July 11, 2022 - Hvar, also known as Croatia’s lavender island, has plenty to offer to any lucky visitor during the Mediterranean summertime. With its lavender flowers blossoming during the early summer days – in June and July – tourists and locals embrace the intoxicating scent of domestic herbs from all around!

The island of Hvar is located in the Adriatic, off Croatia's famous Dalmatian Coast, and is well known for being the sunniest spot in the country. By having dry, chalky soils and long sunny days, the colourful Croatian island provides a perfect place for growing the plant that is widely known for its various benefits. Being used in medicine, cosmetics production, and even cooking, lavender production is still very significant to the residents of Hvar.

Photo: Romulic & Stojcic

Although lavender cultivation on Hvar began all the way back in 1930 and its production has declined over the years due to a combination of emigration and devastating forest fires, the Hvar Lavender Festival continues to revive both the lavender tradition and its heritage every summer. In late June, Velo Grablje marks the start of the harvest time as it hosts exhibitions, presentations, workshops, and even concerts. Therefore, the annual two-day Lavender Festival attracts visitors from all over the globe to celebrate all things lavender!

Photo: Romulic & Stojcic

As the air gets full of fragrance and the hills are covered in purple shades, freshly made lavender souvenirs appear in all local markets and shops. Workshops hosted by generous villagers and medicinal herb experts aid in filling the quiet island of Hvar with laughter and conversation. And just like every year, the little island showcases its big welcoming heart for visitors to explore the Lavender Festival and the cobblestoned streets of Stari Grad.

Photo: Romulic & Stojcic

Most of Hvar's lavender fields are located around Zastražišće, Gdinj, Bogomolje, Brusje, Grablje, and along the road from Stari Grad to Hvar. So, to see Hvar lavender, it is advised to take a ferry to the island and experience the aroma of the wild herbs and their constant intensity, as it will linger on with you for the rest of your life!

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February 17, 2021 – In a video podcast entitled "Energy Transition on the Islands," organized by the Island Movement initiative, participants warned that underdeveloped environmental awareness is one of the main obstacles to implementing the circular economy on islands.

As Hina reports, the deputy mayors of Hvar and Cres warned that citizens are still unaware of the green economy's importance, which makes it challenging to introduce a circular economy on islands.

"The most difficult phase in achieving sustainable development is to explain to ordinary citizens why the energy transition would be a step forward," said Marin Gregorović, deputy mayor of Cres.

The circular economy is a production and consumption model that encourages sharing, borrowing, reuse, repair, recovering, and recycling of products and materials to achieve the product's added value. Such a concept has a positive effect on reducing the amount of waste.

Commenting on the inefficient disposal of waste on the islands, Gregorović noted that "the system is not working well" and that "we have not yet reached the stage of resolving the issue of biowaste disposal."

"Although we have a recycling yard and dual waste management on Cres, and we plan to build a composting plant, the story of the circular economy is still just – a story," said Gregorović.

Kuzman Novak, deputy mayor of Hvar town, added that "the fundamental problem at the national level is waste management."

"We take the garbage bags out of the house, and they are taken away, which we don't see, so we don't think they are our concern anymore. That is the key problem," Novak said, explaining the underdeveloped environmental awareness of citizens.

"When we talk about sustainable development, it's not just about solar power plants and waste management, it's essentially developing an awareness not to be selfish," said Novak.

The new EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy is one of the key elements in achieving climate neutrality, which is a central goal of the European Green Plan. Voting on the new EU circular economy action plan, the European Parliament this month called for additional measures to achieve a carbon-neutral, environmentally sustainable, and fully circular economy by 2050.

To read more about lifestyle in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

We recently reported on an unusual job offer on the island of Sestrunj in the Zadar archipelago. What might appear to many to be a simple job working in a shop has attracted a rather large amount of attention, from Croatia, Europe, and even beyond.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 8th of April, 2019, there haven't been any schools on the island of Sestrunj for a long time now, and on the island itself, there are only twenty permanent residents.

While Croats tend to move to Ireland in their droves for work opportunities, higher salaries and more job security, Sestrunj, a small island in the Zadar archipelago, has been attracting attention from all sides since the posting of a job offer in a shop on the island, with would-be employees making contact from Ireland, Germany, and even all the way from America, as RTL reports.

Sestrunj - a little island close to Zadar, hasn't even had a shop for four months, and the only the place where you can go and have a drink is at some sort of pensioner's association on the island.

Since Sestrunj has been without a shop for the last four months, supplying the island naturally poses a big problem.

Eventually, the powers that be decided that Sestrunj's store needed to make a return to the island and contacted some commercial chains, and as the first condition for the job, they needed a person who would be willing to move to the island and live there. The interest in the small shop was quite surprising, and so far as many as forty job applications from around the world have arrived on Sestrunj's quiet shores.

"There were mostly people from Slavonia, and there were also people from the United States, Germany, Canada, a gentleman from Ireland called, he was willing to come back to the area," said Nenad Šužberić from Sestrunj.

"They're sick of the crowds in the city, they're probably expecting to come and have some peace on the island and all that," said Sestrunj resident Berislav Fatović.

The shop will need to be done up, but the apartment for the person who will work there is ready.

"It's nice to live here because it's quiet and it's different way of life than in Zadar, in town, but we're missing this shop because you need to think about the most basic necessities in advance, to make sure you've everything you need to have in the house," admitted Zdravka Dilber.

With the re-opening of Sestrunj's shop, everything would be much easier for the island's residents.

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