July 17, 2022 - With three visits to Bowa restaurant on Sipan in 5 days from nearby Lopud, it is clear that David Beckham and family enjoyed the magic (and privacy) of the Elaphiti Islands off Dubrovnik.

As if Dubrovnik did not have enough with its own majestic old town, a short boat ride away lie a few additional jewels, the Elaphiti islands of Kolocep, Lopud and Sipan. Idyllic slices of the slow and traditional Dalmatian way of life, where little changes over the centuries, they have beecome increasingly popular with celebrities and the mega-yacht brigade, both for their high-quality seafood and simple Dalmatian beauty,  as well as privacy.

The Elaphiti islands are no strangers to film locations either, with Bliss, starring Owen Wilson and Selma Hayek filmed on Lopud in 2019, and Succession this year on Sipan. And, as previously reported on TCN, 4-time Oscar winner Joel Coen opened the second Lopud Film Festival last month.

Among the current guests enjoying the Elaphiti islands are David and Victoria Beckham, who are staying at the exclusive Lopud 1483 converted monastery, and - as Jutarnji List reports - they have been making regular visits to the island of Sipan, and one restaurant in particular:

After it became known on Monday evening that the famous couple Victoria and David Beckham are staying with their family in Lopud to celebrate the 11th birthday of their daughter Harper, as well as their 23rd wedding anniversary, the Beckhams have been enjoying the benefits and beauties of the Dubrovnik area for days. However, they obviously liked their stay at the Bowa restaurant in Šipan the most, so they have already visited that oasis three times in the five days they have been in Croatia.

- We are talking about an all-day stay, because we are a destination restaurant that is open from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. and whose offer is based on the freshest ingredients and fish and seafood delicacies caught that morning from the Adriatic Sea, but also on privacy that allows all guests to truly relax - Maja Jozić from Bowa restaurant told Jutarnji. The Beckhams had their own cabana and their only request was for privacy. But as they stayed in Bowa almost every day, in that family atmosphere that reigns there, they became friends with the staff and gave the "green light" for the publication of these photos and videos.

- Victoria is known for eating only grilled vegetables and grilled fish. And that is exactly what our offer is based on. They were delighted with how fresh our food was, and they had no special requests, not even their children. It's just an ordinary, very relaxed and normal family, and since other restaurant guests didn't take pictures of them or try to contact them, they relaxed very quickly at our place - continued Jozić. Thus, David Beckham readily posed with the wild Adriatic tuna that had just been caught, tried the tuna tartare, and as we hear, the former soccer player also expressed his desire to join the restaurant's team on the next fishing trip. Owner Pero Šare and his team brought bronze to Croatia this year from Costa Rica from the world championship in big fish hunting.

- Their menu mainly consisted of fresh fish, lobster, mussels and our famous Mali Ston oysters, Ostrea Edulis, which are different from the ones they are used to, like the French ones, and which delighted them. They also tasted Šipan carob cake, as well as olive oil, because Šipan is known for having the most planted olive trees per square meter in Europe according to the Guinness Book of Records - they say in Bowa, which is owned by Pera Šara since 2019, who also met the famous couple and took photos.

- And how did they get to us? We know that it is only word of mouth that is ultimately the best. Other stars also visited us, such as Beckham's colleague Marcelo, but they are all here to be who they are, ordinary people, that's why they love Bowa - says Jozić.

Their several-hour stay in Bowa was filled with enjoying the sea, but also excellent wine (the sommelier of the restaurant Siniša Lasan is a state champion), and the family promised that they would come again.

Learn more about this slice of Dalmatian island heaven with the Total Croatia Guide to the Elaphiti Islands.

ZAGREB, 17 July 2022 - Croatians consider television and radio as the most trustful sources of information, and their trust in information on social networks is higher than the EU average, a Eurobarometer survey shows.

The survey examined media habits, trust in different media sources, and attitudes towards disinformation, the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media says in a presentation of the Eurobarometer findings on its website. 

Media outlets play a major role in informing citizens about the European Union's activities and its institutions. This survey shows that 72% of respondents say that they have recently read, seen or heard something about the European Union and 57% about the European Parliament.

In Croatia, 86% of respondents have read something about the EU, and 73% about the European Parliament.

In the EU, television dominates as the primary news source (75%), and this is particularly true for older generations. In Croatia too, 75% of respondents cited television as their primary source of information.

Overall, public TV and radio stations are the most trusted news source in the EU (49%), followed by written press (39%) and private TV and radio stations (27%).

In Croatia, public TV and radio stations are the most trusted news source for 39% of those polled, while written press is cited by 26%, and private TV and radio stations by 23%.

Interestingly, 19% of those polled in Croatia trust information on social networks, as against 14% in the whole of the EU.

As many as 12% of respondents in the EU and in Croatia feel "very confident" that they can recognise disinformation and fake news, and 52% in the EU and 56% in Croatia feel "somewhat confident". The level of confidence in distinguishing between real news and fake news decreases with age and increases with level of education.

Ipsos European Public Affairs interviewed a representative sample of EU citizens, aged 15 years and over, in each of the 27 Member States of the European Union. Between 26 April and 11 May 2022, 53 347 interviews were completed via computer-assisted web interviewing, using Ipsos online panels and their partner network, the European Parliament said on its website.

The EU results are weighted according to the size of the population in each country.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, 17 July 2022 - Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić's intention to come on an announced, private visit to Jasenovac is against the protocols, because a head of state is a protected person, and visits by presidents require official preparations, Croatian Foreign Minister Gordan Grlić Radman said on Sunday.

The Croatian Foreign and European Affairs Ministry sent a protest note to Belgrade on Friday over this case, the minister told the press outside the ministry's building today.

The protocol has been violated, said Grlić Radman elaborating that visits by presidents and office-holders must be announced to the host country and require planning for weeks and months.

Making an appointment for a visit by foreign officials implies that the time frame, the character, and program of the visit should be a subject matter of official communication and the outcome of the agreement by both sides, the minister said reading excerpts from Croatia's protest note.

Following Croatia's demarche, Serbia's authorities tried to hand their protest note to the chargé d'affaires in Croatia's embassy in Belgrade, however, she refused to receive it, the Croatian minister said.

He said that Croatia had invested a lot of effort in the improvement of the dialogue with Belgrade, however, there has been no sincere response from the other side.

Croatia's refusal to allow Vučić to pay a private and impromptu visit in such a way to Jasenovac caused an uproar among Serbian officials, who are close aides to Vučić.

Grlić Radman believes that the issue of Vučić's possible visit to Jasenovac, a WW2 concentration camp, had been made topical in Belgrade for the sake of the ongoing talks on forming the new Serbian government. 

He also sees this as Belgrade's attempt to blur unresolved issues stemming from the Homeland War and Croatia's insistence on answers from Serbia about what happened with 1,834 unaccounted-for people who went missing in that war.

The Jutarnji List daily reported that Vučić had contacted Croatian Serb leader Milorad Pupovac to tell him that he would arrive in Jasenovac from Bosnia and Herzegovina where he planned to visit the Serb entity.

According to the Zagreb-based daily newspaper, Pupovac conveyed that information to Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, and the government found Vučić's plan to dodge the appropriate protocols outrageous.

Grlić Radman today declined to confirm or refuse the claims about Vučić's attempt to implicate the SDSS party leader Pupovac in this affair.

The Jutarnji List daily also comments that Vučić's intention to come on such an impromptu visit to Jasenovac and Pakrac, without official notification to Croatia's authorities and circumventing the embassy is perceived as his attempt to play a role of a victim, who is allegedly denied access to Croatia, ahead of the anniversary of the 1995 Operation Storm and to provoke Croatia's authorities.

Croatia criticizes Serbia's authorities for avoiding the official channels for providing information about plans for Vučić's arrival.

"We see it as ill-intentioned and not as a sincere visit or sincere act of paying respect to victims," Grlić Radman said.

Ex-president says Vučić is lying for propaganda purpose

Following this entanglement about Vučić's plans for paying a visit to Jasenovac and his claim that not any of the previous Serbian presidents had ever been to Jasenovac, former President Boris Tadić told local media outlets that this was a morbid lie made by Vučić. 

Tadić recalled that in 2010 he had visited Jasenovac and Jadovno, two sites of the suffering of ethnic Serbs in World War Two in Croatia, and accused Vučić of exploiting war victims for his propaganda purposes and for satisfying his personal ambitions.

Tadić said that the difference between Vučić and him was the fact that he had not made use of his visits to such sites for one-upmanship or for inciting hatred and fake patriotism.

For more, check out our politics section.

ZAGREB, 17 July 2022 - Croatia has registered 979 new coronavirus cases and nine COVID-related deaths in the last 24 hours, according to the data released by the national COVID-19 crisis management team on Sunday.

There are 9,761 active cases, including 490 hospitalized patients, 20 of whom are on ventilators, while 4,928 persons are self-isolating.

In the last 24 hours, 2,993 persons have tested for coronavirus, and one in three has been positive. There have been 1,262 recoveries.

Until 16 July, 2,316,018 persons received at least one shot of the vaccination against this infectious disease.

The infection has taken 16,156 lives to date in Croatia.

For everything you need to know about coronavirus specific to Croatia, bookmark our dedicated section and select your preferred language if it isn't English.

ZAGREB, 17 July  2022 - The ceremony of opening the 69th edition of the Pula Film Festival took place in the city's landmark "Arena" on Saturday evening, with Croatian President Zoran Milanović addressing the event.

The festival will run through 24 July and Croatian Programme includes 10 films, while International Programme has 11 films.

President Milanović said that "this is a Croatian film festival."

"We are a small, open country and a small nation and we cannot but look towards the world. It is not good for us to be introverted," Milanović said praising the inclusion of international filmmakers and Oscar winners in the festival's jury for years.

The opening ceremony was also addressed by Culture Minister Nona Obuljen Koržinek and Pula Mayor Filip Zoričić.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

July 17, 2022 - A superb addition to the Croatian co-working scene, as Croatia's first-ever cowork, Impact Hub Zagreb back in 2013, reopens in a fantastic location much loved by Croatian film lovers. 

One of the things I have learned in my time in Croatia is just to go with the flow. Attending events these days always leads to an interesting conversation or two, and so it proved with the recent G2 diaspora conference, DiWine Summer.

Among the many participants in an international gathering of 16 nationalities was the happiest Mexican I know in Croatia - Hermes Arriaga, co-founder of the first-ever coworking space in Croatia, almost ten years ago. And Impact Hub Zagreb has had plenty of impact since opening its doors in 2013. Far more than a mere coworking space and part of the larger Impact Hub family, the Zagreb hub has more than delivered on its vision over the years:

We believe the only way forward in a complex world is by joining forces to build a future where business and profit work in support of people and the planet, taking collaborative action for a better world.

In Croatia we envision a space for impact entrepreneurship and innovation for the generation of leaders who move the economy and society forward. 

We found ourselves next to each other for dinner at G2 and fell into earnest conversation about life, business, and the joys of Croatia today. I had a couple of business ideas I wanted to run past his experienced brain, and he was keen to tell me about the new location he had just moved to, in a prime location in the heart of the historic Upper Town. 

"And not only that, but the building and apartment is also famous as the location for one of Croatia's most-loved films, Tko Pjeva Zlo Ne Misli (He Who Sings Means No Harm). You must come and visit, and we can talk a little more about this business idea."

There are a growing number of coworking spaces in Zagreb, more than 20 at last count, but few can match the new Impact Hub Zagreb location for personality, heritage and location. Lived in for 50 years by an actress who has recently rented it out, so many original features and period furniture have remained and been incorporated into the layout of the new Impact Hub Zagreb that its sprawling layout on the first floor overlooking a divine courtyard are a joy to behold. 

And as Hermes took me through his business coaching plan, knocking my very rough concept into shape, I contemplated for the first time dividing some of my working week with visits to this new neighbour of mine, despite having happily worked from home and cafes for 20 years. The cowork has plenty of rooms to choose from, but the vibe and mindset already being established is somewhat addictive. Only positive vibes exist. 

Impact Hub Zagreb had a soft opening on Friday, welcoming friends, partners and regulars for a welcome drink and a tour. It is a location which is bound to be popular and a fantastic addition to life in the historic Upper Town. To learn more about the services of Impact Hub Zagreb, check out their official website.  

July 17, 2022 - As has become the norm every year, the City of Split celebrated pride around its old town. The 11th Split Pride parade brought together dozens of people of all ages to show their support for the LGBTQ+ community.

As is customary year after year, the city of Split celebrated Pride and Total Croatia News was there to record the festivities. Yesterday the streets of Split were filled with music and smiles, with dozens of people marching together with flags and banners, showing their unconditional support for the LGBTQ+ community. The high temperatures were not an obstacle, and the general feeling was one of genuine joy.

Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich

It should be noted that the eleventh Split Pride, held yesterday, is also a peaceful march where attendees take the opportunity to protest discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community, manifested in various ways, such as the lack of rights, verbal and physical aggression, the invisibility of trans people, among many other forms of discrimination. Split Pride organizers decided yesterday's event revolves around one essential question: ''do we have rights?''

The recently re-elected mayor of Split, Ivica Puljak, was present at the 11th Split Pride together with his wife, MP Marijana Puljak. (Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich)

''Namely, in the past twenty years of LGBTIQ+ activism in Croatia (ten in Split), much has been said and discussed about the rights of LGBTIQ+ people. Some think that we have too many, some think that we have too few, as if it is about some special rights. And we actually just want to have the same rights as all other citizens of this country. We are not asking for special rights, but equal rights. Is that really too much?'', said the organizers.

''I pay the same taxes, but I don't have the same rights''. (Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich)

''We will list only some examples of discrimination that really sting our eyes. For example: We are left out of important national and local strategic documents, which marginalizes us and makes us invisible, health care for trans people in the Republic of Croatia is not regulated, we do not have access to medically assisted fertilization, we cannot donate blood, the Constitution prohibits us from the right to marry, and so on''.

Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich

Around 16:30 pm, as previously announced on social media, people began to gather in Đarđin, in Strossmayer Park by the Golden Gate of Diocletian's Palace. People of all ages, and even with pets, came to the park and were met by friends and other familiar faces. A large police force was present at the beginning, around the park, to make sure that those who entered it were precisely to join the celebrations and protests.

Many parents brought their children to the 11th Split Pride. (Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich)

The initial environment featured music and merchandising stands. After 5:30 pm, with a large number of people already gathered, a spectacular dance number was performed, in which some attendees participated. Once finished, percussion instruments were heard and the organizers, with a long banner in their hands, marked the beginning of the march. The route of the march began in the Strossmayer park, where the protesters would walk the entire Tomislava street, until they reached the Marmontova, where they would turn left to go to the Riva, and from there they would take the Hrvojeva, to finally return to the Strossmayer park.

Pets were also present at the 11th Split Pride parade yesterday. (Photo: Jose Alfonso Cussianovich)

In the middle of the tourist season, visitors in the city of Split witnessed the parade, and in Tomislava, Marmontova, Riva, and Hrvojeva streets they stood on the sides, taking photos and recording videos, smiling, with their cameras. In Tomislava street, I heard a child ask his father: ''what is happening?'', to which he replied: ''they are marching for their rights''.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

July the 17th, 2022 - Belje has won two gold medals for its much loved Slavonian delicacies, shining a well-earned and very much deserved spotlight on the products from the often wrongly overlooked Eastern Croatia.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, at the Faculty of Agrobiotechnical Sciences in the City of Osijek, the very first kulen quality assessment was held in the organisation of this scientific institution, which is a long-term partner of both small family farms (OPGs) and large producers in the standardisation and improvement of kulen production. Kulen is just one of the many Slavonian delicacies which has been winning over hearts for decades.

Belje sent its premium kulen from the Crna Slavonska (Black Slavonian) and Baranjski kulen (Baranja kulen) lines with a designation of geographical origin for evaluation. Both of these products absolutely delighted the jury, which awarded them gold medals for their high quality.

"Each piece of kulen that comes from our production is dealt with by hand, as is the case with all of the family farms. We make our Baranjski kulen according to strictly defined protection specifications, and as such, we proudly highlight our European blue ZOZP stamp on every single piece of it. It's a production that lasts about four months in total and during which we carefully monitor all stages, from start to finish. We also produce kulen from Black Slavonian pigs, which we raise on our pastures in the Kopacki Rit Nature Park," said Ljiljana Vajda-Mlinacek, Belje's head of corporate communications.

Goran Kusec, a professor at FAZOS (the aforementioned scientific institution in Osijek) and one of the best connoisseurs of kulen in all of the Republic of Croatia, commented on the evaluation and the quality of the samples sent for evaluation.

"For many years now, together with my colleagues from the Faculty of Food Technology, I've been evaluating kulen throughout the Eastern Croatian regions of Slavonia and Baranja. This year, we decided that the time had come to organise a proper evaluation within a large scientific institution, such as our faculty, in order to further emphasise the importance of kulen and its production for the entire region. 33 kulen samples from all five Slavonian counties took part in the evaluation and all of them were excellent. We evaluated the cut, taste and smell of kulen according to international standards and norms,'' concluded Kusec when discussing these Slavonian delicacies which more than deserve the limelight.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated Made in Croatia section.