Ludbreg Winemakers' Wines Thrive Due to God-Given Microclimate
January 23, 2021 – The feast of St Vincent's Day, Vincekovo, could not be celebrated this year due to the epidemiological situation, but Ludbreg winemakers continue to focus on their wine production. Thanks to the very favorable climate, the Ludbreg area is suitable for planting vineyards, and local winemakers hope to soon get their well-deserved place on the Croatia's wine list.
Vincekovo, which was celebrated yesterday, January 22, in the Ludbreg area, used to be celebrated in Globočec when the plantations were blessed. The main event was a traditional and unique exhibition of young wines from the Ludbreg and surrounding vineyards, which was canceled this year due to strict epidemiological measures and a challenging situation.
It is an additional blow for all caterers who suffered the most in the corona crisis and wine producers. Local winemakers and winegrowers will wait for some better times to meet and rejoice with friends.
Sanja and Tomislav Stručić, top winemakers from Ludbreg, who met with TCN in Ludbreg last year, told their business story for the Epodravina.hr portal.
Family vineyard three kilometers from the center of the world
"We were pleased by the announcement that we could reopen our doors in February, but if we won't open until Easter, as announced, the season is questionable. We are very affected," says winemaker Sanja Stručić.
However, despite the pandemic, wine lovers are not resting. Caring for the vineyards is a year-round work, essential for producing good wine. The season begins now when the first pruning is done and lasts until the harvest.
"Last year, we estimated that, given the situation with the coronavirus, we would have stocks of wine. Therefore, we reduced the grape yield during pruning in the spring. We left grapes for sparkling wine and wines to age. We want to produce quality, not quantity, that is, high-quality wines," says the Stručić family.
Sanja and Tomislav Stručić with Paul Bradbury in 2020, Total Croatia News
Their beautiful wine-growing hills, clean air, excellent wine, and hospitality evoke the love of land and viticulture that began in 1984 with a family vineyard just three kilometers from the center of the world. Sanja's father, Dragutin Crnković, once planted the first vineyard there, passed on his love of viticulture to his daughter, and introduced her to the wine business.
Emphasis is on the premium line of nature wines
Sanja's husband, Tomislav, also fell in love with winemaking and viticulture. In 2000 they founded the Winery, and in 2017 they produced the first sparkling wine in the region. They are the new wine style leaders in Varaždin County, and today they create top and quality wines.
Stručić Winery has become one of the most famous and successful and began more severe production in 2002. The emphasis is on the premium line of wines represented by nature wines. The premium line consists of carefully selected bunches hand-picked from selected vines. Sanja showed her love, passion, and care for each of these grapes before they become wine.
"Only ripe grapes are picked from the petiole by hand, clean and healthy. Fermentation on own yeasts and grapes, without the addition of selected yeasts, produces natural wines. This top line comes in different bottles and has different labels. We have been making it in small batches, approximately 750 bottles, for four years now, every year with a new vintage," says Sanja.
Back in 2016, Stručić family even produced a special edition of Sara Kolak Chardonnay to celebrate the local Olympic javelin gold-medal winner.
Journalists who encourage stories about gastronomy, tourism, and hedonism are also responsible for the turn in wine production. The Stručić family decided to take advantage of the microclimate and their plantations' position, which enable them to produce excellent raw materials for the production of different wine styles.
"We researched and realized that our region is a microclimatic God-given. While visiting various wine fairs and festivals, we realized we want to make different wines. The exhibitions were an incentive for us to expand our knowledge to be as good as possible. We also visited wineries in Italy to get a better insight into their viticulture and winemaking that is at a high level, and to apply experiences and some wine secrets in our vineyard and cellar," says Sanja on how they started producing sparkling wine and natural wine.
Produced the first sparkling wine in the region
The family vineyard initially had 3,500 vines and was later expanded with new plantations. Today, they cultivate three and a half hectares of land with 14,000 vines. It consists of plots named after the youngest members: Lucija, Luka, and Petra, and the newest plantation was named after their niece Katarina. The plots are registered by varieties and years of planting. The rulers of their vineyard are Graševina, Chardonnay, Rhine Riesling, Sauvignon, Portuguese and Yellow Muscat.
"We produce Graševina, Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Rhine Riesling, and mixed wines. Poštenjak is a blend – a mixture of Graševina, Chardonnay, and Pinot Gris. We make fruit wines and liqueurs, and sparkling wine. We produce about 25,000 bottles a year," says Tomislav.
The opening of the Ludbreg Wine Road about ten years ago encouraged a stronger development of their winery. Thus, in 2017, Vinarija Stručić produced the first sparkling wine from the Ludbreg vineyards, which has the label "blanc de blancs" (namely "white from white"), which means that only white grapes were used in its production, that is, Chardonnay.
"After top quality wines, every winemaker wants to produce sparkling wine. It is the crown of your work, as if, for example, you have won the World Cup. The production of sparkling wine was our desire for a step higher. And now, three years ago, we are doing batch after batch," Sanja points out.
The Croatian Wine Institute, which evaluates and issues a quality certificate, rated their sparkling wine as top quality. And there is only five percent of top wines in Croatia, so they expanded their production in 2018 with rose sparkling wine from the Portuguese. It is a unique rarity in Croatia, produced by only one other winemaker on Plješivica.
Microclimatic conditions with a continental climate favor the quality ripening of grapes, so the Podravina and Zagorje regions are God-given for sparkling wine production. The Ludbreg vineyards' climate is ideal for producing light wines with little alcohol, sparkling wine, and wines of late harvests.
Decanter quality certification
Stručić Winery sells its products throughout Croatia. In Ludbreg, visitors can taste their wines in the Bonaparte coffee bar, which they own, as well as the Amalia catering facilities, Pivnica Mejaši, and Hotel Crnković.
"Rhine Riesling is mostly associated with the name of our winery. It is our flagship and our most sought after wine on the market. Then follow Graševina, Chardonnay, Portuguese, Sauvignon… Premium wine lines, sparkling wines, aged, and nature wines are distributed to the Adriatic coast," says Tomislav.
The secret behind the Sučić Winerys's success, Sanja points out, is harmony, great love, patience, a lot of sacrifices, and constant investments. Proof of quality arrived last August when the Stručić Winery won a bronze medal for Chardonnay and recommendations for Rhine Riesling and Graševina at the most influential wine evaluation – the Decanter World Wine Awards 2020 in London.
"It is a confirmation that we make quality wine. With these recognitions, we have increased visibility," says Tomislav with satisfaction.
Ludbreg vineyards on the wine list of Croatia
For wines to achieve top results, a lot of education, work, and knowledge is needed, so the Stručić family cooperates with the leading Croatian sommelier and Decanter judge Siniša Lasan. With Varaždin County's cooperation, Siniša visited several wineries and tasted wines, discussed problems, and gave his view of the current situation in winemaking in the county.
Continental tourism is in the beginning. Tourism Ministry began to give it importance and encourage it only a few years ago.
"The Ludbreg and Varaždin vineyards are neglected. They are not marked on Croatia's wine list, and our winemakers are very hardworking but self-effacing. A dozen of us from all over the county will have to sit down, compare wines, listen to the profession to style them if necessary so that we stand out together with quality. I believe that we will soon mark our vineyards on the wine list, which would raise the price, and we could sell our wines more easily on the doorstep," Sanja is optimistic.
"Viticulture is a demanding activity that requires a lot of attention because wine is alive and should be continuously monitored. Without love for the vineyard and wine, there is no progress, "the Stručić couple agrees.
However, the biggest reward in their work is that the interest in winemaking is shown by their 17-year-old son Luka. He wants to enroll at the Faculty of Agriculture and become a wine expert, oenologist. Thus, when the time comes, to the family's satisfaction, the winery will be taken over by the third generation, which will cultivate, enrich, and further create new top-notch wines.
To read more about Ludbreg, follow our dedicated page.
Learning Croatian Vegetables the Hvar Dialect Way (VIDEO)
January 23, 2021 - Continuing our alternative look at the Croatian language through Hvar dialect, this week Professor Frank John Dubokovich shows us his moves in the mysterious world of learning Croatian vegetables.
I sometimes wonder how Croatians from other parts of the country understand each other. I know that all countries have dialects and dialect words, but Croatia seems to take the regional vocabulary to a different level.
One of the fun projects in the early years of the Total Project, before TCN, was an occasional language series on Total Hvar looking at the Hvar dialect compared to standard Croatian with Professor Frank John Dubokovich, Guardian of the Hvar Dialects.
What started out as a bit of fun with the infamous Dalmatian Grunt in the first episode above, quickly got quite a following, with more than 50,000 views for that first article. About 20 more videos followed until they were taken down by YouTube for reasons unknown.
We continue to restore the Professor's linguistic colossus to the Internet with the latest in the series, a rather illuminating look at the differences in various words on the subject of vegetables and how they differ between standard Croatian and Hvar dialect.
The Professor confessed to me before shooting this lesson that there was something about the Hvar dialect word for 'aubergine' that made his want to get up and dance. He was even kind enough to demonstrate some of his moves during the lesson.
With thanks to Zdravko for his more understandable version for those learning Croatian vegetables, as well as to Marion in her role as Executive Aubergine Holder.
You can follow more of the linguistic musings of the Professor as the series develops by subscribing to the TCN Talks YouTube channel.
For the very latest from the island of Hvar, follow the dedicated TCN section.
Zagreb In Top Three European Capitals With Cleanest Tourist Accommodation
January 23, 2021 – According to user ratings of the most important platforms for booking accommodation, Booking.com, Airbnb, and Tripadvisor, Zagreb is among the three best European destinations with the cleanest tourist accommodation.
Namely, with the onset of the pandemic, the requirements for travel hygiene have further increased. Therefore, a survey on the European metropolises with the cleanest accommodation was recently conducted. Zagreb Tourist Board reports that some guests described their stay in the Croatian capital as "brilliantly clean" and "spotlessly clean."
The survey was published by the British portal ShowersToYou.co.uk and is based on the average ratings of accommodation's cleanliness in famous European capitals.
In the overall ranking of the 20 cleanest destinations in Europe, Zagreb took a high third place with an average rating of 4,74. Only Lisbon, with an average rating of 4,792, and Prague, with an almost identical rating as Zagreb - 4,741, are ahead of the Croatian capital.
Considering only the ratings of Booking.com and Airbnb users, Zagreb takes first place, ahead of Moscow, Lisbon, Prague, Vienna, and other capitals. In case only Tripadvisor users' ratings are taken into account, Zagreb is in 14th place, but this does not diminish its overall ranking given the average ratings on all three platforms, where Zagreb is in third place.
"We are extremely pleased with this result. Hygiene has become especially important, and the health aspects of staying in a destination have become one of the main backbones when promoting in the foreign tourism market. We are pleased with Airbnb, Booking.com, and Tripadvisor platforms' user ratings. They give additional value to Zagreb as a safe and clean destination," said the Zagreb Tourist Board director, Martina Bienenfeld, congratulating Zagreb accommodation providers.
In addition to the mentioned survey, Zagreb won a valuable award at the online BH Tourism Film Festival 2020 in Sarajevo. Namely, Zagreb Tourist Board won the award for "The Best Culture and Heritage" for the film "Zagreb Loves You."
This film is an unusual tourist promotional film because it was made in March last year when two misfortunes hit Zagreb at once – a pandemic and an earthquake. The film has become the backbone of the comprehensive #ZagrebLovesYou campaign, and this is Zagreb Tourist Board's fifth award for it in a little over half a year.
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Croatia's Coronavirus Update: 599 New Cases, 29 Deaths, 659 Recoveries
ZAGREB, 23 January, 2021 - In the last 24 hours, 4,872 coronavirus tests have been performed in Croatia, and 599, that is 12.3%, have returned positive, while there have been 29 COVID-related deaths, the country's coronavirus crisis management team reported on Saturday morning.
There are currently 3,232 active cases of whom 1,468 are receiving hospital treatment, including 142 patients placed on ventilators.
Since the outbreak of the infection in Croatia on 25 February, 1,149,691 tests have been conducted for this novel virus, and 228.568 people have tested positive.
Of them, 220,537 have recovered to date, including 659 recoveries in the last 24 hours. The death toll stands at 4,799.
Currently, 16,114 persons are self-isolating.
COVID Pandemic Identified as Top Business Risk in Croatia
ZAGREB, 23 January, 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic is perceived as the top business risk in Croatia in 2021, cyber incidents rank second, while changes in legislation and regulations and lack of skilled labour force share the third place, according to the Allianz Risk Barometer.
The tenth annual edition of the barometer, issued recently, is based on the findings of a survey conducted by Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) following interviews of 2,769 specialists and experts from 92 countries and territories. Some of the respondents are Chief Executive Officers, risk consultants, underwriters, senior managers, claims experts in the corporate insurance segment of Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty and other Allianz entities.
The survey was conducted in Croatia before the 29 December devastating earthquake in the Petrinja region.
As many as 54% of the respondents in the country cite the pandemic as the biggest risk, while cyber incidents follow (31%), and changes in legislation and regulations have been stated as a business risk in 26% of the answers. In the previous four years, this was identified as the top business risk, according to this barometer.
The shortage of a skilled labour force is also mentioned as a business risk in 26% of the interviews in Croatia.
Allianz Croatia CEO Daniel Matić was quoted as saying that the impact of the pandemic and the COVID disease on doing business in Croatia is perceived in the same way as in most countries.
Matić speculates that had the survey been conducted after the quakes in Petrinja and Glina, the risk called "Natural catastrophes" would have had climbed to a higher position on the barometer.
Matić underscores the labour shortage as a high risk for doing business in Croatia.
Many industries, including tourism and the ICT sector, are faced with this problem, he said.
The importance of this issue can be seen in the example of the necessary labour force for rapid repair response in the aftermath of the quake in Petrinja, Sisak and Glina, he explained.
"Given the unprecedented disruption caused by the coronavirus outbreak, it is no surprise that business interruption and pandemic outbreak top the 2021 Allianz Risk Barometer," according to the explanation given on the Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty web site.
"The pandemic is the biggest climber this year (up 15 positions), with cyber incidents ranking a close third. All three risks – and many of the others in this year’s top 10 – are interlinked, demonstrating the growing vulnerabilities and uncertainty of our highly globalized and connected world, where actions in one place can spread rapidly to have global effects. Looking forward, the pandemic shows companies need to prepare for a wider range of business interruption triggers and extreme events than previously. Building greater resilience in supply chains and business models will be critical for managing future exposures."
The top ten business risks globally identified in the barometer are: Business Interruption, Pandemic outbreak, Cyber incidents, Market developments, Changes in legislation and regulation, Natural catastrophes, as well as Fire and explosion, then Macroeconomic developments, Climate change/increasing volatility of weather, and Political risks and violence.
26 Houses in Hrvatska Kostajnica Declared Unfit for Use Since Quake
ZAGREB, 23 January, 2021 - The town of Hrvatska Kostajnica, located some 50 kilometres of the epicentre of the 29 December 6.2 earthquake, has sustained considerable damage from that disaster, and several hundred houses were either destroyed or damaged in that community with about 2,700 inhabitants.
So far 26 houses have been declared unfit for use.
The mayor Dalibor Bišćan has recently said in an interview with Hina that reports about the quake damage are still being complied and sent to the relevant authorities.
A representative of the Sisak-Moslavina county task force for dealing with the aftermath of the quakes, has informed Hina that so far 400 chimneys and roofs in Hrvatska Kostajnica have been repaired since the December earthquake
This town on the left bank of the Una River, which is also the borderline with Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been exposed to natural disasters in the recent years.
Mayor Bišćan recalls that the quake was the third disaster in a short period.
He recalled disastrous floods and landslide that occurred in March 2018 when 12 family houses were destroyed.
The December earthquakes activated two landslides, jeopardising five houses.
Municipality of Dvor: So far 1,024 reports about quake damage
The mayor of the nearby municipality of Dvor, Nikola Arbutina has told Hina that the earthquake caused damage to this municipality which consists of 60 villages scattered on an area large over 505 square kilometres.
Arbutina, has said that most of Dvor 5,500 inhabitants are elderly citizens, living far from the municipality's centre.
To date, the authorities have received 1,024 reports about the quake damage.
Cafe and Restaurant Businesses Send Requests to Help Them to Overcome Crisis
ZAGREB, 23 January, 2021 - Two associations - the Voice of Entrepreneurs (UGP) and the National Association of Cafe and Restaurant Businesses - have sent several requests to the government, including a one-off grant equivalent to 3% of a business's total annual revenue in 2019 and the extension of job-keeping grants.
The two business associations said in a press release on Saturday that they forwarded those requests to the authorities to help them to mitigate the consequences of the corona crisis on this sector, and one of the demands is the refunding of the costs based on bills a business has received and not on the paid bill.
They explain that the businesses concerned earned nothing in December and many of them could not afford paying their costs for that month, while the paid bills are required for applying for refunding of fixed costs.
They ask for vouchers for hiring, following the suit of seasonal hiring in the agricultural sector.
They say that the disbursement of the job-retention grants under the current scheme is late.
The associations warn that so far this sector has shed more than 11,000 jobs.
They point out that entrepreneurs are eager to cooperate with the government in a bid to adopt good decisions that will be beneficial rather than detrimental to the sector.
They warn about some deficiencies in the decision-making when doing business is partially or fully restricted, and therefore have sent their proposals with the aim to help the affected businesses.
Wuhan Lockdown Began a Year Ago, as Its Tourists Were Visiting Croatia
January 23, 2021 - The anniversary of the Wuhan lockdown a year ago today recalls a moment in time in the crazy timeline of 2020, when Wuhan tourists continued to visit Croatia.
They say that time is relative.
But that pearl of wisdom was coined before 2020.
Ordinarily, a single year would pass in the blink of an eye in the history of mankind, but 2020 lingered, its timeline so skewed, and totally different depending on your location.
We watched with incredulity as China imposed the Wuhan lockdown a year ago today, shutting down an entire city of 11 million people for weeks and confining them to their homes.
Closer to home, the images and daily death toll coming out of Italy were beyond belief. That could never happen to us, surely? I remember reading A letter to the UK from Italy: this is what we know about your future in March and feeling a chill go through my body. Ten months on,and the statistics speak for themselves.
The horror of the pandemic aside (and I don't think I was the only one to underestimate it), what struck me most about last year was the way time moved at various speeds. After Croatia had been in lockdown for some time in Spring, I received an angry email an American from Illinois. He was due to go on a cruise in Split the following month and could not get any information on whether or not it was going to happen.
His 2020 timeframe was a lot different to mine. For the realisation had not yet hit home. At time of writing, there were 5 deaths due to the virus in Illinois. Ten months later, more than 20,000. There have been no recent emails about cruise departures.
That concept of 2020 time was something I noted after the Zagreb earthquake when I recorded a piece for Robert Tomic Zuber's excellent R+ channel in late March. One of the only two certainties I noted was that everything in the video would be irrelevant the following week, as the world would have moved on. Again. And so it did.
As the Wuhan lockdown anniversary occurs, it is interesting to reflect on where things were in Croatia exactly one year ago, on January 23, 2020.
Even though TCN has written more than 1,800 articles on COVID-19 in the last year, there was no mention of the virus on the site on this day last year. That first mention came two days later, with Iva Tatic's What is Croatia Doing to Prevent the Spreading of the New Coronavirus? TCN was the first English portal in Croatia to write about coronavirus - by contrast, for example, there was no mention of it on the Ministry of Tourism's website until May.
That day, January 25, was notable in Croatia for another reason related to the pandemic. While the Wuhan lockdown was taking effect back home, Chinese tourists, including from Wuhan, were touring Croatia. It seems incredible looking back after the events of the last 12 months, but a party of 29 tourists landed in Milan on January 22, before heading to Plitvice Lakes, Zadar, overnighting in Neum in Bosnia (see video) and then on to Dubrovnik.
Ironically, last week I stopped at the same Neum restaurant on a business trip. After weeks of life in Croatia with no cafes or restaurants open, the chance of a mixed grill and a cold one was just too tempting. As I savoured my first restaurant meal in months, I reflected on the craziness of it all. A year later, so many opinions and expert voices, and we still could not agree on a uniform approach to battling the pandemic. As Bosnia, Montenegro and Albania had open restaurants and cafes, as well as a 22:00 curfew, everything remained shut without curfew in Croatia. Just one of the many differences in approach in just a handful of countries.
Whether or not the Wuhan tourists should have been allowed into Croatia is an easy debate to have with hindsight, but it is clear that the government's eye was not 100% on the health threat. Weeks later in March, Croatia would win global plaudits for its decisive intervention to control the pandemic, and new Health Minister Vili Beros was hailed a national hero for his pragmatic, no-nonsense approach. But a year ago, as the Wuhan lockdown started, Beros was a virtual unknown. Although he has rarely been out of the media since, he had not yet spent a year in the job. This time last year, the then Health Minister Milan Kujundzic, was spending most of his efforts trying to deflect attention away from his undeclared property portfolio. Efforts which were unsuccessful and ultimately cost him his job, paving the way for the start of Beros' ministerial career.
One year after the Wuhan lockdown, life has returned to relative normality, while in Croatia and most of the rest of the world, life is anything but normal. Just as we looked at incredulity at the Wuhan lockdown a year ago today, let's hope we are not looking at life in Wuhan today with pure envy 12 months from now.
Read more on the 2020 timeline in Croatia through Chinese eyes, with Zagreb resident Sisi (published on April 4, 2020) - Foreigners Self-Isolating in Croatia: Do You Feel Safer? Sisi from China in Zagreb.
For the latest on coronavirus in Croatia, follow the dedicated TCN section.
One of Croatia's Best: Petrinja Search Dog Poisoned in Slano Near Dubrovnik
January 23, 2021 - A Petrinja search dog named Alice was killed by poison in her hometown of Slano earlier this week. Her owner, DVD Slano firefighter Srđan Botica, recounts the tragic event.
In September last year, TCN highlighted the dark side of Dalmatia's streets, unfortunately, plagued by animal poisonings.
Four months later, and the situation is just as dire.
On Friday, Croatian media headlines shared the heartbreaking story of a Belgian Shepherd named Alice, who was also recently in the spotlight as one of Croatia's best search dogs in the Petrinja rubble.
Alice's short life came to a tragic end this week, but not because of her efforts in Petrirnja. Alice was poisoned, presumably by rat poison, in her hometown of Slano near Dubrovnik. She was just three years old.
Alice's owner Srđan Botica, a DVD Slano firefighter, formed a search team to help find anyone buried under the rubble after the Petrinja earthquake last month. Botica said Alice was one of the best search dogs in Croatia, and she was trained to save lives.
"We had training, camps, simulations, license exams, and she passed everything with the best grades," recalled Srđan, who hurried with Alice to Petrinja after the earthquake rattled the central Croatia region. They stayed for six days, ready to rescue anyone in need.
"She was the craziest and sweetest dog in the history of dogs," Srđan said.
An inconsolable Srđan revealed that Alice died in his arms. She was part of a family that put a lot of love and time into her and her training. DVD Slano knew what it meant to have such a capable search dog on the team.
Srđan wants to believe that the poisoning did not happen intentionally and can't point the finger at anyone. He went to both the Municipality and the Administrative department to ask if any poison had been reported, but it had not. He searched the entire area around the house - especially since he has three more dogs - but found nothing.
"We have a big yard, but I can't even think that someone would deliberately throw it in the yard. She probably found it while out on a walk," said Botica, who took in Alice when she was seven months old.
"I don’t accuse anyone because Alice was a favorite of the whole town. We don't know what she was poisoned with, except that there was no way out. She died in my arms last night, blood on her mouth and nose and goodbye."
Srđan lost one dog in the same way 14 years ago and said another in the neighborhood died from poisoning a year ago.
"People in Dubrovnik and the surrounding area know how to throw sausages with nails in them; it must stop," he said. "You know everything I have to say. We need to put an end to this," Srđan commented about poisoners.
Poison in public areas has killed many animals across Croatia, and the criminals are rarely found for punishment.
Killing an animal, whether by poisoning, severe abuse, or in any other way, warrants a fine of 10 to 15 thousand kuna. Poisoning is also punishable under the Criminal Code with a prison sentence of up to one year.
"If there is a heaven, I know that you are up there now. While my tears are flowing, I laugh at the same time because I know that you will make a total mess and confuse them upstairs, but also crawl under everyone's skin, just like all of ours, you abnormally crazy, voracious, cuddly, jealous creature. We all love you."
Unfortunately, it is too late for Alice and hundreds of other animals in Croatia.
Sources: Dubrovacki Vjesnik, Dubrovnik Net, Telegram.hr
To read more news in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.
Diocletian's Chest: Children's Project Recognized by World Federation of Tourist Guides
January 23, 2021 - City of Split project Diocletian's Chest, designed in cooperation with primary schools and the Association of Tourist Guides to raise awareness among the youngest about Split's cultural heritage and the importance of its preservation, received great recognition from the World Federation of Tourist Guides (WFTGA).
Slobodna Dalmacija reports that the project was recognized just in time for International Education Day, which is celebrated on January 24. The World Federation of Tourist Guides praised this project called "Children - the guardians of our heritage" with the great merit of the Croatian Association of Tourist Guides. It is an excellent example and desirable model to bring children closer to the importance of historical and cultural heritage through education. In addition, this international organization invites other countries to join the project and apply the same education model and presentation of historical heritage in their cities.
Diocletian's Chest has been held since 2012. It is attended by 1,700 students, more than 70 teachers from all primary schools in Split, school coordinators, and a large number of tourist guides. Children have the opportunity to tour the Palace with expert guidance, and in the second part of the project, they participate in a knowledge quiz and an exhibition of student works on the theme of Diocletian's Palace. The project envisages awarding prizes to the most successful schools. In this way, they learn how to respect and present the heritage and preserve the great historical and civilizational heritage of Split for centuries to come.
"The Split model of showing the youngest the significance of our vast and rich heritage has received great international recognition. The echoes of our efforts and efforts to preserve the historical heritage for generations to come through education have been in the focus of a large organization such as the World Federation of Tourist Guides, an associate member of the UN World Tourism Organization, and a member of UNESCO. And all this at a time when tourist guides are fighting for survival as well as the correct interpretation of cultural heritage and history in which, as always, I give them full support," said Split Mayor Andro Krstulović Opara.
The World Federation of Tourist Guides, based in Vienna, is an organization that brings together national associations from 80 countries worldwide and represents over 150 thousand guides.
To read more about lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.
