November 16, 2022 – Croatian people work very hard. When they do. But when they take time off, they like to make it count. And they’ll work even harder for that. Introducing the national sport, the art of produzeni vikend.

With today’s busy lifestyle, any extra time off is beneficial for the nation’s well-being. In some European countries, the systems have adapted to provide people with such, like bank holidays in the UK. Without long weekends scheduled, the working people of Croatia had to become creative in their planning. And they did not lack proper leadership. If you’ve ever had to deal with bureaucracy in Croatia, a phenomenon in its own right, you might have noticed that your local institutions had different or non-existent office hours on the days adjacent to public holidays.

Introducing the national sport, the art of produzeni vikend. This beautiful tradition has become a part of the Croatian lifestyle. A way to deal with the stress of always trying to catch up. Naturally, people with children plan their holidays around school, and most other people also try to use their summers to enjoy some beach time. Once most people are steadily back to work, with Christmas and New Year lurking behind the corner, it is time to plan for the following year. Might as well do it right.

To do it right the Croatian way, you will need the calendar of mandatory public holidays, and the school calendar could come in handy if you have children. If the holidays fall on Fridays, that’s your job done for you; sneak out of work early on Thursday and enjoy your long weekend. The next step is locating the holidays that fall on Tuesdays or Thursdays. Book your Mondays or Fridays off, and you will successfully produce your own produzeni vikend (eng. long weekend).

While this is excellent material for plenty of jokes, this tool, if you like, is a precious one. So much so that even Croatian news portals have started publishing summaries of calendars to indicate which dates would work best each year. Poslovni published the list of public holidays in 2023:

January 1, New Year's Day - Sunday

January 6, Epiphany - Friday

May 1, Labor Day - Monday

May 30, National Day – Tuesday

June 8, Corpus Christi – Thursday

June 22, Day of Anti-Fascist Struggle - Thursday

August 5, Victory and Homeland Thanksgiving Day and Croatian Veterans Day - Saturday

August 15, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary – Tuesday

November 1, All Saints' Day - Wednesday

November 18, the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Homeland War and the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Vukovar and Škabrnja - Saturday

December 25, Christmas Day - Monday

December 26, Saint Stephen – Tuesday

Now, the moment you didn’t know you’d been waiting for. For the ultimate convenience, let us introduce and fully endorse Laknerad, where you can find it all in one place. The website name is a wordplay: kalendar = calendar; lak nerad = easy slacking off. Our favourite feature is the Holiday Efficiency Class rating, which is B for the year 2023.

And to round it all off, we share this Twitter gem with our full support.

Možemo li svake godine imati državni praznik prisjećanja na otvaranje Pelješkog mosta? Da se zove Spojevo i da uvijek pada na četvrtak tako da možemo ✨spojiti✨ s vikendom. ?

— Iris (@Thaumantis) July 26, 2022

In English: Can we have a national holiday commemorating the opening of the Pelješac bridge? We can call it Spojevo, and it should always fall on a Thursday so that we can ✨merge✨ it with the weekend. 

arn*Spojiti = to connect, merge; Spojevo is a wordplay on many Croatian holidays ending in -evo/-ovo.

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