July 8, 2021 - Nikola Mektić and Mate Pavić are in the Wimbledon doubles final!

Croatian tennis players and the first-seed of Wimbledon Nikola Mektić and Mate Pavić advanced to the final, defeating the American-British team Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury 7:6 (6), 6:3, 6:7 (2), 7:6 (5) in the semifinals after three hours and 22 minutes of play.

There were no breaks in the first set, and the decision fell in the thirteenth game, which Mektić and Pavić secured with two mini-breaks. The Croatian duo saved three break points in the third game of the second set and then used the first one with a 3:2 lead.

A great fight took place in the third set. Ram and Salisbury threatened several times, but the decision fell again, as in the first set, in the thirteenth game. However, this time, Ram and Salisbury were better and extended the match at 7:2.

Ram and Salisbury had the break in the fourth set, but the Mektić and Pavić returned immediately in the next game. With a 6:5 lead, on the opponent's serve, Pavić and Mektić were at 0-30, but they failed to finish the match. However, in the thirteenth game, Mektić had a great return, and Pavić served to celebrate. 

Mektić has played only one Grand Slam final in his career, while Pavić has won two Grand Slams in the men's doubles competition, celebrating in 2018 at the Australian Open and the US Open in 2020.

Mektić and Pavić have lost only five matches this season, they have won seven titles, and this is their first joint Grand Slam final. They were defeated in the semifinal match at the Australian Open, while they missed Roland Garros after testing positive for coronavirus.

This was Mektić and Pavić's fourth duel this year against Ram and Salisbury, and the best doubles team in the world won all three previous clashes - in the final of Eastbourne and Rome and the semifinal in Miami. 

In the final, they will play against the Spanish-Argentine team Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos. They were better than Italian Simone Bolelli and Argentine Maximo Gonzalez 6:4, 6:4, 7:6 (3) in the semifinal.

Source: HRT

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July 8, 2021 - Getting online in a new country can be a hassle. TCN road tests a new product from Hrvatski Telekom - the digital nomad surfing package.

I don't get asked to review topics very often, and on the rare occasions that I do, it is usually a product I have some experience in.

After reporting so heavily on the digital nomad subject over the last couple of years, Hrvatski Telekom invited me to road test their digital nomad surfing package, under the inviting title of Relax or Work with No Limits in Croatia. I felt the chilled breeze of the Adriatic already.

While glad to accept and help out, the thing is that while I may write a lot about digital nomads and IT startups, I am actually the least technical person in Croatia. So if I could figure out this surfing package, then it really was idiot-proof.

The last time I opened a phone to insert a SIM-card, for example, was over a decade ago, thanks to the tech-savvy ladies in my family. Thinking about it, where was the SIM-card in my Samsung Galaxy?

I started at the recommended place, the dedicated Visiting Croatia page on the Hrvatski Telekom website. Clean simple messages. 7 days of FLAT mobile data, Max 4G speed on the leading mobile network in Croatia, and a 3-in-1 Multi SIM card which fit all devices. So far, so good.

With promised speeds of up to 600 Mbit, no contracts whatsoever, and just a simple payment to get started, this certainly had the feel of a quality product that could soon become my new best friend.

You get started with 85 kuna for 7 days (11 euro), which gets you 7 days of unlimited data at 4G speed, including a 5 kuna credit in the phone (useful for me when I called home, without realising I had switched SIM cards).

Each subsequent week costs 60 kuna, so if you know you are going to be using the service for 2 weeks, simply pay 145 kuna in advance, and your bureaucratic woes are over. Pay by credit card or cash on delivery to the address you state.

My package arrived the next day, with sleek-looking contents. A SIM-card and some multi-lingual instructions on how to get started. There are two things you basically need to know – the Visiting Croatia page was the go to for information and questions, and the Moj Telekom application was necessary to download.

That didn't take long, but then came my first technical challenge. 99% (or maybe 99.99%) of phone users can skip this part, as it merely reflects my own incompetence. Where exactly was the SIM-card in my phone?

Having been shown all by the long-suffering ladies of the household, I was delighted to see I had space for two SIM-cards, and inserted my new friend and restarted the phone. Having downloaded the application, I was guided to enter my phone number, which I dutifully did (my actual phone number, not the one from the SIM-card). There was an error.

As it was a Sunday afternoon, I saw that this was an opportunity to further road test the Hrvatski Telekom system. A shiny new website was all very well, but would customer service actually work on a Sunday afternoon?

Indeed they did, and I had to wait less than 30 seconds for them to start dealing with my issue. Impressive for a Sunday afternoon. It was only when I was trying to explain in detail what my issue was that I noticed a phone number on the card with the SIM-card that I had inserted. No wonder they were having problems understanding what I was talking about.

As I said, some 99.9% of phone users are not as backward as me, so let's move on to the next step, which is to enter the phone number.

And with that, an SMS and I was free to go. Two useful links to the application and the Visiting Croatia page.

The application was friendly enough, directing me to an English-language option immediately.

One suggestion for the application dashboard, perhaps, it to try and make it 100% English, for a better user experience. Having checked with Hrvatski Telekom later about this, they informed mw that they plan to make application 100% in English very soon.

So now that I was finally connected, what about the most important thing of all – speed?

I live in a relative Internet black spot near Varazdin, and I am always envious of the speed in the town itself. I was pleased to see Relax or Work outperforming my current Internet provider, but I was really interested to see what would happen when I hit Zagreb.

I connected to the guesthouse WiFi with my laptop, with the results above. Not that inspiring, and not that much better than at home.

And then I checked out the same test on my phone.

Now THAT is an Internet speed worth getting excited about. 

A very useful service that Hrvatski Telekom offers is an Internet speed map of Croatia for their network. You can check by individual address, and it is a VERY useful tool when choosing accommodation. I tried the service in several locations against the local service, and it outperformed the normal provider each time.

I made a phone call, sent a text, and sent an international text – all without problems.

In fact, the only problem in the whole seamless process (apart from perhaps a little translation in the application) was me. But if even I could figure it out, then it really must be a breeze for the rest of the world.

I travel a lot in the Balkans, especially to Montenegro and Albania. Each time, as I leave the EU, I am left with a dilemma. Do I accept I will have higher charges due to being abroad, or do I try and find a local solution? For years, the whole inconvenience of trying to sort this out has kept me paying the more expensive option.

But perhaps no longer. Relax or Work with No Limits in Croatia has been a revelation to me. Not only do I now know where to locate my SIM-card in a phone I have had for years, but it has also shown me that international surfing can really be a stress-free experience with the right product.

So big thumbs up from me on this new service which is bound to be a hit with digital nomads and tourists alike. A one-time payment with no contract, a user-friendly website and application, and excellent Internet speeds. And let's not forget that very useful map when choosing your accommodation.

And if a technophobe like me can make it work, imagine how user-friendly this must be to someone more competent.

This post was done in cooperation with Hrvatski Telekom.

July 8, 2021 - Ruđer Bošković Institute scientists made progress in stereochemistry that focuses on describing the order of atoms in three-dimensional space and compounds of equal molecular formulas.

While Ivo Andrić's Nobel Prize in literature is debatable whether it serves the national pride of Croatia, Serbia, or Bosnia and Herzegovina, the two Nobel prizes that are unquestionably for Croatians to brag about come from chemistry.

Croatian chemist Vladimir Prelog won the Nobel Prize in 1975 for his work in organic stereochemistry.

As the Ruđer Bošković Institute reported this week, Ph.D. candidate Natalija Pantalon Juraj and dr. Srećko Kirin provided new descriptions of isomers (focused on metal complexes), and their work is published in a prestigious Coordination Chemistry Reviews [IF2020: 22.3] journal, titled „Inorganic stereochemistry: Geometric isomerism in bis-tridentate ligand complexes“.

„The basis of the research was the analysis of structure from crystallographic database“, added IRB.

IRB explained in a press release that stereochemistry is focused on describing the order of atoms in three-dimensional space and compounds of equal molecular formulas, but that differ in the spatial order of atom placements are called isomers.

Prelog took an interest in organic stereochemistry (organic, being interested in compounds with carbon), and while organic stereochemistry has good ways of synthesizing the preferred isomers, the same isn't the case for inorganic (non-carbon compounds) chemistry.

While it is unclear if this work will be awarded and recognized among the international scientific community as much as Prelog's contribution, Pantalon Juraj and Kirin made some progress in advancing inorganic stereochemistry.

„Analysis of data presented in this paper shows trends in coordination properties of various ligands (ligand being an ion or molecule 'functional group' that binds to a central atom to form a coordination complex), thus answering the question of which ligand to choose and design a system to get a wanted isomer“, says IRB regarding the relevance of the research.

The detailed analysis also revealed stereochemical preferences that vary on various factors, and these findings are important for developing new functional coordinating complexes and also new selective catalizators to speed up the reactions.

This research was funded thanks to the Croatian Science Foundation as part of the project „Minimal Artificial Ensims“ (IP-2014-09-1461 and DOK-2015-10-2072), and "CAT Pharma" (KK.01.1.1.04.0013).

Learn more about Croatian inventions & discoveries: from Tesla to Rimac on our TC page.

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

July 8, 2021 - Tourists with special needs will find traveling a little easier thanks to a new partnership between Italy and Croatia. 

'Tourism4All - Development of a Crossborder Network for the Promotion of Accessible Tourism Destinations' is a project aimed at developing and promoting a cross-border network of tourist destinations and designing a common approach and methodology for tourism promotion primarily for people with special needs, reports HRTurizam.

Within this project, the Croatian Camping Association, as a partner in the Tourism4All initiative, invites all interested parties from the tourism sector to participate in the 2nd Cross-Border Seminar - Tourism4All: "Accessible tourism market and promotional strategies", which will be held online July 14, 2021. The seminar is conducted in English and will be followed by interested participants from two countries, Croatia and Italy.

The seminar is intended for everyone who participates in the creation of the tourist offer or is interested in the development of this segment of the tourist business. All interested parties are hereby invited to join and follow the seminar, and additional information about the project and a link to apply for participation are available on the website www.camping.hr/tourismforall-seminar-poziv.

With this project, the Croatian Camping Association (KUH), with the support of the consulting company TeamEU - Razvojni centar d.o.o., has been actively involved in the development of a cross-border network to encourage the development of accessible natural and cultural tourist destinations and accommodation facilities.

The project includes the development of analysis and implementation of joint activities, as well as the development of pilot projects to improve accessibility in ten natural areas and cultural heritage sites in the project partner countries. Demonstration activity in the context of accommodation facilities will take place in cooperation with Valamar Riviera d.d., on the example of mobile homes fully adapted for the stay of disabled people and people with disabilities (the elderly, obese people, children, and the like).

Thus, the Tourism4All project involves the development and promotion of a wide cross-border network of accessible tourist destinations, including natural and cultural sites and urban spaces and beaches, to reduce tourist seasonality and promote social inclusion, through the exchange of good practice, evaluation methods, and joint services for tourism promotion, and for the benefit of people with reduced mobility, people with special needs and developmental difficulties, but also all other vulnerable groups, such as the elderly population, children, people with allergies and the like.

Activities will include concrete interventions and implementation of content and services that will enable better accessibility to a wide range of target groups of tourists, and on the other hand, great attention will be paid to activities that will include education of tourism workers and marketing promotion related to project results.

The project partners are Regione Molise (Lead Partner - Italy), then Italy - Regione Veneto (Dipartimento Turismo), ConCentro (Azienda Speciale Camera di Commercio Pordenone), IRECOOP (Istituto Regionale per l'Educazione e Studi Cooperativo), Delta 2000, Società Cooperativa Sociale Odòs i Regione Puglia (Dipartimento Turismo, Economia della Cultura e Valorizzazione del Territorio) and Croatia - Public Institution RERA SD for Coordination and Development of Split-Dalmatia County, City of Zadar, Šibenik-Knin County Tourist Board, Aspira College of Management and Design, City of Buje, LAG Brač and Croatian Camping Union (KUH). The project began on November 1, 2018, and will end after 37 months, on December 31 this year. Its value is 2.6 million euros.

For more on travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

July 8, 2021 - Health Minister Vili Beroš said that they have decided to extend digital Covid certificates in Croatia from 6 to 10 months for those who were vaccinated with their first dose and which are due to expire soon.

In a press statement before the Government session, Minister of Health Vili Beroš commented on the situation with the vaccination of the Croatian population, reports N1.

"When it comes to the health system, after the end of the mass campaign, we move to a certain new approach, and these are mandatory lectures and education for all persons, even unvaccinated, in the health system," said Beroš, as reported by N1.

The lecturers will be experts who will teach the latest knowledge, answer questions and solve the doubts of those who do not want to be vaccinated. In that way, we will solve certain doubts in direct communication. Lectures will be mandatory, as they take place as part of occupational safety education, he added.

We are moving to a more specific approach and of course, we will suggest a similar approach to all other sectors. Vaccination among health workers is growing, the minister said.

Asked how many employees of the Ministry of Health have been vaccinated against Covid, the minister said it is below 35 percent.

"I am not satisfied," Beroš said.

The Minister also stated that the Covid certificates for those vaccinated with the first dose will be extended to 10 months, instead of the previous 6.

"I accept my responsibility, but those who have not been vaccinated must also take responsibility, contributing to the possible emergence of the fourth wave and the prolongation of the economic crisis," said Beroš.

In the European Union, it has already been thought that those who refuse vaccination bear the costs of treatment. In Croatia, we are not going in that direction. The state will pay for their treatment, but why would our money go to the treatment of someone who could protect themselves? If we go wider, then we have an example of smoking. So, it is a broader problem, but it has already imposed itself as a topic in some European countries," said Beroš.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border, and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of vaccination points and testing centers across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.

ZAGREB, 8 July 2021 - Labour and Pension System Minister Josip Aladrović said on Thursday that Croatia had 55,000 employed persons more than last year and 4,000 more than in 2019, which was the year with the highest total number of employed persons since 2008, that is the last economic crisis.

We have slightly over 120,000 unemployed persons on the labor market, the minister said in parliament presenting a legal solution according to which family pension beneficiaries would have the right to work part-time and receive the full amount of pension.

Citing data from the Croatian Pension Insurance Insitute (HZMO), he said that there had been 216,000 family pension beneficiaries in June, mostly widows and widowers, and their pension had been HRK 2,094 on average, which is lower than the average pension.

At the risk of poverty

In 27% of cases, the surviving spouse is at risk of poverty, the minister stressed, explaining that amendments to the Pension Insurance Act seek to reduce the risk of poverty for pensioners, as well as fill gaps in the labor market.

Nada Murganić (HDZ) welcomed the amendments, recalling that family pension beneficiaries often left their jobs to take care of family members or look after the children. This will enable them to return to the world of work, she said.

Although MPs support the government's proposal that family pension beneficiaries be allowed to work and receive a pension, some of them fear that this could harm the unemployed, and some warn that this will not bring much momentum to the labor market.

Labour shortage, especially shortage of skilled workers, is one of the challenges Croatia is facing, and one of the ways to overcome it is to activate everyone who wants to work and has a specific knowledge, the minister told Anita Pocrnić Radošević (HDZ).

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

ZAGREB, 8 July 2021 - State Secretary in the Central State Office for Croats Abroad Zvonko Milas met in Tivat on Wednesday with representatives of Croatian associations, the head of the Tivat Municipality, and the president of the Tivat Municipal Assembly.

"Relations with the Croat community in Tivat are open, honest, and are constantly progressing. The fact that the Croatian Civic Initiative is not part of the local government is no obstacle to good cooperation and achieving goals that are in the interest of the Croatian community," said Tivat Municipality head Željko Komnenović, recalling a series of activities that testify to harmonious relations, togetherness and coexistence in Tivat and the Bay of Boka Kotorska.

"Our task is to preserve this harmony and rich heritage for generations to come," he stressed.

The leaders of the Tivat Municipality announced that by mid-August the water supply system to the Island of Our Lady of Mercy would be finished, which would solve the problem of water supply to the church and monastery there.

The greatest number of Croats in Montenegro live in Tivat. It has been stressed that the Croatian community has a good status in that country but there are still many open issues, such as the Bokelj Navy.

They are asking that the Republic of Croatia does everything to prevent the nomination to UNESCO submitted by the Montenegrin government from being accepted and that an application is submitted jointly, said State Secretary in the Central State Office for Croats Abroad Zvonko Milas.

Milas thanked for the reception and pointed out the significance of preserving the cultural heritage and identity of Croats in Boka, while Croatian ambassador Veselko Grubišić spoke about the prospects of economic cooperation, which is on an enviable level between Montenegro and Croatia.

In Kotor, Zvonko Milas visited the Croatian Civil Society.

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

ZAGREB, 8 July 2021 - Of 4,105 tests performed for coronavirus in Croatia in the last 24 hours, 110 or 2.7% have turned out to be positive, the national COVID-19 crisis management team stated on Thursday.

Currently, there are 624 active cases, including 121 hospitalized patients, of whom three are placed on ventilators.

In the last 24 hours, the COVID-related death toll has risen by two to 8,226.

Since the first registered case of the infection with this novel virus in Croatia on 25 February 2020, as many as 2,180,970 tests have been performed showing that 360,593 people have contracted the virus. Of them, 351,743 have recovered so far, including 80 in the last 24 hours.

A total of 2,741,251 doses of COVID-19 vaccines have been administered to date.

More than 1.52 million Croatians have been given at least one shot while 1,214,375 have fully been immunized.

For all you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, including travel, border, and quarantine rules, as well as the locations of vaccination points and testing centers across the country, make sure to bookmark our dedicated COVID-19 section and select your preferred language.