“The Bosiljevo castle is the cornerstone of the development and life in our municipality. For years, thanks to the funds of the Ministry of Culture, which each year provides between 100,000 to 300,000 kuna, and our own money, we have been able to invest in the castle and repair it. But for the castle to be fully restored and put into use, we would need to invest around 15 million euro. We will certainly ask for money from EU funds,” said Josip Kasun, the municipal mayor of Bosiljevo, at the signing ceremony for contracts which gave his municipality, as well as Cetingrad, Josipdol and Rakovica, permanent ownership of the castles located there. These are just some of the Karlovac area castles, reports Lokalni.hr on January 11, 2019.

Tomislav Boban, the state secretary at the Ministry of State Property, said that the initiative of the Karlovac County to “unite” about a dozen castles and forts, including these four, as well as the so-called “Karlovac Star”, through a tourist project called the "Touch of Civilizations" was a valuable and unique idea. By acquiring ownership over the castles, the municipalities can now independently run projects and seek financial partnerships.

“We plan to develop tourism on this basis, and the Touch of Civilizations project is worth up to 80 million euro. It is an adventure that will last for years and bring tourists to our municipalities. Here I see a major role for the Karla agency, which can go to Brussels to directly ask for grants, why not?” said county Prefect Damir Jelić.

Franjo Franjković said that the municipality of Rakovica already had complete project documentation and the building permit for the renovation of the Drežnik old town. The municipality will now be able to apply for EU funds alone or together with others to receive funds for the entire Drežnik, which is becoming more and more interesting to tourists.

The Josipdol municipality has been investing in the Modruš old town since 2006, thanks to the funds of the Ministry of Culture and its own. Major works started three years ago, and Modruš is now a construction site. “Modruš is a beautiful old town visible from the A1 motorway, so we already have tourists from Asia who come to us on their way to the Plitvice Lakes national park. From the viewing point you can see this whole region, all the way to the Sljeme mountain near Zagreb,” said Mayor Zlatko Mihaljević.

Marina Kalić, the mayor of Cetingrad, plans to renovate the Cetin old town in time to mark the 500th anniversary of the congregation of the Croatian nobility in eight years. That is considered to be the first sitting of the Croatian parliament. The mayor has started preparing all the necessary documentation for applying to EU funds for further reconstruction.

More news on castles in Croatia can be found in our Travel section.

Translated from Lokalni.hr (reported by Snježana Bičak).

Something new for Karlovac County as the House of Nikola Tesla project is presented.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 26th of October, 2018, Karlovac County is preparing to create something that will highlight the fact that Nikola Tesla himself completed his high school education in Karlovac, and thus the county will finally embrace him proudly as a former citizen.

The location for the project's detailed presentation was therefore far from chosen by chance, since Nikola Tesla completed his formal education at the Karlovac Gymnasium, and on the occasion of the presentation, Karlovac Mayor Damir Mandić stated: "Here, Nikola became Tesla".

The content of the future House of Nikola Tesla will be closely linked with Karlovac Gymnasium, its contents will be varied, both in an architectural and conceptual sense, and these features have been conceived to become part of the educational facility itself.

The House of Nikola Tesla project was initially submitted by Karlovac County back on the 27th of October, 2017, at the MRRFEU "Program for the preparation of local development projects eligible for funding from ESI funds" tender. The project was of course approved, and a co-financing agreement was signed on May the 21st, 2018, amounting to 430,000 kuna.

The contract for concept interpretation has been signed with REAL Group d.o.o., and the services consist of the creation of an initial project program, a preliminary design project, a design project for the design of the future House of Nikola Tesla, the design of the exhibition and its functional space(s), the design of its contents, a business plan, and promotion. The contract value amounts to 236.250 kuna.

The contract for the service of design documentation (for both the main and executive project) for the environmental reconstruction and extension of the Rakovac 6 residential building was signed with the company POP-AP from Karlovac.

The contract documentation consists of: a preliminary project for obtaining location permits, a project for the demolition of the constructive elements of the building, the main project for obtaining special conditions and confirmation of the main project, the building permit and the execution project with the cost of the works. The contract's value stands at a handsome 246,204.90 kuna.

The funds for the realisation of these contracts were provided by Karlovac County itself.

The very successful public presentation of the project was held by representatives of the REAL Group and a team of young local architects from Karlovac's own POP-AP company, and the vision of the project was met with nothing less than delight from all of the participants who attended.

The initiator and main advocate of this project, Deputy Prefect Martina Furdek Hajdin, made no effort to hide her joy with what she saw, and emphasised that Karlovac is now set to get yet more valuable multifunctional content owing to this praiseworthy project, and with it appropriately and proudly embrace the one and only Nikola Tesla as a former fellow citizen of Karlovac.

Works on the project are expected to begin in 2019.

You can follow more news about the main who gave the world so much heremainYou can follow more news about the main who gave the world so much here.

Tesla spent his high school years in Karlovac.

You'll want to book a trip to Karlovac County after watching this. 

ZAGREB, September 16, 2018 - The Heineken Croatia brewery in Karlovac has donated 360,000 kuna for ten projects intended to protect the environment and improve the quality of social life in the town and Karlovac County.

Fancy a phone you can just put together yourself?

Every year in late August or early September, the Karlovac Beer Days festival brings together between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors.

ZAGREB, August 11, 2018 - A contract on allocation of 1.4 million kuna for the project of adjustment of infrastructure along the Zagreb-Karlovac motorway was signed in Zagreb on Saturday by Transport and Infrastructure Minister Oleg Butković, the Central Finance and Contracting Agency (SAFU) director Tomislav Petrić, and the Rijeka-Zagreb Motorway (ARZ) operator's board chair Miro Škrgatić, the ministry stated.

Outside of the spectacle in Zagreb, many Croatian towns held welcoming parties for national team footballers yesterday. 

Heineken has set up a solar power plant in Karlovac which will produce 395,000 kWh per year.