I'll start this off by saying that if you're unaware of the rather strange looking word at the beginning of the title of this article, click here for a full explanation of this Croatian phenomenon. This is a phenomenon which invisibly protects all those employed by the state and other bodies, in Zagreb and beyond, regardless of what they do, or indeed don't do, as the case usually is.

The cult of the uhljeb is a fascinating one, and should you be accepted into it, you'll earn a very decent monthly wage for doing very little. Fear of being fired if you don't do a good job? That's long gone. The need to be productive and professional? Who needs that?

If you're still not quite following the rules of the cult of the uhljeb, Index provides not only a detailed saga, but an image of an uhljeb in his natural habitat - sleeping at work, while your extortionate taxes pay for it.

As Index writes on the 24th of September, 2019, for some time now, a photo of one of the bosses who has been asleep in his office has been circulating among Zagreb's utility officers.

Igor Sesar's allocation of duties covers the areas of Donji grad (Lower town), Črnomerec and Podsljeme in Zagreb, and he has taken to the very nice custom of locking both of the doors of his office, resting his head down on his desk and sleeping. According to his colleagues, Sesar spends several hours a day in such an uncomfortable position. That position can't be good for his back! Poor Igor.

Despite his conscious attempts to hide his new custom of having long naps at work, it seems that his cognitive abilities have largely been preserved, so, when he learned that his colleagues had photographed him, he decided to protect his privacy and peace of mind. His bedroo... sorry, I mean his office, has a skylight, so Sesar glued about twenty sheets of A4 paper over the light to prevent new ''attacks'' on his siesta, and with that he killed two birds with one stone, as this gave him a more practical type of light, less harsh on the eyes, and more appropriate to sleep with.

"When he's not sleeping in the office, he can be seen in the cafe at the station (Zapadni kolodvor)," the utility worker told Index, giving them a photo of Sesar asleep. He also explained how all of this has been going on, as Sesar couldn't answer any calls, and his office door was locked. They were becoming concerned for Igor, and decided to have a look into his office, they were greeted with the sight of a sleeping Igor.

The secretary thinks there is no boss there!

Index tried to reach Igor Sesar for three days - on Friday, Monday and Tuesday. After listening for hours to the official telephone that the callers were the first in the queue and the conversation was being recorded, the secretary finally made contact on Monday.

''I don't think the boss is here,'' she told Index. Despite that, they still managed to get to him on Tuesday and it seemed like he had been asleep since about 11:00. Namely, he didn't seem to know where he was employed - let alone what type of position he held. The confused (and sleepy) Sesar seems to think he works at [Zagreb] Holding!

"Contact [Zagreb] Holding for information," stated Igor Sesar, employed by a company which isn't even part of Zagreb Holding. However, Index insisted that he comment on the photo of him sleeping in the office, assuring him that it had nothing to do with Holding.

"I'm not even going to comment on that nonsense," Sesar said abruptly. Index hasn't received any comments from the powers that be, namely Mladen Vidmar, who sent a written inquiry about his employees' work habits. By the way, the salary of communal workers in Zagreb is around 7,000 kuna. Their bosses, including Igor Sesar, understandably receive more. Sleeping is very hard work and thus deserves a fatter wedge of cash each month, no?

Those in the know say that the salary of the head of the department is between 10,000 and 11,000 kuna per month. So, remember that when you pay every utility bill, fine, or when you pass a pile of stinking, uncollected rubbish in Zagreb, and think of our dear Igor and his pleasant dreams with his head on his desk.

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June 24, 2019 - If other countries in Eastern Europe can do it, why can't Croatia. Mighty Estonia, leading the world in the approach to the future. Some lessons... 

The last time I was in Tallinn was in 1996, and my visit coincided with the Scottish football team due to play Estonia in some competitive game. I say due to play, as the Estonians never turned up, and Scotland kicked off on a pitch with no opponents. The match was abandoned two seconds later, and Scotland was awarded a 3-0 victory. The abiding memory was the chanting of the Scottish supporters:

"One team in Tallinn, there's only one team in Tallinn."

My first visit was four years earlier during my time in Russia in 1992. And, charming as Tallinn and Estonia were, it was hard to think that this Baltic republic, which was struggling to remove the shackles of its Soviet domination, would ever amount to anything significant on the world stage. 

But it has. 

And how. 

A little innovative thinking from the early days of independence in 1991 to Estonia in 2019, the market European leader in digitalisation and progressive practices. 

A tiny country of 1.3 million people with no outstanding resources of its own now one of the global leaders of future trends. 

In the words of the World Economic Forum:

Estonia is often described as a genuinely digital society. Today a majority of government services are offered 24/7 online, and data integrity is ensured by blockchain technology. You can use medical e-prescriptions, file taxes, or even buy a car online without needing to go to the vehicle registration office. There are only a few things that you still need to do in the analog world, such as get married or buy property.

Why spend your life waiting in line for a piece of paper that proves you are you? Governments must learn to provide public services as efficiently as Amazon sells books: no physical presence, no cost of application, no opening hours.

For some weird and unexplainable reason, people normally expect better services from private companies than from their own governments. This is not the case for our citizens in Estonia. They expect a lot from their government and are constantly demanding us to improve and innovate. Estonians expect that if the private sector is constantly innovating, the government should be, too.

Take a moment to learn a little more from this CNBC International video feature, How Estonia became one of the world’s most advanced digital societies.

If Estonia can do it... 

As lovely as Estonia is - and it IS - Croatia, with its huge tourism industry, great weather, safety, natural beauty and relaxed lifestyle, is a natural draw for the ever-growing army of digital nomads who are taking their wealth-creating lifestyles to the most interesting parts of the planet. It is estimated that there will be 1 billion digital nomads by 2035. If Croatia, with all its natural advantages, could attract just 2% of them, that would be 20 million digital nomads, quietly spending independent of the tourist season - more than the number of tourists currently visiting Croatia each year. 

If Croatia is willing to learn lessons from others, there is so much potential - so much.

Lessons from Rwanda in how to promote tourism through football, for instance.  

Lessons from Macedonia in how to promote wine.  

Lessons from Malaysia in how to promote medical tourism.

Lessons from New Zealand and Northern Ireland in how to promote Game of Thrones. 

Lessons from Swaziland, Bosnia and Serbia in how to promote the Chamber of Economy. 

Will sometime soon the citizens of the Kingdom of Uhljebistan say enough is enough and fight to be on the same playing field of Rwanda, Estonia, Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia and Swaziland (now known as Eswatini)? 

To learn more about being a digital nomad in Croatia, check out the Total Croatia guide. 

March 7, 2019 - Or will Uhljebistan kill technology? How will technology affect the corrupt State within the State in Croatia?

When I lived in the last days of the Soviet Union and the emerging, chaotic newly independent Russia from 1991-93 (and for my army of conspiracy theorists, yes I was a KGB, MI6, UDBA triple agent), one of the things that was interesting to watch was the arrival of the major Western brands in the country. McDonalds, Coca Cola, the banks, the insurance companies, Irish pubs, the consulting companies and the luxury car companies. 

It stays with me for I have spent most of my life living in countries where consumers were always looking abroad for the latest thing. Things would eventually come, but if you wanted to know what the future was like, you looked to places like the United States for technology, for example. 

One of the scariest things I read recently, in an increasingly scary online world of technology, was the Chinese government's experiment in social control, where citizens who fall below a certain level of social credit are punished and unable to do certain things. As The Independent reported a few months ago, the government blocked more than 11 million of its people from buying plane tickets, and more than 4 million from taking the fast train due to their low level of social credit. As The Independent writes:

People are awarded credit points for activities such as undertaking volunteer work and giving blood donations while those who violate traffic laws and charge “under-the-table” fees are punished.

Other infractions reportedly include smoking in non-smoking zones, buying too many video games and posting fake news online.

Punishments are not clearly detailed in the government plan, but beyond making travel difficult, are also believed to include slowing internet speeds, reducing access to good schools for individuals or their children, banning people from certain jobs, preventing booking at certain hotels and losing the right to own pets.

Imagine if that came to Croatia?

It is something I have been thinking about for a while, and then last night, someone sent me a link to the Croatian tax authority website about a former associate who owes me and a good deal of other people quite a lot of money, before she managed to quietly disappear from the country some time ago. My former associate's debt to me was nothing when compared to the 250,000 kuna debt to the tax authority. I was transfixed by the site. One company, which is still active, owes more than 200 MILLION kuna, and there are thousands of citizens with debts of over 100 thousand. 

My former associate recently flew into and out of Croatia, with no concern in the world. Meanwhile, in China, a little fake news and smoking in the wrong place, and you could get grounded... 

While I wouldn't expect - or want - the Chinese experiment to take off here or anywhere else, it does bring me back to my one big hope for Croatia's future - that technology will eventually defeat the corrupt State within the State known as Uhljebistan. If you have never visited Uhljebistan, here is a quick introduction. 

A little like those days in the early Nineties in Moscow, looking at more advanced democracies to see what comes next for Croatia gives mixed messages, but at least some glimmers of hope. Institutions such as the EU are far from perfect, but with more supervision, transparency, and the advance of technology can and I believe will make a difference in the long run. Part of the problem, of course, is that those in power in Zagreb have no invested reason to change the status quo, because it suits them very well. But with more decisions being made in Brussels and with a greater international spotlight on Croatia and its institutions, there is a tiny momentum to make some change in the right direction. 

The most spectacular example of technology and success in recent Uhljebistan history was back in 2010, when the mercurial political blogger and data guru Marko Rakar noticed that there were more registered voters in Croatia than actually existed in the country, clearly an absurd situation. Upon closer inspection, he found one address in a village near the border with Hercegovina which didn't actually exist. Despite that fact, no less than 404 people were registered at the address, Dusina 0, 76% of the village population. In the words of Tech President back in 2010:

Rakar says that Croatia is the only country in the world "where the number of voters exceeds the number of inhabitants." In one town, he found the suspicious address of "Dusina 0" (who lives at "zero"?) with 404 registered voters--76% of the town's total voter roll. By posting the whole list online in searchable form, he invited his fellow Croatians to investigate their own neighborhoods and towns, and to report the results back to his site, Pollitika.com. The resulting uproar was front-page news in Croatia for days, and has provoked a serious debate about amending the country's constitution to prevent the practice.

Some 800,000 names were removed from the electoral list, as a result, a significant number in a country with a population of 4.2 million. The same country which 9 years later has a population of less than four million. The emigration continues... 

Rakar was also associated (he denies involvement) - indeed, even arrested - for another website regarding the number of war veterans, which mysteriously rose from 326,000 in 1996, one year after the war, to more than half a million in 2010, 15 years after the war ended. Tech President again:

Less than a month ago, he was arrested and briefly detained by the police on suspicion of posting a secret list of 501,666 veterans from the 1991-1995 Balkan war. The site provoked an immediate uproar in the country, as millions of people went looking for the records of people they know as well as prominent national figures. The site exposed the fact that some public figures who had never served in the military were ostensibly receiving lucrative veterans benefits like premium health care and duty-free car imports, and that about 20,000 people had been registered as veterans despite serving 15 days or less in the military. As there were only 326,000 vets on the list a year after the war ended, many Croatians suspect that thousands have illegally obtained veterans benefits through corruption and bribery.

A different set of inflated numbers was in the news recently, as Index journalist Marko Repecki took a look at the number of people registered in the Croatian healthcare system - 4,159,169 - more than actually live in Croatia.

With greater accountability and transparency demanded by the international community and the EU, coupled with the power of technology, the opportunities to mask such blatant abuses of the system should become less and less. And with greater pressure from international institutions and the EU, so too should be the current practice of turning a blind eye.

"Haha, I love your optimism," a friend told me in the pub last night. "Technology kill Uhljebistan? Uhljebistan is invincible, mate, you are more likely to see Uhljebistan kill technology."

Have you ever wondered what Uhljebistan means? We use the word a lot here at TCN and often are quick to forget that not everyone will be aquainted with it (lucky them). In brief, the word encompasses uhljebs - those individuals typically working in Croatia's numerous state bodies who want nothing more than to make your life needlessly complicated, for no gain, and then hopefully charge you a few kuna along the way.

If you'd like to take a more in depth journey into the world of Uhljebistan, click here and get to know some of the apparently unstoppable yet totally useless, self-important and self-serving cogs of the Croatian state.

You'd think that in this day and age, where people often love animals more than they do other people, placing a few signs on the street letting the world know you've lost your beloved pet and would like to find them, would be no problem at all. In fact, you'd think it would be encouraged. Apparently not, at least not in Osijek.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 28th of November, 2018, after her seven-year-old Siamese cat disappeared, one Osijek resident decided to place some signs in her neighbourhood letting others know about the cat's disappearance, and offering a reward for anyone who finds the cat. Soon after, the woman's mother, whose phone number was placed as a contact number on the sign, received an unexpected call. Instead of it being someone with news of the cat's whereabouts on the other end of the line, it was a communal officer, writes Glas Slavonije.

"He told her [her mother] that we had two hours come and remove all the signs, because we'd otherwise have to pay 1,000 kuna for each sign. I have to admit that we'd put many signs up, and we mostly put them on bus stops, that is, at higher levels, on poles, etc. I saw a lot of ads put up in such places, so I didn't think that I wouldn't be permitted to put a poster up about my missing cat. As soon as we were cautioned, we went and removed all of them,'' said the woman, whose publication on Facebook has been shared a lot, namely by other rightly irritated animal lovers.

So, if you've lost your cat, make sure you're willing to pay a ridiculous amount of money to put up an innocent sign asking your fellow local residents for help, because God forbid someone goes without making money from your problems.

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October 18, 2018 - The 2018 Global Competitive Index is out. How did Croatia fare? Some good, some bad - a rather accurate snapshot of the modern Croatia. 

Croatian Railways gets an unflattering rundown on social media by one of its deeply dissatisfied employees.

Does a coffee a day keep prison away?

Even the BBC has picked up on our brilliant tunnel that leads... absolutely nowhere.

How does an ordinary citizen get an indifferent official to perform the basic tasks in Croatia when that citizen has no voice or power? Learn how to activate your shaming potential and get things done very quickly.