Istrian hotels could be offering the cured meats, cheeses, wines, and free-range eggs from Slavonian farmers in the next tourist season. 

While the strike that took place owing to Uljanik's failings towards its employees might have taken up a large part of media coverage, strikes in other parts of the country are also occurring, or at the very least being considered by numerous dissatisfied members of staff. Namely, in a certain picturesque town in Istria, the decision to initiate a strike procedure has not been issued officially for now, but the consideration of such a move is continuing.

It's not new information to state that a great number of employees, particularly those working in various positions in public institutions and city administrations up and down the country find themselves increasingly dissatisfied with the way things are being done. Often with very little real room to maneuver, and with complaints usually going either unheard or simply being swept under the rug and brushed off, many find themselves with little choice other than to either go on strike, or at the very least to threaten it.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 23rd of November, 2018, members of the Union of Istria, Kvarner and Dalmatia, as well as other employees in institutions of which the founder is the Town of Buzet; includng the Grdelin kindergarten, the home for the elderly and the public firefighters unit, came to the decision to initiate a strike procedure. As previously stated, in Buzet's city administration itself, the decision to initiate a strike procedure has not officially been issued for the time being, but the consideration of such a move remains at the forefront of the minds of those involved, with the potential of a strike occurring as soon as next month.

''During the upcoming week, conciliation will be the most likely outcome, followed by a public protest to give warning that a strike might really occur in early December,'' stated the head of the trade union office, Darko Vidmar.

Make sure to follow our news page for more information from across the country.

Croatia's shipyards are struggling, and for a long time the state has had its hands firmly tied when it comes to offering them potential ways out of their issues. Uljanik's workers have previously gone as far as to take to the streets in protest against the way in which they're being treated, often going dangerously long periods without being paid. 

Issues at the very top of the management board have resulted in long wage delays for dedicated employees who have been made so desperate they have gone on strike, but it seems as of tomorrow, things will return to normal, at least for now...

As Morski writes on the 18th of November, 2018, in spite of the payment of minimum wages, negotiations between the Croatian Government and Uljanik's unions apparently did manage to bring fruit, as was announced on Monday, and the strike in which Uljanik's employees have continuously held since October the 22nd should come to an end.

''We've been paid the minimum for now, and we were promised that we'd not have to wait so long in October. We simply decided that it was time to stop the strike, because that's what the shipowners expect from us. We will be the ones ending ourselves if we don't continue to work. We'll take a fifteen day break from strike activities, but we won't disband the strike board,'' said Đino Šverko, a member of Uljanik's strike board, for N1.

He also said that Uljanik's employers had nothing against Uljanik and May 3 being separated.

''We have to start thinking about work. The strike is going on and on, if it lasts until the end of the month, we'll end up closing everything ourselves, we can't see a way out. We're starting work, we'll carry out our tasks and then everything remains in the hands of the the Croatian Government,'' Deni Širol told N1.

For more information on the state of the domestic economy, Croatian companies, business and the possible fate of Uljanik, make sure to follow our dedicated business page.

ZAGREB, November 15, 2018 - The construction of an 28-kilometre-long section on the eastern branch of the Istrian Y motorway, from Rogovići to the Učka Tunnel, was inaugurated on Thursday, with Prime Minister Andrej Plenković attending. The 1.2 billion kuna project envisages the construction of 31 structures, including 11 viaducts. The works on the Istria motorway system are expected to last three years. The first section, Rogovići-Cerovlje, is 12-km-long and should be opened to traffic in two years. The contractor is the Bouygues group.

Plenković said this was a very important project and that its realisation would significantly contribute to the economic development of Istria County and its connection with Croatia's motorway network. "I believe that we will find a good financing model for the next stages, which pertain to the second tube of the Učka Tunnel and the section from the tunnel to Matulji. The fact that the concession lasts until 2032 is a very good model for Croatia."

This project "will complete the 23-year partnership between Croatia and Bouygues," he said, adding that investment in the 2B1 stage would increase GDP by 0.5% during construction.

"The relevant ministry, together with motorway operators Bina-Istra and Hrvatske Autoceste, has the task of continuing to advance the road infrastructure, both in Istria and all of Croatia," Plenković said, adding that today's start of construction was a big event for the county and the country.

He said the government had invested a lot in the transport infrastructure in recent years and that it would continue to invest in roads, airports and river transport. Big investments are planned for the rail sector, he added.

Transport Minister Oleg Butković said this was a special day for Istria as in three years it would be connected to the rest of the country by a good road network. "This project is the result of an excellently negotiated concession agreement and it's important that everything that is built will remain owned by Croatia."

He said the incumbent government, "unlike others, didn't want to sell the motorways, which represent a big potential, but launched restructuring, stabilising the road sector's debt and keeping the motorways."

The 2B1 stage is an important investment in the economy as 90% of the works will be done by Croatian companies and it will create 1,000 jobs during construction and another ten during maintenance, said Bina-Istra director general Dario Silić. "As part of the concession, Bina-Istra has invested 5.7 billion kuna in the Istrian Y through the 2B1 stage and the sections already built," he said, adding that the operator would not stop at that as the 2B2 stage envisaged building the second tube of the Učka Tunnel and the section from there to Matulji.

Istria County prefect Valter Flego said the 2B1 construction stage would increase safety on that motorway section, reduce congestion, shorten travel time, improve environmental protection, enhance economic and social cohesion, and bring economic benefits.

For more on Istria, click here.

Croatia has become home to a great many live performances, live music gigs and festivals over recent years, and Pula in Istria stands out for its popularity in particular.

As part of their European tour, The Slackers played a great rock steady live music gig full of high energy to a sold out crowd in Pula at Klub Kotač on the 8th of November, 2018, and promised to come back again soon. 

After an amazing set and a quick beer, the The six-piece ska/reggae/dub/jazz band from New York returned for another thirty minutes of encores.

They continually interacted with the audience and to the partying and dancing crowds' delight, they played many of the requests from their back catalogue as well as tracks from the new eponymous album ''The Slackers''.

Club Kotač is a non-commercial club founded by the Seasplash Collective as an upgrade to the already existing Edusplash Platform - Multimedia Platform for Education and Development.

It is located on the ground floor of the Social Center "Rojc" in Pula. There are regular events such as concerts and workshops being held at Club Kotač and its popularity is growing.

For more images of any of the bands in concert, you're more than welcome to view Chasing The Light Art, the music photography magazine of Total Croatia News photographer David Gasson.

There are a few more concerts  coming up in and around Pula which we at Total Croatia News will be covering, as well as bringing you exclusive pictures of, including:

Madeleine Peyroux, the popular American jazz singer and songwriter, on the 9th of December, 2018.

All tickets and more information can be found at Backstage Live.

Want to keep up with more info on live music performances, festivals and gigs across the country? Make sure to stay up to date with our lifestyle page.

During the European Judo Championships for U23s in Hungary, a meeting was held at the highest level of the Croatian Judo Federation and the European Judo Union. The result of the months-long agreement is confirmation that the European Judo Championship for U23s will be held in the City of Poreč in 2020!

A new vintage from the Domaine Koquelicot winery has been presented recently at the Vivat wine bar in Zagreb. Despite its French name, the winery is actually located in a picturesque Istrian town of Gračišće, halfway between Višnjan and Poreč. The owners are Croatian-French spouses Jacqueline Marovac and Olivier Ertzbischoff, and their wines present a happy combination of Istrian terroir and the French wine style and tradition.

Jacqueline was born in Rijeka, but she left her town and led the globetrotting life – which led her from England and Canada to Asia, Chile, Africa and France. She is an epidemiologist by profession, and she loves to enjoy life and knows the lifestyle and wines really well. Olivier Ertzbischoff is a retired cardiologist, but also an expert on good French, and especially Burgundy wines.

When they moved to Istria which they adore, Olivier began to think about starting the wine production. In order to learn how to do it, he would take part in grape picking and cellar activities of well-known Burgundy wineries such as Anne Claude Leflaive and Bachelet, and he also learned about the production of biodynamic wines. Although he recently obtained an oenologist diploma, excellent wines have been produced under his leadership for some time now. Special among them is the Belaigra Chardonnay, the Kontempo sparkling wine, with no added yeast and with a bit of sugar residue, but also the Nomad Cabernet Sauvignon.

The name of the winery is the French word for poppy, which is their favourite flower which signifies health in vineyards – but written with the initial capital K – fitting for the Croatian language. The young winery is celebrating its fourth birthday but has already gained an excellent reputation in the Croatian market.

Since they travel a lot, they do not have their own vineyard but rather buy the grapes. They pay great attention to the cellar process where their wines mature in barrels brought from Burgundy, from the Francois Freres barrel shop, trying to make them more natural. Their first vintage was 2013 and they immediately won numerous national and international medals, including the most important ones from Decanter.

We have attended the first tasting of the new vintages, mostly 2016. The Kontempo Blanc de Blancs sparkling wine, which has received the silver Decanter in the past, got its name because the creators were trying to make it follow the times (con tempo). It is a zero-dosage sparkling wine made exclusively from the 2015 Chardonnay, but with just 2 g/l of sugar residue. It is a great aperitif sparkling wine, but it also goes well with oysters and fish.

Epicuria is a label which has in the past received the bronze Decanter and has been named after the Epicureans, and the hedonistic ways of its creators. We tasted the wine from 2016, made exclusively from Chardonnay, which goes excellently with truffles and is the best wine in this series. Also very nice is their Belaigra, of a pronounced Burgundian style, named after the combination of the name of Belaj, where they used to have their cellar, and Gračišće, where they are now. We tried the 2017 vintage, and there are still many years of maturing ahead of this wine which could make it even better. The Fugaz 2016 is a Malvasia, which we would not immediately identify as such, but it is an excellent wine, named after the falling star in Spanish.

We also drank the Nomad red coupage – made from Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Terrano – from 2016. It was most liked by the female part of the audience at Vivat, which recognized the good prospects of this still young but very interesting wine. The wine was named after their son Demian who lived a nomadic life with his parents, while the wine named after their daughter (coupage of Malvasia and Chardonnay), Santa Chiara, was not tasted this time, just like the other sparkling wine, Luna, named as such after one of the tasters described it with the feeling “of being on the Moon.”

For more on Croatian wines, click here.

Airlines EasyJet and Jet2.com announced the upcoming tourist season for Pula, with new connections to Amsterdam and Birmingham, and the extension of the already seasonal flight schedule, reports Denis Ivošević, Director of the Tourist Board of Istria County.

One of the two surfers who went missing yesterday afternoon in the sea in front of Umag in Istria has managed to reach the shore on his own. Due to storm and weather conditions at sea, the search operation for the other one was not possible late last night. According to media reports, the surfer who was rescued is a Croatian citizen, while the missing surfer is a Slovenian, reports Index.hr on October 30, 2018.

With storm calming down, major search and rescue operation was launched this morning

According to Port Authority sources, a major search operation for the missing Slovenian surfer started this morning. “All the services are there: Umag Port Authority, fire-fighters, maritime police and mountain rescue service. We are now in discussions for a large police boat to go to the sea and we will try to arrange with the local fishermen to get them involved in the search operation, depending on the sea conditions. The wind is still strong and there are high waves,” said the Pula Port Authority.

“We are looking for the Slovenian surfer in the area from the port of Umag to the Savudrija lighthouse. We are currently searching for him close to the shore since the waves are still too high on the open sea,” said the source.

The age and identity of the surfer are still not known. Officials of the National Centre for Search and Rescue at the Sea (MRCC) received a report at 5.02 pm on Monday that two surfers were seen in the seas near Umag deaspite the warnings about the storm. The wind was carrying them towards the open sea. Both surfers fell into the sea, after which a rescue operation was launched in coordination with the Pula Port Authority.

At around 6 pm, it was announced that one of the two surfers had managed to reach the shore near Umag, where the staff of the emergency medicine department from Pula provided him with medical treatment.

Due to weather conditions at sea, it was not possible to undertake a maritime search. Officials organised a coastal search by deploying person to positions on the coast where the missing surfer was anticipated to appear in accordance with sea currents and wind direction.

All participants in the maritime traffic were notified of the incident via coastal radio stations.

Yesterday’s storm was so strong that waves at the island of Palagruža further south were the highest recorded there in recent years.

The very name Chiavalon brings a smile to my face. 

Every time. 

As I write these words on October 28, 2018, I realise from my diary that it is almost  a year to the day since I met arguably the happiest man in all Croatia, working with a product which industry experts have judged to be not only organic healthiness personified, but among the top 15 olive oils in the whole world. 

About this time last year, I was fortunate enough to meet the olive oil phenomenon that is Chiavalon, a small Istrian family business which is getting larger by the day and touching all corners of the planet, but with a humility and dedication of two brothers who have found their calling in nature and simply love what they do. And, as luck would have it, we arrived just as the first olives of the 2017 harvest came in from the Chiavalon olive groves. You can read about last year's olive pressing experience here (and watch it in the video below). 

Chiavalon is about much more than olive oil. If you believe in karma, I suggest you visit, for there is such contentment and dedication to excellence at Chiavalon, that it really is a privilege to experience it. Here is the Chiavalon story from the official website told by Sandi Chiavalon, which tells you more than I could with my words:

"Ever since my earliest days, my love for olive trees grew each time I visited our little olive grove with my grandfather. I have always been fascinated by its slow growth, its beauty and the gift it gives us after all the hard work. Until 1997, we cultivated only 50 olive trees, about 300 to 400 years old. After my grandfather fell ill, there was nobody left to cultivate our olive grove, so while my peers were busy collecting football cards and riding their bikes, I had a somewhat different hobby. My only goal was to learn each and every fact about this beautiful tree and to produce extra virgin olive oil that would make my whole family happy." (Read more)

From those handful of olive trees all those years ago, Sandi Chiavalon explained to me last year that he was expecting about 16,000 litres of oil from the olives which would be pressed at his new state-of-the-art mill near Vodnjan. And the awards followed. As I wrote last year:

"We have written about the outstanding success of Chiavalon Extra Virgin Olive Oil several times this year, as international recognition has followed international recognition: back in March Chiavalon was awarded an extra gold medal in the category of the world's best organic extra virgin olive oil at BIOL in Italy; in August, it was named 13th best olive oil in the world by World Best Olive Oils; and in May, it was named best organic extra virgin olive oil of all at Olive Oil Award in Zurich. No disrespect to the excellent quality of my father-in-law's wonderful oil, but that is some seriously impressive recognition."

Since my visit last year, the good news has not stopped coming. Flos Olei awarded the Istrian olive oil producer 95/100 last December, placing it once more about the world's top olive oils, following its top 15 appearance for its Ex Albis in 2008. And a quick look at the Chiavalon news page shows that all is well with the two happy brothers. 

The early signs for this year's harvest are extremely encouraging. Tedi Chiavalon took a few minutes from the harvest to give a quick update earlier today:

"We are still harvesting. This year harvest is amazing! The quality of the olives is fabulous, practically we had a year without diseases. The Mlado/First of this year is a blend of buza, bianchera, Rosignola and leccino. It’s very intensive on taste, bitter and spicy and very green on smelt as is coming from the first three days of early harvest. This year we produced 2.500 bottles of it half of which are going to Japan. Our fans can order it directly from our webshop."

I have seen a LOT of family producers in Croatia who make outstanding products, but who fall down on marketing and sales. Not so with Chiavalon, whose marketing and sales strategy is among the very best in the business. The launch of the website will be great news for the growing army of gourmet fans. You can visit the online shop here, but I would really encourage you to visit Chiavalon - the karma is unforgettable.