May 19, 2020 - An update to TCN's mailshot to Croatia's 319 tourists boards, and am I allowed to publish the results transparently? 

My recent article What Happens When 319 Croatian Tourist Boards Get a Free Offer in a Pandemic? was an experiment in how effective a new strategy would be in making Croatia a better place. Big Data versus the Mighty State of Uhljebistan. 

Results were encouraging, and then Index.hr published THIS. And suddenly my little experiment became a national discussion. 

I wanted to give you a little update, for while we can all laugh (a tragic laugh) at the indifference and ineptitude, there are some very positive things that have come out of this. 

1. Some excellent submissions - you can see the ones we have done already (and the ones we will do when I get some time - next one today hopefully) here https://www.total-croatia-news.com/tag/virtual-croatia 

2. Some tourist boards are coming together. One tourist board on Brac sent me the materials and after a discussion, we agreed to do one big one for the whole island. All Brac tourist boards have now sent me the info. A similar story for inland Dalmatia. 

3. One tourist board director actually picked up the phone and called me to thank me for the initiative, but his new video would only be ready in a week. And a great video it is too - you will see it on Virtual Croatia shortly.

I had several angry emails, from tourist board directors who claimed that they had never received the email, even after checking SPAM. 

As I said in my article, 16 emails did not arrive due to SPAM filters, full mailboxes and disabled accounts. There has been a lot of interest in this, as people want to know how their local tourist board reacted. 

I believe in transparency, it is our best weapon against the Mighty State of Uhljebistan. And I would be happy to make all the data publicly available to help the discussion along. I am not sure what the GDPR etc issues are on that, but if anyone with some knowledge on this could send me an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Subject GDPR, that would be helpful. 

And the data is golden. In the lead photo, for example, meet the local tourist board who opened the offer on April 30 and unsubcribed. Then suddenly became interested after the Index article.

And for those of you who think local tourism boards do not work on a weekend, look how wrong you are.  

May 17, 2020 - As TCN's Virtual Croatia mailshot initiative becomes a national news story, a little update and a prototype for tourist board reform: Sucuraj on Hvar.

A little bit of TCN history yesterday, as not one but two Index articles featuring TCN articles made the list of top 10 most read on Croatia's largest portal, Index.hr. 

Apart from the obvious boost in traffic and raising of TCN's profile to Croatian readers, one thing almost always happens when Index takes one of my stories.

Positive change. And often rather quickly. 

Take last week, for example. An article calling for official bodies to stop embarrassing the country and themselves met with no response when I wrote about it. When Index did the story, however, things changed within hours. The Croatian National Tourist Board wisely decided that quoting obscure references to the Official Gazette on the corona advice page for tourists was arguably not the first thing potential visitors wanted to read, and they updated the page into what is now one of the most useful and updated pages in English. Great stuff and well done.  

The Ministry of Tourism's response was even more impressive. Their English homepage started the day (the year is 2020, remember) with contact details which were phone and fax only - not even an email. 

By the time had come for marenda, the fax machine had been removed from both the homepage and the main contact page, to be replaced by 4 useful emails.  

So when someone sent me a link to their story on the Virtual Croatia mailshot initiative, What Happens When 319 Croatian Tourist Boards Get a Free Offer in a Pandemic?, I was curious to see what impact there would be.

Even though the story went out on a Saturday night, and now it is early on Sunday morning, the early results have been really interesting. This is how we started with the mailshot and my offer (which you can see here in English and Croatian)

Because I wanted my free offer to get the widest reach and visibility, I engaged a PR company to spread the press release throughout the Croatian media, which resulted in considerable coverage, such as Vecernji List, above. 

I finally figured out the mailshot technology and tracking systems a few days later and sent the mailshot. 

These were the results after more than two weeks. 

And from late evening on Saturday to early morning on Sunday after the Index article, these are the results below.

A 25% increase in clicks from the offer already. Proof that Index have a slightly better reach than me. 

 The Index story was their lead story last night, and it caused plenty of comments, polarised as usual. There were several saying that the emails would have gone to spam, so they wouldn't have seen them. I checked with 5 tourist boards who did not open (they were already working on the offer due to our longstanding communicaitons) and they all saw the email. The official stats I got back was that 16 were not delivered of the 319. Of these 16, 4 had mailboxes full, 7 were blocked (assume the SPAM filter), 2 were undeliverable, 2 had accounts which were suspended, and one was on vacation with an auto-reply. 

But even if they all went to SPAM, let's focus on the 78 who managed to open the email. Of those, only 24 managed to click on the link to see what I was offering. Which meant that 54 were either too busy or not interested. They were at least more interested than the two who unsubscribed. 

Another theme in the comments was 'who the hell is this Bradbury anyway - they have probably never heard of him.' 

One of the nicest emails I got was from the Rogoznica Tourist Board (as well as the most organised information and links of all - thank you!). The email started like this:

Dear Paul,

I appreciate very much your work and all effort you give for the promotion of Croatian tourism.

Virtual Croatia is a great initiative, and we would really like to be a part of it.

It was lots of fun to discover Rogoznica, and I learned a lot, thanks to the tourist board efforts. You can read Tourism in the Corona Era: Virtual Tools to Discover Rogoznica. 

And all the destinations done so far and in the future will be on our Virtual Croatia page.

I am grateful to Index for the exposure, and while I assumed that I and TCN were well-known - if not by lots of people in Croatia - then at least by the people working in tourism, allow me to present my tourism promotion credentials to any tourist board who would like to be part of the Virtual Croatia initiative, even those who unsubscribed. Simply follow the submission guidelines in the offer.

You may remember my article 25 Reasons You Should Never Visit Croatia a few years ago, which got 1 million hits in 24 hours and was all over the Croatian media.  

I won the FIJET Marco Polo Grand Prix award for best international promotion of Croatia in 2014 at the Croatian Association of Journalists. 

I did a big interview with Index last summer on the challenges and suggested directions of Croatian tourism last summer, which was read over 100,000 times. Perhaps you were one of the readers?

My website, Total Croatia News is the current recommended source of travel info to Croatia on CNN.

Last week, I was honoured to be on the first Business Cafe Online international meeting with Dutch legend Jan de Jong, talking about the simple steps to transform Croatia and its tourism without spending too much. 

And here I am with the biggest legend of all, Romano Bolkovic. 

I got a LOT of messages from media and private people wanting to check if their tourist board opened, clicked or unsubscribed. I have not revealed any information to anyone, for now is not the time. The time is to focus on the issue and what I, and every other decent person in this country, wants - change and reform.

And the reform of this outdated system IS possible. If the ministry can abolish the fax machine in 2 hours, it shows that change can come if we have the right conditions. And this is why the town of Sucuraj on the east of Hvar should be celebrated and copied, for the mayor DID abolish the position of tourist board director. You can read Sucuraj Mayor Removes Director Position: Tourist Board Reform IS Possible to find out how it was done. 

"The need for a year-round office is questionable, just for someone to have a salary in a small Tourism Board doing a job that amounts to two hours of administrative work per month, all while there are insufficient funds for any major project which needs to be done and monitored."

Enough from me. I hope we can make some change before my army of trolls uncover the truth about me. Firstly, they uncovered my clandestine mission to monitor olives for 13 years in Jelsa for MI6, CIA, FSB, Mossad and those chaps from Greater Serbia. And now I feel totally exposed, as Dear Dragi has uncovered the truth about me - I am actually an uhljeb prototype. It is only a matter of time before the link between Bradders, corona and Wuhan comes out. Keep taking the medicine, Dragi.

May 14, 2020 - One way to boost tourism is to prolong the season. The brilliant minds running the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism have a smarter solution - create more days in a month. 41 days in April for example. And then get tourists to spend the night in Croatia without visiting. Pure genius!

Last night, the Croatian media reported on the official tourism numbers for April. Terrible numbers were inevitable, there is no chance of bringing tourists across closed borders during a pandemic. But the numbers were sensational, and hardly anyone has noticed until now. When I first saw the numbers, I assumed some journalist had mistakenly put in an extra digit and the rest had blindly copied. Here is how HINA announced the numbers:

ZAGREB, May 13 (Hina) - There were 9,500 tourists in Croatia in April 2020, generating 392,000 overnight stays, which is a drop of 99 and 88 percent on the year respectively, according to data from eVisitor and the Croatian National Tourist Board.

That's a lot of overnights for less than 10,000 tourists, I thought. But just as tourists cannot come in, those who are here cannot get out so easily, so it kind of made sense that most tourists were overnighting. I have never been good at maths, but my 11-year-old daughter is a maths genius. 

"How much is 9,500 times 30?"

"Just a sec, Dad. It is 285,000."

So with 9,500 tourists sleeping every night in April is 285,000 nights. And yet in the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism, we managed to rack up an impressive 392,000 nights. Another calculation, and it seems that the month of April has 41 days in our beautiful kingdom. 

This had to be a journalist mistake, right?

Wrong. 

I went to the Croatian National Tourist Board official website to check the statistics directly. HINA had rounded the numbers up slightly, but there is was - 9,453 arrivals, generating 391,628. Which means that there are at least 41 days in the month of April in the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism. 

And if you were lucky enough to host a tourist in the 'Nekomercijalni smjestaj' (non-commercial accommodation), April was a great month, for guests averaged over 110 nights each in the 30-day month of April. 

Guests in Split Dalmatia slept for an average of 74 nights in April, closely followed by Zadar at 73 nights. 

So who are our marathon overnighters? According to our award-winning eVisitor system, over 70% were locals (understandable) who managed about 40 nights between them (not so understandable).

Bosnians were dedicated overnighters in total nights, but managed only 47 overnights in April, which was nothing compared to the average Italian who spent more than two nights in Croatia every night in April at 67.

But the REAL heroes...

 Let's hear it for the 4 Latvians who managed an impressive 136 overnights each between them. There may have only been one South African tourist in all Croatia in April, but it was a good one. At 149 overnight stays, our bold South African guest was one night short of sleep 5 nights for every night in April.

But the best was yet to come. For the Kings recently launched a campaign called Croatia Long Distance Love. You can see the first video above. I, like many others, assumed that the point of the campaign was to remind future travellers of Croatia's beauty and to entice them to visit at a later date. 

It seems I was wrong, as the big data never lies.

For many years, there has been a popular saying in Croatia, whenever examples of bad service or tourism experiences are mentioned. - tell the tourists to stay home and just send the money.

But the data shows us that the Kings have achieved something quite remarkable this last month, at the height of a global pandemic. For the tourists are staying at home and sending the money. 

How else to explain zero tourists from Belarus, but 89 overnights. Or 35 from Luxemburg, 32 from Estonia (must be something to do that Estonian digital prowess, perhaps?), 31 from Indonesia, 30 from Morocco, 29 from Qatar, and 17 from Thailand. 

Impressive stuff!

I am not an expert, but perhaps there is a mistake in the data entry. It is not a major issue, as tourism is quiet and this will be easy to fix. But imagine if this happened in a country whose sole strategy and measure of success is numbers, numbers, numbers. How reliable is the data we have been served up all these years? Thankfully we live in Croatia, where there is a proper strategy, and nobody ever talks about numbers, numbers, numbers. 

But perhaps there is a perfectly reasonable explanation, so I will write to the tourist board to enquire. Now that they have finished this exhaustive update of the statistics, I might also check on their plans to update the information on how to fly to Croatia.

For the latest from the Mighty State of Uhljebistan, follow our dedicated Uhljeb section.

May 11, 2020 - Progress is being made in the information flow, but the unique approach of the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism and its travel advice continues to set the kingdom apart from its tourism competition. 

This has been a seismic few days in official travel information flow from the chaps who are the appointed gurus of Croatian tourism. And I mean that genuinely. 

But we not quite there yet. 

But let's start by celebrating the progress and congratulating the quick response of both the Croatian National Tourist Board and the Ministry of Tourism. For the changes have been swift and a huge improvement. Here's hoping we can build on this wind of change. 

The biggest change has come at the Ministry of Tourism since Index published the article above late last week. 

Within two hours, the Ministry home page went from being contactable by fax but not by email (the year is 2020 remember)...

... to totally faxless AND with four useful email addresses.  

The ministry went much further. From an English-language page where coronavirus was actually not even happening... 

...to a dedicated section on the latest information, as well as information on the minister's efforts to restart tourism.

And then yesterday, the first new article in English on the official Koronavirus website. This website has been an amazing resource in Croatian for citizens to get the latest information. I was impressed that the government produced an English version. It is updated daily with the latest numbers and charts, but little else. This latest article has very useful information and links to the latest pages regarding other countries as well.  

So there we see the power of a leading Croatian portal to effect positive change in one article - Thank you, Index. 

The Croatian National Tourist Board also got proactive after the Index article, turning its bizarre corona Q&A page from a copy past of the Official Gazette decision above... 

... into something vaguely useful here.

My hope was that the lights might be on in the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism, and that someone might take the initiative and review the rest of the travel advice. 

But alas. It wouldn't be accidental tourism if we actually helped the tourists find their way here, would it? 

The Kings of Accidental Tourism have what looks like an enticing section called Travel Info - How to Arrive. 

As with many things in The Beautiful Croatia, looks are usually deceptive. 

Here is the entire advice on how to fly to Croatia - it has been the same advice for years. 

A useful link to the Civil Aviation Authority where you can check if the list of airports in Article 74 Paragraph 1 of the Air Transport Act, Official Gazette of the RC No. 69/09; 84/11; 54/13 and 127/13 is correct.

And if you are not booking with Croatia Airlines, are there even flights to the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism? 

Some useful links to some of Croatia's airports give more contact details where you can find out presumably about Croatia Airlines flights.

Not even a chance to email anyone, or a website to visit if you are travelling by bus, athough there are helpful links to 8 bus stations who you can contact. Make sure you are not planning a trip to somewhere like Makarska or Varazdin, which are not covered. 

And my favourite - arriving by sea, which on the surface looks very useful. And it is to a point. As long as, just like Croatia Airlines, you are travelling on the state ferry, Jadrolinija. 

Unlike Croatia Airlines which seeingly has the flight monopoly on flights to the kingdom, Jadrolinija has to share with SNAV, but no mention of the companies connecting the kingdom to Trieste and Venice. And spare a thought for poor Krilo, whose fabulous catamarans have connected routes the kingdom didn't. No mention for them.

You see, in Uhljebistan, we can only promote our own services. Does it matter that easyJet, for example, brings 600,000 passengers a year? Why would you mention that? 

Coming by train - here is all you need to know. 

With a bigger selection of train stations than bus stations, and with a Google Map that doesn't load correctly. 

If I was the chap running Varazdin Bus Station, I might be quite upset. 

For the latest from the Mighty State of Uhljebistan, follow the dedicated TCN section. 

May 9 - Highlighting uhljeb brilliance and official incompetence in Croatia may look like good, clean clickbait fun, but it is actually quite a depressing part of the job. 

Croatia is an incredible country, and one which would be ten times more incredible if it was run by competent officials who had the interest of citizens and pride in their jobs at the core of everything they do. There are occasional glimpses of what Croatia COULD be like - check out the outstanding response to the corona crisis from a health perspective by new health minister Vili Beros as a case in point. But such examples are lamentably few, and citizens have come to accept that things will never change, and Croatia's destiny is one of corruption and nepotism. Citizens do not take to the streets to protest in the same way they do to welcome returning sporting heroes. But they do protest in silence. On the streets of Frankfurt, Stockholm and Dublin. The protest of emigration.  

As someone who has chosen the opposite emigration direction, I have a vested interest in a better Croatia, and one of the core principles of TCN is to celebrate the little guy while also providing constructive criticism to certain situations.

Inevitably, and given the enormous frustration at seeing so much potential of a better life for local people squandered in the interests of greed, coupled with incompetence and indifference, that constructive criticism includes publicly highlighting incompetence in the hope that public pressure can achieve what cannot be offline. 

It is how I heard the word 'uhljeb' for the first time five years ago, through an Index headline from a tourist board director who has since moved on telling me that he was not an 'uhljeb'. Whatever that meant, and I had to take to Facebook to ask my Croatian friends for an explanation. 

The topic of the story was the bus and ferry timetables advertised by the tourist board of Jelsa in 2015, which were 7 months out of date. I wrote a half-amusing blog on Total Hvar, then was shocked to see the story appear on Croatia's most popular portal Index.hr an hour later. The next day, new bus timetables were displayed in the Jelsa Tourist Board office. Effective change. But how sad it took a foreigner to write a blog that was picked up by the national media, rather than have someone do their job. 

And so to yesterday, and something truly incredible. Updated Jelsa bus timetables was one thing, but managing to encourage the Ministry of Tourism to upgrade their contact info on its homepage from the humble fax machine to not one but four email addresses was seismic, one of the results from my article a couple of days ago Does Croatia Actually Want Tourists? How the Competition is Updating Tourists.

Of course, the catalyst once more was the might and reach of Index, which ran the story yesterday morning. The ministry went faxless an hour later. 

And if Index, or some other strong Croatian media, decides to get involved, that puts the incompetence not only into the Croatian language, but also into the Croatian media space, so more people notice. And so there is more chance that it gets fixed. 

Five years ago, an Index article got the Jelsa bus timetables updated the next day. Five years later, the Jelsa official tourist info has bus and ferry timetables from October 2017, helpful flight advice such as flying with Malev, which went bankrupt in 2012, or with seaplanes which were grounded in 2016. As for the helpful flights map and the random panorama flights of Opatija from Venice, I can see no better homepage to promote the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism.

But as Index and other Croatian media have better things to do, there is no pressure to fix things. And so they stay as they are.  

Sometimes, the Croatian media takes a great interest, and the results are spectacular. This was never more true than in 2016 when I took a closer look at the national tourist board's flagship Croatia 365 project. Oh dear.  

And 'oh dear' was the reaction of the Croatian media, as my story was covered by every major portal, and it led to invitations to two meetings - the PA of the Minister of Tourism, and the then Director of the Croatian National Tourist Board. 

I am very grateful for the media support of my Croatian media colleagues when they have the time and interest to promote these issues, as they are more likely to bring change. 

I do have some successes while acting alone, but not many.  They are usually when the substance of what I highlight is so totally out of control that even the uhljebs realise they should put the next coffee break on hold to fix the issue. 

Examples of this include the national tourist board promoting a full 18-hole golf course in the centre of Zagreb (the fact that the actual course closed in 2012 and was nowhere near Zagreb is another topic of discussion). 

Also when the national tourist board was cashing in on all the global interest in Croatia thanks to Game of Thrones, they decided after my article that perhaps an exhibition of old fruits in Zagorje was not top of the list of priorities for people wanting to know how to get to Kings Landing. 

I could do these articles all day, every day, as there is SO much material. They are popular, and people like to cheer and congratulate me on getting things like bus timetables updated. 

But I don't feel any joy in it at all, as funny as I can write the articles. They depress me more than anything else I do at TCN, because there is so much energy wasted in this, when we should all be focusing on promoting the best of this wonderful country. 

It is easy to label all those who work in the ministries and tourist boards as incompetent. But that is also one of the depressing things. 

They are not. Many are highly educated, have MBAs, have been educated in North America and Western Europe. They are proud Croats and love their country. Great people to hang out with and have meaningful discussions about tourism and the future of Croatia. If anyone was in a position to effect change, it is them. 

And yet... 

That is the most depressing thing, and it overshadows any clickbait fun. 

But we will keep trying, as it seems the national tourist board also took note of Index yesterday - no more 'Pursuant to Article 22a of the Civil Protection System Act (Official Gazette no 82/15, 118/18 and 31/20) in answer to the question 'can we come to Croatia?' - above. Replaced by some half-useful info below. 

If anyone is reading from CNTB, maybe add the link to the EU2020 information page you mention in the opening sentence. Not everyone knows where to find it - myself included. 

May 7, 2020 - Competition for post-corona tourists is going to be fierce. A look at how tourism countries are updating visitors on the latest travel situation so that they can play their trip. Oh dear, Croatia. 

I am getting 30-40 emails a day from people asking for information about their summer holiday to Croatia. When will the borders be open? Is Ultra happening? When will flights restart? There is, many of them claim, very little information out there about the current situation in English. This surprised me, as if ever Croatia needed to keep people updated about the current situation for tourists, it is now. Competition from a much-reduced number of tourists is going to be insane when tourism starts up again, and Croatia needs to make it as easy as possible for potential visitors. At least in my opinion. 

During the corona crisis, TCN has been putting together regular travel updates with all the things we can find in various places - the HAK updates on border closures, Jadrolinija ferry info, that kind of thing, as well as links to TCN articles on discussions of tourism starting again. This is the last one we did yesterday, and we will do a big update on May 11, when more restrictions will be lifted, including the resumption of internal flights. You can see the latest update here, and I would kindly ask people to read this rather than asking me when their flight will resume. I have included an airline by airline update on their plans, with links to the relevant page on the airline website. 

With so many people contacting me due to lack of information elsewhere, I was curious to see what our official tourism heroes were doing to inform potential visitors about the current situation. And how did that compare with the compeition?

Here is what I found. Please make sure you are seated. 

The lights are out at the Ministry of Tourism home page in English. There doesn't seem to be a corona crisis. There is nothing happening, and the calendar is empty. The good news is that Vogue Paris and Belgian TV think Croatia is pretty cool, the chaps at the Bol Tourist Board are making some videos stories, and hotels and campsites are opening in Istria next week. Can we visit Croatia? When will flights start? Who needs to share that kind of information. We are only the Ministry of Tourism homepage. 

The Croatia homepage of the ministry website has more information - and some real gems. Here is the quick contact box for those of you who want to find out what is happening. No email contact, but why not send a fax? A nice, modern means of communication from a tourism country in 2020 which currently holds the Presidency of the EU. You can learn more about the fax obsessions of Uhljebistan in An Ode to the Fax, Digital Champion of Uhljebistan 2.0.  

I contacted the Croatian National Tourist Board to ask where they send people for the latest travel advice. As I have said previously, although I do not agree with much that the national tourist board does, they are the most responsive Croatian institution I deal with, and their reply was swift. They had a dedicated page of travel information, which was linked to a COVID-19 banner on the homepage. 

This is the start of it.

You can see the full advice here.

The advice begins by telling you to check something called the EU2020 page, but there is no link, so how are tourists supposed to find it?

The second piece of advice is to send an email (not a fax) to the ministry to ask them what is happening. Given that the coronavirus seems not to be happening according to the ministry website, one can only wonder what the response time might be.

But let's continue with the travel advice from the national tourist board. It is a thrilling read.

"Pursuant to Article 22.a of the Civil Protection System Act (Official Gazette no 82/15, 118/18 and 31/20) the Civil Protection Headquarters of the Republic of Croatia adopts on the 19 March 2020 the following."

What the hell does that mean? I just want to know when I might be able to sit on a beach in Croatia, not read up on sub-sections of an official gazette. 

This is not some random blog, this is the official attention-grabbing page for a country where tourism makes up 20% of GDP, and our official advice for updating visitors talks about Article 22.a of the Civil Protection System Act (Official Gazette no 82/15, 118/18 and 31/20).

Where do I book my plane ticket?

With the Kings of Accidental Tourism on fire, how can the competition possibly compete, and what are they doing to try and match Croatia's innovative approach to updating visitors? 

 Meanwhile, in Greece, the homepage takes you to this FANTASTIC update, including a PDF document detailing all the measures for the easing of restrictions. Gold star and a chocolate biscuit to Greece. 

 The Italian Tourist Board is going to have to work hard to get tourists after the corona stigma. And it is. More gold stars and chocolate biscuits.

And the view from Montenegro.

And congratulations to Serbia. Not only lots of prominent info.  

But also links to applications and hotlines.  

And over the border in Slovenia, I actually think they care about getting tourists, and they have even invested in the concept of being responsive to their needs, with a detailed optional survey on the homepage.  

Meanwhile, in the Kingdom of Accidental Tourism, it is business as usual. 

For the latest on Croatian tourism, follow the TCN travel section. 

For the latest on COVID-19 in Croatia, check out the TCN daily update, as well as the dedicated coronavirus section. 

6. 5. 2020. - Svijet se sve brže kreće u smjeru digitalnog doba a Hrvatska drži EU Predsjedništvo, ali Moćna Država Uhljebistan i dalje se čvrsto drži svog digitalnog šampiona - skromog uređaja za slanje i primanje faksova.

Kada ste posljednji put primili ili poslali faks? Sjećate li se uopće?

Ove godine? Prošle godine? U ovom stoljeću, ili u prošlome?

Ili, ako ste mlađa osoba, jeste li IKAD poslali faks? Znate li, zapravo, kako se to uopće radi?

Čini se da već postoji velik postotak populacije koji je premlad da bi uopće živio tijekom ere slanja faksova.

Ovaj video s YouTubea objašanjava ljudima kako se koristi uređaj za faksove i ima već skoro milijun pregleda.

Rado se sjećam našeg uređaja za faks iz St. Petersburga 1992. Komunikacije u post-sovjetskoj Rusiji bile su užasne, ali činilo se da faks radi besprijekorno. A 1995. u Manchesteru, Moskvi i Tampereu u Finskoj, uredski su uređaji za faks po cijelom svijetu vrijedno slali mnoštvo teretnih listova.

Ali, kad sam posljednji put poslao faks? Mora da je prošlo već 10 godina.

Otkud mi sad odjednom interes za faks? Počelo je kad sam lokalnim turističkim zajednicama poslao naš besplatni promotivni članak kojim im nudim suradnju na našoj Inicijativi za Virtualnu Hrvatsku. Nacionalna Hrvatska turistička zajednica bila je toliko ljubazna da mi ustupi bazu kontakata svih lokalnih turističkih zajednica. Lista je bila iznimno točna i redovito osvježavana novim podacima, ali onda sam uočio nešto što je nekome tko živi u Uhljebistanu već 18 godina potpuno normalno, ali istovremeno posve čudno nekome tko živi u modernom digitalnom svijetu.

Podaci za kontakt uključivali su ime, adresu, web stranicu, adresu e-maila, telefonski broj. I broj faksa.

Otprilike 80 % hrvatskih turističkih zajednica još uvijek ima faks. Vjerojatno imaju i Instagram i Facebook, što su korisni alati u turističkoj promociji u 21. stoljeću, ali baze kontakata bilježe njihove brojeve faks uređaja.

I problem je što mi se to uopće nije učinilo čudno, dok se nisam pokušao sjetiti kad sam posljednji put koristio taj uređaj. I ovo nije kritika turističkih zajednica, nego se radi o svakodnevnoj stvarnosti u Uhljebistanu. I tada sam shvatio da je faks zapravo simbol prenapuhane birokracije koja je naša svakodnevica. Digitalni šampion Uhljebistana 2.0.

Bio sam znatiželjan kako te stvari izgledaju na web stranicama ministarstava. Evo uvodne stranice Ministarstva turizma. Postoji stranica s kontaktima, ali na naslovnici se nalazi malena kućica s kontaktima. Godina je 2020., Hrvatska predsjeda Europskom Unijom. Nema kod nas e-maila, možete nas dobiti na faks.

Ministarstvo unutarnjih poslova nešto je naprednije: nema broja faksa, ali navedene su dvije adrese e-maila, jedna za policiju a druga za pitanja. 

S druge strane, Ministarstvo vanjskih poslova odlučilo se nositi s povišenim zahtjevom za informacijama koje donosi predsjedanje Unijom tako što su objavili dva broja linija faksa, dok su istovremeno objavili jedan telefonski broj i jednu adresu e-maila.

Zaa razliku od manje naprednih zemalja, poput Zimbabvea, gdje se čini da faks više ne postoji - samo tri telefonske linije i e-mail.

Možda je ova opsjednutost faksovima neka bivše-jugoslavenska stvar, palo mi je na pamet, pa sam pogledao kako stvari izgledaju u Sloveniji. O, pa oni su veoma moderni!

Istovremeno, u Albaniji koja preživljava bez fakseva, imaju nešto što se naziva 'WhatsApp'.

Ali u Hrvatskoj, samo je jedan digitalni šampion.

Počeo sam se pitati je li problem u meni, pa sam pitao svoje prijatelje na Facebooku da podijele svoja iskustva. Postavio sam im tri pitanja (možete vidjeti cijeli razgovor - moj profil na Facebooku je javan). 

1. Jeste li u posljednjih 12 mjeseci primili ili poslali faks?

2. Ako niste, kada ste to otprilike posljednji put učinili?

3. A za mlađe među nama, jeste li ikad koristili faks?

Rezultati su bili veoma zabavni, svih 77 komentara koje sam dobio do sada, i iznenadila me strast iznešena u odgovorima. 

I čini se, osim nekih banaka, JEDINI put kad ljudi koriste faks je kad moraju komunicirati s Moćnom Državom Uhljebistanom. 

Jedan od najdražih komentara mi je ostavio Jason u Splitu, čija punica je pronašla dobru svrhu za svoj faks-uređaj: služi kao ukras. 

I zamislite se malo nad mladom Mihaelom, koja sa svojih 23 godine ne samo da nikad nije koristila faks, nego nije niti sigurna kako on zapravo izgleda. Provjerio sam i sa stažisticom koja za TCN upravlja društvenim mrežama (i vrlo je učinkovita u tome) i u njenih 20 godina u Prelijepoj Hrvatskoj ni ona nijednom nije slala niti primala faks.

Dakle, čini se da većina stanovnika Moćne Države Uhljebistan nije opremljena za uporabu ove tehnologije, nego biraju koristiti se nečim što se naziva e-mail, SMS i društvene mreže.

Što da sad radimo? Da upišemo cjelokupnu populaciju u masovni program osposobljavanja o tome kako se koristiti uređajem za slanje faksova?

Ili možda, samo možda, da potaknemo digitalne šampione koji upravljaju ovom zemljom da shvate da je predsjedanje Europskom unijom u 2020. korištenjem faks uređaja tako... kao iz 1980-ih.

Za najnovije progresivne vijesti iz Moćne Države Uhljebistana,

For the latest progressive developments from the Mighty State of Uhljebistan, pratite naše objave koje se tiču te Obećane Zemlje.

May 6, 2020 - As the world moves rapidly into the digital age and Croatia holds the EU Presidency, the Mighty State of Uhljebistan clings to its own digital champion - the humble fax machine. 

When did you last send or receive a fax? Do you remember?

Was it this year? Last year? Or this century or last?

Or, if you are a certain age, have you EVER sent a fax? Indeed, do you even know how to use one?

It seems that there is a large percentage of the population which is too young to have encountered the Fax Era. 

Take this YouTube video, for example, close to a million views explaining how to use a fax. 

I have very fond memories of our fax machine in St. Petersburg in 1992. Communications in post-Soviet Russia were terrible, but the fax seemed to work a treat. And in 1995, in Manchester, Moscow and Tampere in Finland, the office fax machine was busy sending waybills all over the world. 

But when the hell did I last send a fax? It must be at least 10 years ago. 

Why all the sudden interest in faxes? It all started with a mailshot I did to all the local tourist boards with our free promotional article offer for our Virtual Croatia initiative. The Croatian National Tourist Board kindly provided me with the contact database for all the local tourist boards. The list was extremely accurate and updated, but then I noticed something which was totally normal to someone who has lived in Uhljebistan for 18 years, but totally weird to someone who lives in the current digital world. 

The contact details consisted of name, address, website, email, phone number. And fax. 

And about 80% of Croatia's 319 tourist boards have a fax. They probably have Instagram and Facebook - useful tools for 21st century tourism promotion, but it is the fax numbers that get recorded. 

And the thing is that it didn't seem weird to me until I tried to remember when I last used a fax machine. And it isn't a criticism of the tourist boards, for this is the every day reality in Uhlejbistan. And, I realised, the fax is the symbol of that inefficient bloated bureaucracy that is our daily reality. The digital champion of Uhljebistan 2.0.

I was curious to see how things appeared on ministry websites. Here is the homepage of the Ministry of Tourism. There is a contact page, but on the homepage, there is a quick contact box. The year in 2020, Croatia holds the presidency of the European Union. No email here, baby, you can reach us by fax. 

The Ministry of the Interior is a lot more progressive, with no fax and two email addresses - one for the police and one for questions. 

Meanwhile the homepage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, has decided to cope with the increased information demand of running the European Union by making two fax lines available, while only needing one telephone line and one email address. 

Unlike less progressive countries such as Zimbabwe, where the facsimile seems to no longer exist - just three phone lines and an email. 

Perhaps this fax obsession is an ex-Yugoslav thing, I mused, while searching to see how things are done in Slovenia. Oo, very modern. 

Meanwhile, in faxless Albania, they have something called 'WhatsApp'.

But in Croatia, there is only one digital champion. 

I was beginning to wonder if it was just me, and so I decided to reach out to my Facebook friends to get their experiences. I asked three questions (and you can see the whole thread - my Facebook profile is public). 

1. Have you sent or received a fax in the last 12 months?

2. If no, approx when was the last time you did.

3. And for our younger generation, have you ever used a fax?

The results were hilarious, all 77 comments so far, and I was surprised at the passion in the answers. 

And it seems that, apart from some banks, the ONLY time people use faxes are when they have to interact with the Mighty State of Uhljebistan. 

One of my favourite comments was from Jason in Split, whose punica seems to have found a good use for her fax machine as an ornament. 

And spare a thought for young Mihaela, who at 23, has not only never used a fax but is not even sure what one looks like. I checked with my TCN intern who runs our Instagram account (and very efficiently too), and she had never used a fax in her 20 years in The Beautiful Croatia. 

So it would seem that a large percentage of the citizens of the Mighty State of Uhljebistan are not equipped to use its technology, choosing instead to communicate by something called email, SMS and social media. 

What are we to do? Enroll the population in a mass communication programme on how to use the fax machine?

Or perhaps, just perhaps, encourage the digital champions who run this country, that running the presidency of the European Union by fax machine in 2020 is so 1980s. 

For the latest progressive developments from the Mighty State of Uhljebistan, follow our section of homage to the Promised Land.

A look at the Zagreb city administration and just how many needless individuals it employs instead of boldly stepping forward into digitisation, you know, like the rest of the developed world in the 21st century.

Croatia is famous for many things. From the sparkling Adriatic sea to the glorious landscapes, to the food, the warm hospitality of the people to great minds like Nikola Tesla and Slavoljub Penkala. All of these positives make for an excellent impression of a gorgeous country that produces talent across all fields, from Luka Modric and the sporting world to Oliver Dragojevic and the musical one. One other thing it is famous for (or perhaps it is better to say infamous) to those of us who live and work here, is its masochistic love of paper, stamps, and providing job positions to blood suckers who enjoy watching people pointlessly wait in lines.

Let's look at another European country. It's a little further north on the map, it's a bit more rainy, the food can be a bit grim, and it is made up of four constituent countries, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Equally famed for its beauty and talent, from its rolling green hills and wild beaches to William Shakepeare and David Beckham, the United Kingdom is home to one of the most expensive cities in all of Europe, and one of the financial centres of the planet - the City of London.

Zagreb boasts a population of just under one million. London boasts a population of almost nine million, more than the entire population of Croatia, much less its capital. One would imagine London's city administration operations to be vast and complicated. One might expect this entity to be a machine that employs countless people, all yelling and throwing paper around. Quite on the contrary, unlike that of Zagreb.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 24th of April, 2020, the City of London publishes a workforce report every six months. As Faktograf reports, according to that document, at the end of September last year, 1074 employees were employed in the City Administration in London, with 97 agency workers working for the City Administration.

The Zagreb city administration currently employs around 3,200 civil servants and state employees. One must ask why a city of less than one million residents needs 3000+ city administration employees. What on earth is their purpose? One must also ask why Croatia is continuing to so fiercely resist the process of digitisation. It has to be admitted that the coronavirus crisis we're currently in the middle of has forced the country into the 21st century, but without the pandemic, very many things would have remained exactly the same.

Waiting in long lines grasping handfulls of documents and photocopies of them, not even being looked at until you show your ID card, being yelled at by poorly trained employees who know they won't lose their jobs no matter how unacceptably they behave and needing to take entire days off work much to employers' dismay just for the pleasure of it is the Croatian norm. At least it has been until the anti-epidemic measures came into force. But will it continue to be? Will this unprecedented situation be a desperately needed learning curve?

It will be interesting to see just how much Croatia takes from this pandemic when it is all over. Will the country begin to understand that an EU country should not be operating in such a fashion anymore? More importantly, will city administration employees, tax office employees and others across the vast spectrum of the nation's administrative, uhljebic culture finally begin to realise that those computers in their offices serve for more than just playing Angry Birds and Solitaire?

Maybe. But probably not.

For more, follow our lifestyle page.

April 6, 2020 - What do North Korea and the mighty State of Uhljebistan in Croatia have in common in the Corona Era? 

(Disclaimer: in these unusual times, it should be pointed out that this is a satirical piece about the mythical - but sadly real - State of Uhljebistan in Croatia. There is no suggestion coronavirus does not have the same effect in North Korea as elsewhere. It should also be noted that Croatia is doing an excellent job battling COVID-19.)

I have lost count of the number of times I have heard or read the phrases 'things will never be the same again' or 'the world has changed forever' in the last month.

And, if we look around at all the horror of the deadly pandemic, the economic screeching to a halt and - not much talked about yet, but it will possibly be the biggest effect of all - the mental health crisis which is already unfolding in its early stages, it is not hard to agree completely with those statements. 

But is it true everywhere in the world?

There is - as always - plenty of speculation of the situation in North Korea, for example, which has not shared any information on the effects of the pandemic there. 

In these days of dark humour, the situation in North Korea has led to plenty of memes and other funny images to circulate around the web.  

Such as this one, for example, which had a mythical Kim reporting on the daily corona count. 

This was sent to be by a friend, and I replied by saying that while it was funny, there might even be an element of truth in it - at least if you believe everything you read in Britain's largest tabloid, The Sun. 

Judge for yourself - here is the original article in The Sun. 

But there is one mythical state closer to home which is seemingly impervious to the economic chaos brought on by corona - the Mighty State of Uhlebistan, the state within a state in Croatia, whose trademarks are cronyism, corruption and a bloated public administration. You can learn more about the Mighty State of Uljebistan in this foreign appreciation of this very Croatian way of life. 

The numbers may not be entirely accurate on this comparison between Croatia and New York (more than 200,000 Croats have emigrated since it hit the web, for example), but it paints a picture. 

New York City - population 8.4 million. One mayor, 5 deputies, 51 city councillors.

Croatia - population 4.2 million. 128 city mayors, 123 deputies, 20 county prefects, 50 deputies, 428 town/village mayors, 480 deputies. Total public officials - 8,354.

Index journalist Marko Repecki took a closer look at today's reality in this article (Google Translate is your friend) but perhaps the lead photo says enough - one building has been divided into two different administrative units in Dugo Selo. 

Glas Poduzetnika (Voice of Entrepreneurs), a newly-founded association to give a voice to the private sector, has reported that 93% of its member businesses will not be able to survive more than three months in the current climate. An estimated 300,000 private sector jobs could be lost and, as you can see above from the Index chart, almost 12,500 jobs had already been lost by the end of the week. 

And in the public sector, the playground of the Mighty State of Uhljebistan (Javni Sektor in the chart above)? Not a single job. 

The world may be collapsing, with some 6.6 million unemployed in the United States according to recent numbers, for example, but Uhljebistan? It is impervious to crisis, virus-induced or otherwise. 

If there is one good thing that could come out of this corona crisis for Croatia, it would be the spreading of the virus of transparency and change in Croatia's corrupt system. Were that to happen, there would be a considerable upside for the country. 

Is it likely to happen? Watch this space, but something will have to give when all the private sector and its payment dues to the Mighty State of Uhljebistan disappear. 

But then how many thought that North Korea would still be holding out in the Hermit Kingdom?

I used to work in Somalia, and aid workers used to joke that if there was ever a nuclear war, only two things would survive - cockroaches and Somalis (they are a very tough nation of survivors). 

But they would need somewhere to live, and the only place still standing in all likelihood would be the Mighty State of Uhljebistan. 

For the latest on the coronavirus crisis in Croatia, follow the dedicated TCN section.