businessman revealed that he was recently in a meeting with the globally known manufacturer of natural cosmetics, Lush, and admitted that he has the potential to work for them, namely making the plastic molds for so-called shower bombs.

“They're interested in this 3D printing technology because of its flexible design and the possibility of support. I strive for the main value of my job to be the maintenance and implementation of technology in the business of companies, so I want to provide them with consulting and education, and not just give them equipment. Companies like Lush want to have someone locally who, for example, will give them the equipment in a week and train them to work with it,'' explained the founder and director of 3DGlobe.

He was, he added, also in the company of his role model, Mate Rimac, talking there with his experts in charge of 3D printing. He pointed out that he will not give up working for private Croatian customers.

"My wish is to establish a webshop where private users, hobbyists, students, will all be able to purchase equipment and materials for 3D printing," stated Greguric.

For more, check out our dedicated business section.

August 23, 2021 - The Croatian coast is used to the world's biggest celebrities visiting, but yesterday's highlight was Michael Jordan coming to Croatia as a tourist in Split.

Of course, his arrival created a lot of media frenzy, and everyone (including us!) wrote about him arriving in Split and boarding an amazing yacht O'Pari. Today, the media was following the vessel's position on vesselfinder.com, so they knew that the yacht and the people aboard it were going to the Šibenik region. That's not a particularly odd choice, as that is the way to get to Krka National Park, and numerous Croatian media confirm today that this is exactly what some of the people in Michael's party did today. While His Airness was enjoying himself on a jet-ski on the Prokljan Lake, as reported by Index and others, Michael's wife Yvette Prieto and friends went on a tour of the Krka National Park.

Šibenik.in website has a video of Michel on the jet-ski:

The photo agencies have also distributed the photos of his wife and friends in Skradin, while visiting the Krka NP.

Photo by Dusko Jaramaz/PIXSELL.

Currently, the O'Pari yacht is docked in the Šibenik port, and I will admit to becoming a bit misty-eyed when I realized that the greatest basketball player of all time will be spending some time in the greatest Croatian basketball player's hometown. Dražen Petrović was born in Šibenik, and there's a memorial to him there, but it's probably not realistic to expect Jordan to pay his respects.

Michael Jordan is not expected to meet any of his colleagues and friends, other Croatian basketball players. Slobodna Dalmacija reports that Dino Rađa didn't even know Michael was coming to his hometown of Split, while Toni Kukoč is reportedly in his home in Chicago, and not on the Mediterranean. Kukoč will be inducted into the Basketball hall of fame in early September, and it will be his former teammate, Jordan, who will co-present him at the ceremony.

August 23, 2021 - On Saturday, August 21, as part of the Kamičak Fortress Music Evenings organized by the Sinj Tourist Board and with the support of the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media, the City of Sinj, and the Split-Dalmatia County Tourist Board, a concert evening was held with the Papandopulo Quartet and Sara & Jappa. 

In the evening, in the unique ambiance of the Kamičak Fortress, visitors could witness a musical spectacle under the starry night sky and virtuoso performances of top musicians: four Croatian saxophonists - Nikola Fabijanić, soprano saxophone, Gordan Tudor, alto saxophone, Goran Jurković, tenor saxophone, and Tomislav Žužak, baritone saxophone in the Papandopulo Quartet, and acoustic duo Sara & Jappa featuring Sara Brodarić on vocals, and Željko Brodarić Jappa on guitar and vocals. 

For several years now, the Sinj Tourist Board has organized successful and extremely well-attended concerts of classical, but also traditional and jazz music. This year, due to the pandemic, everything took place in an adapted form, in compliance with the recommendations and measures of the Civil Protection Headquarters and the NZJZ.

As part of the Music Evenings at Kamičak Fortress, concerts have been held so far by Academic Accordion Orchestra "Ivan Goran Kovačić," Sara Renar, Jazz swing quintet "Repassage," Wind Quintet "Kalamos," the unique Samobor percussion ensemble "Sudar Percussion," ethno musician Dunja Knebl with the band Kololira and ethno, Nocturnal4 and Ratko Zjača, ZZ Quartet, Trio EX PONTO, and TRIO VENTUS.

Everyone in Sinj enjoyed this year's performance of the fantastic Papandopulo Quartet and the renowned duo Sara & Jappa. Papandopulo Quartet concerts are regularly accompanied by the approval of the audience and the praise of critics, and such an atmosphere was not absent in Sinj either. It should be noted that the Quartet attaches special importance to the promotion of contemporary music by Croatian and foreign authors and cooperation with many prominent musicians, ensembles, and orchestras.

The father-daughter jazz duo Sara & Jappa, consisting of Željko Brodarić Jappa and Sara Brodarić performed top vocal and guitar interpretations of jazz classics from celebrated in Broadway and Hollywood musicals, which were popularized by Peggy Lee, Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and other legendary performers.

The concert took place with all recommended measures of the Civil Protection Headquarters and the NZJZ. 

For more on Inland Dalmatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

August 23, 2021 - The Science Faculty (PMF) Earthquake reconstruction money was received in July by the Croatian government and Education Ministry. The aid was given to other high-education and scientific institutes that suffered from the earthquake too.

With August concluding, the academic community is waking up after a summer break. Students are preparing for exams, and professors are grading those exams as both groups boldly look towards new wins and losses in October and another season of active higher education in Croatia. However, with faculties being low-key in the summer, one might have missed an important action in early July when prime minister Andrej Plenković and education minister Radovan Fuchs came to Zagreb's National and University Library. They delivered 42 contracts of assigning non-returnable financial aids to reconstruct infrastructure of higher education and scientific institutions hit by the earthquake. The total amount is 2,140,837,980 kuna, and Zagreb's University Faculty of Science (PMF) received a total of 160.988.403 kuna for its own reconstruction after the natural disaster first hit Zagreb on March 23, 2020, and later Petrinja on December 29, which was also felt heavily in the Croatian capital.

With the University of Zagreb being founded in the middle of the 17th century, teaching and research of natural sciences and mathematics, which led to today's PMF, can be found almost two years after the university was founded, on April 21, 1876. The faculty, in its current form of working, was established on June 8, 1946. Since then, PMF has worked on its educational and research contributions, whose excellence is recognized domestically and internationally.

„The Faculty designs and conducts relevant university studies and scientific research programs which are an integral part of the higher education process in the fields of biology, physics, geophysics, geography, geology, chemistry, and mathematics," says the PMF website.

Today, PMF has seven departments (Biology, Physics, Geophysics, Geography, Geology, Chemistry, and Mathematics), organized into 28 divisions. It has around 4000 students enrolled in undergraduate, integrated undergraduate and graduate, and graduate university studies within 35 study programs and about 1000 students at seven postgraduate studies and one postgraduate specialist study.

„It is less known that the PMF also comprises the Seismological Service and its seismological stations all over Croatia, the mareographic station in Bakar, the geomagnetic observatory in Lonjsko polje, and the green jewel located in the very heart of Zagreb – the Botanical Garden. And in the background of it all are nearly 500 scientists and teachers for whom you will not only be just another name on a sheet of paper but a truly personal and (hopefully) successful story about your future and ours“, explained PMF.

The earthquakes damaged PMF, particularly the buildings of biology and geography departments. Still, it is admirable that amidst its own trouble, PMF found a way to help students of the Faculty of Metallurgy in Sisak, which also took a heavy hit from the earthquake, by donating five new laptops for educational purposes.

As TCN previously reported, citizens of Zagreb had mixed feelings regarding how the city and the government handled the situation in Zagreb. However, Croatian Parliament MP Sandra Benčić from the Možemo Green-left coalition, while commenting on the victory of his party colleague Tomislav Tomašević on Zagreb elections, stated that the citizens he helped filling out paperwork for damaged homes needed to receive European funds for the reconstruction, for which Zagreb needs to apply by June 2022 to receive the aid.

With these moves by the new administration and the aforementioned aids for the high scientific institutions, the steps to recover Zagreb, the center of science, culture, politics, economy, and more in the Republic of Croatia are underway. But, it will still take time for citizens to recover fully from 2020's tragedies.

The results of education and science curiosity pay off. Learn more about Croatian inventions & discoveries: from Tesla to Rimac on our TC page.

For more about education in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

August 23, 2021 - The Biševo Blue Cave boom was anything but expected this summer, with skippers refusing over 15 inquiries from guests per day!

Tourists on Hvar have gone crazy for the Blue Cave, which has been experiencing a tourist boom in recent weeks. And when they find out that everything is reserved that day or even a few days in advance, they do not hesitate to throw an immoral amount of money at skippers in the hope they'll be able to experience this natural wonder, reports Slobodna Dalmacija.

Unfortunately, reservation lists on all excursion speedboats are full days, and some even weeks, in advance.

"And what can I tell you? It is not craziness but madness. Everyone wants to see the cave. Some booked a spot a few weeks before their arrival. They prepared better. There are no boats, no spots; there are so many reservations that you have to wait for days to go. Nobody expected this kind of madness, this surpassed everything, this is more than anything," says Antonija Maljković, a skipper from Hvar who has taken guests for years to tour Komiža, Biševo, and the Blue Cave.

She says that people know how to beg and admits that they offer generous amounts of money to find a seat on the boat - but the law is clear. There can be exactly 12 guests and two crew members in the speedboat, which is why she has to leave many behind on the shore. This summer, everything is up and running at full speed. 

"I have to refuse ten, 15, or more inquiries a day. It's not just like that with me. And you know how many of them came to Hvar and did not manage to board? There is also madness in front of Biševo; already around 8 am, 9 am, the invasion of fast boats from Split, Omiš, Trogir, Makarska, Hvar, Bol, Vis, and Komiža begins. And where are the sailors? Everyone is heading south; everyone is running to find a place in line to not wait for hours. And it is known that at the entrance, considering how many people there are, they wait for four or more hours," Antonija added.

Guests come from all over Europe, and there are many French, British, American, and English tourists. Crowds die down only in the afternoon, after 4 pm. 

"To see that morning scene on the high seas. The speedboats are just rushing there. It's like watching an invasion in which everyone would like to come first," Antonija said, remembering just how poor the season was last year. 

Great interest in visiting the Blue Cave is confirmed by the Nautical Center Komiža, an authorized concessionaire for receiving visitors and conducting visits to the protected natural monument, the Blue Cave in Mezoporat Bay on Biševo Island. Visitors must board one of the boats operated by the center's experienced sailors to enter the cave.

"This year, we are really recording great interest of visitors compared to last year's pandemic year. By July 31 this year, we had achieved 58.45 percent compared to the record tourist year in 2019 and 136 percent compared to last year. Given the overall situation with the COVID-19 pandemic, our expectations of interest and attendance at the Blue Cave for this year were 30 percent higher than the results achieved in 2020. Therefore, we believe that the effects of attendance in July and August are a pleasant surprise for all entities related to tourism activities along the Adriatic," concludes Brigita Fiamengo, director of the Nautical Center Komiža.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated travel section.