ZAGREB, 6 May (2022) - Večernji List reporter Hassan Haidar Diab in early April received threats from Russian diplomats over his article about Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and has been under police protection since.

In an interview with Hina, Diab described the circumstances in which he received threats from two of a total of 18 Russian diplomats expelled from Croatia in late April, three weeks after his story about the role and mode of operation of Kadyrov and the Chechen death squads in the Ukraine war was published.

He says that after the publication of his text he was contacted by the Russian Embassy in Zagreb and was told ironically that he had written a "great article".

"The article I wrote in early April was extensive, it was an analysis with witness accounts about the way the Chechen fighters led by Ramzan Kadyrov operate and how they killed people in Ukraine. I wrote about who Kadyrov is and how many reporters and political opponents he and his death squads have killed," Diab says, adding that on the day the article was published, 4 April, he was contacted by Matvey Sidorov, media advisor at the Russian Embassy.

Diab says Sidorov told him that he had written a "great article" and that political secretary Sergey Trofimov wanted him to know that the article would be translated and sent to Kadyrov.

After that, the reporter called his editor in chief Dražen Klarić, as well as Minister of the Interior Davor Božinović, and was immediately given police protection.

Diab says that a week later he was received by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, who told him that the competent services had been instructed to protect him and his family and assured him that they were safe.

Diab adds that Russian diplomats continued to send him messages even after their expulsion from Croatia, with the last message arriving on World Press Freedom Day, 3 May.

"Večernji List decided not to go public with the threats for the sake of my security. But after the Nacional weekly published it and after I confirmed the threats in an article published by Večernji List, I again received a message... from Sidorov," Diab says.

"Greetings Hassan, you wrote a great article again, but it's not exactly new, why did you not publish it while we were in Zagreb," read the message, which Diab says he did not want to answer, wondering what it meant and if he would have been attacked or killed had he published the article at the time the Russian diplomats were still in Zagreb.

He stressed that he had talked to security experts and had been told that he should be cautious and should not take the threats lightly.

In a message to reporters covering the war in Ukraine, Diab said: "It is our duty to report about the suffering of people in Ukraine. We must not give up, whatever the cost."

For more, check out our politics section.

ZAGREB, 23 April 2022 - Croatia has begun to block the assets of Russian nationals who are under sanctions, the Večernji List said on Saturday, adding that Russian-owned holiday homes, forests and companies have been seized.

Based on the EU sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, Croatia has blocked the property of the wife and sister of Alisher Usmanov, one of the richest Russians, on the southern peninsula of Pelješac, the newspaper said, citing documents from public registers.

It appears that in locating Russian-owned properties in Croatia the Croatian authorities have largely relied on the findings of the Oštro website, the only Croatian website to be participating in the international journalistic project the Russian Asset Tracker, which tracks down the assets of Russians close to President Vladimir Putin.

Oštro has found that Usmanov's wife Irina Viner-Usmanova and his sister Guljbahor Ismailova are behind the off-shore and Croatian companies registered as the owners of the Pelješac properties concerned.

Among the properties seized is a villa in Mali Lošinj, on the northern Adriatic island of Lošinj, which is owned by a company in which Maja Tokareva is a member of the management board. She is a daughter of Nikolay Tokarev, president of the Transneft oil pipeline company, which is also under EU sanctions.

For now there are no indications in the court register of companies and land books that Croatia intends to block a villa in Lozica, an attractive section of Dubrovnik, owned by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg, or a villa on Šipan island, off Dubrovnik, Večernji List said.

An anonymous source told Večernji List in early March that Putin's friends had renovated Katino Villa and its large grounds on Šipan island for Dmitry Medvedev, now the deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council.

For more, check out our politics section.

ZAGREB, 6 April 2022 - The state budget earned HRK 870 million from generating electricity from wind and the sun in 2021, when 3.5 TWh of power was generated from renewable energy sources (RES) under the  support scheme of the Croatian Energy Market Operator (HROTE),  the Večernji List reported on Wednesday.

HROTE,  whose main task is to encourage and provide subsidies for the production of electricity from renewable sources and cogeneration, managed to cover its loss of HRK 370 million from 2020 and to earn an additional 500 million kuna, the daily newspaper reported today.

The loss in 2020 was due to a drop in electricity prices during the COVID pandemic. However, electricity prices have since skyrocketed, which has boosting earnings of the operator. As a result, it wrapped up the first quarter of 2022 in the black, with HRK 500 million on its accounts.

In 2021, HROTE paid HRK 3.3 billion in incentives.

The operator's director Boris Abramović was quoted by the daily as saying that the cost of the electricity from €30 per MWHs at the beginning of this year jumped to over €60 per MWh.

In 2021, a total of 3.5 TWH of electricity was generated from renewable energy sources as part of the production subsidised by the HROTE sheme.

This amounted to 35% of the total electricity generation in Croatia in 2021.

Broken down by the type of renewables, more than a half was generated from wind farms (52%), 17% of electricity generated from HROTE-supported RES generation came from biomass power plants, 16% from cogeneration plants and 10% from biogas plants.

Last year, solar power plants had a 2% share in the total electricity production covered by HROTE support scheme, according to the VL article.

(€1 = HRK 7.5)

For more on Croatian companies, check out our business section.

ZAGREB, 28 Sept, 2021 - A growing number of foreign workers are coming to work in the north of Croatia as local metal, manufacturing and construction companies have difficulty finding labour on the domestic market, Večernji List daily said on Tuesday.

Workers are coming from the Philippines, Ukraine, Nepal, India and elsewhere and there are already so many of them that there is a shortage of accommodation for them. They are staying in hotels, holiday apartments or rented accommodation, the newspaper said.

In the Međimurje region, more and more old and renovated houses in which no one has lived for years are being rented. A 200 square metre house is rented to four persons for HRK 3,200 (€425) a month, or HRK 800 (€105) per person.

"We have been well received. We don't go out much. After work, we go to our flat and watch television. Sometimes we go to the lake or to the nearest cafe for a cup of coffee," says a Ukrainian who has found a job in the catering industry. He shares the rent with a workmate, and earns twice as much as he would in Ukraine. He plans on going to Germany one day.

"There are almost no young workers available on the domestic market, notably in occupations such as bricklayers, carpenters or rebar workers. These occupations are dying out in this region," a CEO was quoted as saying.

The question of whether an inclusive centre should be opened has been raised in Varaždin County. The county's head, Anđelko Stričak, said that the local economy would have difficulty functioning without foreign labour and that the foreign nationals living and working in the region should be looked after.

Nearly 57,000 work and residence permits have been issued to foreign nationals in Croatia this year, the newspaper said.

For more about business in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

September 20, 2021 - Just like Liberland, another state entity saw an opportunity in unclaimed territories between the borders of Serbia and Croatia. Meet the Verdis Republic.

Despite defending its territory and sovereignty in an armed conflict back in the '90s, Croatia still has some unclear territorial issues. 

Back in 2015, a Czech citizen, Vit Jedlicka, used a piece of territory that was claimed neither by Croatia nor Serbia to good use and made himself a president of Liberland. 

„We now have 40 future embassies, a working government, a stable source of income through voluntary taxation, and a clear vision about the development of Liberland. I just finished interviews with Huffington Post and Prague Post, so there is a large ongoing interest from people, as well as from the media, in Liberland“, Jedlicka told TCN in 2015.

After only six months of existence justified by the Terra Nullius law (the first person to lay claim to unclaimed sovereign land has rights to it), Liberland allegedly had 300,000 citizenships applications, and Jedlicka granted 130 of them to people who actually managed to come to the territory of the land

„The reason why neither side had claimed the waterfront plot was simple. When discussing borders, Serbia declared it wanted everything to the east of the Danube and had no interest in anything to the west. Croatia, by contrast, wanted to stick to the land register borders of the 19th-century map when the Danube flowed differently. As there was more land on the Serbian side, they laid claim to that, meaning they did not take up any claim on what was soon to become Jedlicka's Liberland“, explained Paul Bradbury in 2019 when he wrote about four years of Liberland's existence.

But as the Liberland territory isn't the only no-man's land around the Danube region, a new state most recently wants to get the land for itself. 

„Verdis, officially the Free Republic of Verdis, is a sovereign-state claiming an uninhabited parcel of disputed land locally named as pocket 3 of the Croatia-Serbia border dispute on the western bank of the Danube, close to 'Liberland', between Croatia and Serbia. It plans to be a largely environmentally conscious and humanitarian state in Europe. The Free Republic of Verdis is currently aiming for international recognition and a permanent inhabitance on its land claim. With Verdis being the first entity to lay claim to its land-claim, it makes the land-claim legally belong to Verdis even after the Croatian-Serbian border dispute ends. This is due to international law“, says the website of the new neighbor to Croatia and Liberland.

Verdis currently only exists as a website (which tries to get as much attention as possible by contacting various news outlets such as Večernji List) but already has 1,040 citizens. Most of them are Croats and Serbs. So far, nobody lives in the territory, but there are already big plans and ideas of how the state will function. 

Verdis Flag © Free Republic of Verdis

„The population of Verdis is to be divided into Representative groups, each of these groups will have 150 people in them, and there will be 100 groups in total. Every two years a representative elected by their group will sit at the House of Representatives. Here laws and regulations are voted upon. Laws that a majority of the House of Representatives agree to pass are sent to the President to sign. If the President signs the proposed law it will come into effect. If the president does not choose to sign the law, the House of Representatives might have to change parts of the law or persuade the President to pass it“, says the Verdis website.

With the plan so far, Verdis will have 13 ministries and the department of the president. As Večernji List learns, the current president is Daniel Jackson, who, despite the fact you can't vote until you are 18 neither in Croatia or Serbia, is currently 16.

„16-year Daniel Jackson that presented himself as a temporary president hopes that in five to ten years, Verdis will achieve international recognition and have enough money to settle on territory which he claims permanently“, says Večernji List. They add that in order to get citizenship, you need to pay 16 dollars. Jackson also told Večernji List that he has never been to the Verdis territory so far, only negotiated to sail through Dunav, but that the coronavirus pandemic slowed down the whole thing. He also pointed out that all his current endeavors are done with respect to international law. Verdis has also issued several passports.

 The aforementioned environmentally conscious republic has several ideas on how to make this new country eco-friendly right from the start.

„The Government of Verdis has shown increased interest in establishing hydroelectric whirlpools. Although these HW's are small, a single one can power up to 60 homes. They are small, cheap, easy to manage, and are harmless to the environment. This is the most positive plan for Verdisian electricity. As it will take time for Verdis to establish its self-sustained electricity, the government plans to rely on neighboring sovereign-states by paying for essentials until further established“, says the Verdis website.

They add that buildings themselves will be done in a modern and environmentally-conscious design. They will be built as high-rises to ensure more space on the ground.

„This will allow a large population in such a small area while also allowing a normal and decent life in such a small area similar to Monaco“, the new government promises as the president collects money to actually come and visit his country to be.

ZAGREB, 8 Sept, 2021 - Over 10,000 vessels will be erased from the Croatian registry of boats due to the failure of their owners to pay the navigation safety fee in 2019 and 2020, the Večernji List daily reported on Wednesday.

In late 2020, the Ministry of the Sea and Transport started bringing order to the registry, and so far 21,814 vessels have been removed from the registration list, the daily quoted the ministry as saying.

In October, the ministry will issue decisions on the removal of an additional 10,000 from the registry after it was established that until 15 August this year their owners had failed to pay the navigation safety fee for 2019 and 2020. The navigation safety fees in arrears for 2019 and 2020 exceed HRK 5 million (€666,000).

This national registry covers all Croatian nationality vessels.

Notices of possible removal from the registry will be also forwarded to all port authorities in Croatia and marinas' concession holders.

For more about travel in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

July 7, 2021 - Croatia is sad to learn of the passing of beloved Malena, thus ending the heartwarming love story of the most famous storks in Croatia - Klepetan and Malena.

Nineteen years of stork romance between Malena and Klepetan in the Slavonian village of Brodski Varoš (near Slavonski Brod), has sadly come to a tragic end. As Index.hr reports, Malena passed away after failing to eat for eleven days.

''I tried to feed her but it didn't work,'' said Stjepan Vokić, a former janitor who found Malena 28 years ago. The year was 1993, and Malena was injured (her wing had been shot) so Vokić rescued her, and the two spent time together, awaiting the arrival of spring. As Malena couldn't travel due to her injured wing, she could only rely on Vokić to help her through tough winter months, and she kept him company.

In 2002, another important man (well, actually a male stork), Klepetan, showed up in her life, and the couple gave life to 66 small storks. Their love was challenged with Klepetan, doing what storks do, fleeing to Africa every autumn. However, Malena waited for him, and he couldn't forget her either, and their occasional long-distance romance indeed grew into true love and not just a summer fling.

''I noticed she wasn't well on June 9. It was just when the heatwave started. She wanted to go after Klepetan, but she couldn't. She fell down, and I brought her inside. She didn't want to eat nor did she want to drink any water. It was as if she wanted to end her life because falling down is a humiliation for storks, I'd say,'' Vokić said to Večernji List, adding that she passed away peacefully, closing her eyes while on the lap of one of Vokić's friends and dying.

The romance of Klepetan and Malena was followed globally, and many Croatians mourned when the news broke out. Naturally, nobody took it harder than Klepetan.

''He comes every evening. I tell him, 'she's gone now, Klepo'. I buried her in her favourite place where she always waited for him,'' said Vokić.

He added that he would wait for Klepetan and welcome him to his place if he decides to return next year.

Stjepan Vokić who rescued and took care of Malena, screenshot / Jelena Osijek OS

The 19-year romance of Klepetan and Malena couldn't have gone unnoticed for us here at TCN.

Klepetan returned every year (sooner or later), and in 2019, many feared that the love story had concluded with Klepetan's death.

"Four of them (birds) came and began making some very sad noises. I knew then that Klepo had gone, he had died. You know how they say that birds die singing," Vokić sadly said in 2019.

However, it was, fortunately, a false alarm, as Klepetan returned in 2020.

At least Malena's love story, while challenging, was much happier than the famous literary tragedy, as she was happily in love and the 66 kids of Malena and Klepetan raise the stork count in Croatia, adding to Croatia's bird population and general biodiversity.

Storks are beloved guests at Lonjsko Polje. Learn more on our TC page. 

For more about animals in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

June 25, 2021 - Is there any possibility of ending segregated education in Vukovar? Mayor Ivan Penava announced Serbian and Croatian education could merge in school and kindergarten levels, but more details are yet to be revealed.

The start of the week saw interesting news that surprised many. As reported by N1, Ivan Penava, the mayor of Vukovar, announced Croatian and Serbian classes and kindergartens could merge together.

Vukovar, often referred to in Croatia as the „Hero City“ for the heavy blow it suffered in the 90s war Croatians refer to as Homeland War, still has a lot of ruins as memories of that ugly past. In the light of national tensions among Serbs and Croats, the segregation of kindergartens and different shifts in schools for Serbian and Croatian classes seem to be a solution to keep the peace.

screenshot/ N1

Good idea but more talks needed?

„In Vukovar, parents do not choose the model of education that is imposed by politics, it is nowhere written in public“, said mayor Penava, as reported by N1.

Penava, a former member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), despite earning a new term in the recent local elections as an independent candidate, enjoyed support from Miroslav Škoro, runner-up candidate for Zagreb mayor elections, and the leader of the Homeland Movement (DP) supports Penava's idea.

„I lived in America for a number of years, in Hungary, I traveled the world... what is the difference between Serbian and Croatian mathematics? Is Argentina in Serbian in the northern hemisphere, and southern in Croatian? I don't get it“, said Škoro adding that segregation was done in malice with a tendency to divide children from the start.

„In Vukovar, the symbol of defense had priorities. Reconstruction of the water tower, and certain moves Penava did well in his last term (he wouldn't win elections if he hasn't), thinks that city needs to move on. I support him 100%“, concluded Škoro.

On the other hand, criticism is erected on national-level politics.

„I don't think that local officials are the ones who need to determine a way in which minority education will be conducted. Political trade is clear here, and I'm glad there is no longer just Serbian-Croatian trading coalition, but also another one“, said Dragana Jecov, a Croatian parliament member from the Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) referring to the accusations of the right-wing that current coalition of HDZ and SDSS and is vile political trade.

Interior Minister Davo Božinović also said that while we need to work on erasing national, social, and political tensions, but this is a question that needs to be discussed more seriously.

Additionally, as N1 reported, the Ministry of Education pointed out that different models of education for Vukovar schools exist, and parents can choose which they find most suitable.

Accepting national differences or nationalistic uniformity?

Some improvements have indeed been seen in the city infrastructure, but Vukovar still remains a challenging place to live. Partly due to the tough economic situation, but also because of discrepancies among Serbian and Croatian residents. Earlier in June, there was even a violent incident when a 30-year-old Serbian member of the Grobari football fan group physically attacked a Croatian 13-year-old boy in front of a bakery for having a medicine mask with Croatian symbols.

„Sadly, this kind of thing happened too long in Vukovar, where people attack each other because of national disputes. Media aren't even introduced to some of these events. It is spread a lot, as evident by the constant police patrols around Vukovar high-schools where there are always police cars around“, said Vukovar police to Večernji List daily newspaper.

Such incidents, a misfortunate loose ends of the war, also come from the Croatian side. Earlier in May, a group of young men chanted anti-Serb slogans in Borovo Selo (close to Vukovar), a scene of heinous war crimes in the '90s), sparking condemnation from both president Milanović and the Croatian Government.

In that light, integrated schools might finally bring positive changes in regards to tolerance and peaceful life for Vukovar citizens. But again, not everyone sees the glass as half full.
Index.hr columnist Gordan Duhaček agreed in his column that Serbs and Croats don't need to go to separate shifts but warns how Penava isn't the guy that should unite them.

„Penava doesn't want to integrate Vukovar schools and end the troubling segregation in a way to ensure a better future for the whole city, but instead to impose his nationalistic, often anti-Serbian narrative as the official one. Penava wants that Vukovar Serbs bow down to his view of the Croatian state“, wrote Duhaček.

Duhaček also reminded the readership of the attempt and fail of the Danube International school that supposed to integrate pupils of both nations, an idea that spawned 16 years ago. But, the project failed, and Duhaček sees both Penava and SDSS leader Milorad Pupovac not feeling too sad about it.

Iconic Vukovar water tower, pixabay

Questions on details

At the end of the week, the situation seems more confusing than clear. Is class integration a good idea? Could it save money for the city financially? What are some actual details of merging Croats and Serbians into one class? Obviously, Škoro is right that 2+2=4 in any math class around the world. But, troubling questions appear in subjects such as language and history. Croats and Serbs sadly have their own, different interpretations of historical facts, particularly when it comes to the last war, and while the speakers of two languages perfectly understand each other, some words do differ, and there is a different accent and spelling in the two formal languages. So, how can these issues be resolved? Would those two subjects remain in different shifts while universal subjects such as biology, math, or physics will listen in one merged classroom? Or will there be a different curriculum that would present both Serbian and Croatian history, Serbian and Croatian literature in that way, making Vukovar pupils more knowledgable in those areas than other pupils in the country?

Or some curriculum consensus on history could be reached, one that would satisfy both the Croatian and Serbian sides and thus truly open a doorway to the better understandings of the two nations in the future in perhaps the most nationally torn city in Croatia?

Obviously, Vukovar city authorities have some tensions with SDSS, but the city also has an expert associate for the development of civil society and national minorities, Siniša Mitrović in one of the City's departments. Did Mitrović manage to gain input from the Serbian minority in Vukovar about this merge? And how fast could the whole thing be realized? This autumn or maybe a bit later?
These are important and interesting questions that can only be answered either by mayor Penava himself or perhaps Josip Paloš, the director of the Vukovar City Education Department.

„Mayor Penava is in a lot of meetings and on fields, and his schedule is full. We will sadly not be able to answer you by your Friday deadline, but we will contact you at the earliest convenience“, said the lady at the Vukovar City PR service when I called them (and E-mailed) with a wish to arrange and conduct a brief phone interview.

While this article may present the current issues surrounding segregated education in Vukovar, this TCN reporter hopes mayor Penava will share more details about his plan on ending segregation in Vukovar schools and kindergarten with joint classes. If done right, this move can indeed be the way to a better, more peaceful future for Vukovar citizens.

Learn more about Vukovar on our TC page.

For more about education in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 15 June, 2021 - The emigration of Croatian citizens, in addition to having incalculable implications for the country's pension, education and health care system, has also lead to a rise in corruption in Croatia, Večernji List newspaper said on Tuesday, citing a study by Tado Jurić, a political scientist and historian from the Croatian Catholic University.

The study showed that corruption and emigration were interrelated.

Jurić compared corruption and migration trends from 2012 to 2020, notably the number of Croatians who emigrated to Germany, the country where most Croatians go to in search of work and a better livelihood, and the ranking of Croatia in the global corruption index, and found that corruption was more pronounced when the number of people who left the country was higher. Croatia ranked 63rd among 180 countries included in the corruption index in 2019 and 2020, and 50th before the emigration wave reached its peak.

"Common sense says that if people who are not involved in corruption networks emigrate and those who stay are involved in such networks, corruption activities will be even easier to carry out and more frequent. If critics leave, all the better and easier for those criticised," Jurić says, adding that corruption is deeply rooted in Croatian society and has become a parallel system that undermines the economy.

"Corruption has done even more damage to the Croatian national identity, the sense of unity and solidarity, and to Croatian culture in general than it has done to the economy, which is unquestionably enormous. The main negative effect of corruption affected the country's human resources and political stability. In Croatian society, corruption has become a privilege of the elites, but so-called major corruption, political corruption and clientelism should not be confused with so-called civil corruption.

"So-called elite corruption has given rise to a special phenomenon in society which could be called 'a revolt of the elites'. It is the elites that use the media for their everyday protests against the media, citizens and institutions, making citizens accustomed to the practice that they should not express their dissatisfaction with politicians, but that politicians should express their dissatisfaction with them," Jurić said.

The study shows that 65.3 percent of 178 small, medium and large companies polled said that corruption has been on the rise in the last five years, while 32.4 percent believe that there has been no significant change.

For more about politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

ZAGREB, 12 June, 2021 - As many as 72% of cities and 76% of municipalities in Croatia have fewer residents than is optimal considering their economic potential and volume of services, the Večernji List daily issue of Saturday says.

This conclusion is the result of a study made by Croatian National Bank (HNB) researchers Antonija Biljan, Milan Deskar Škrbić and HNB deputy governor Sandra Švaljek, focusing on the optimal size of local government units, which is a rare research topic in Croatia.

Zagreb was not included in the analysis due to a number of particularities, and the analysis shows that cities should not have fewer than 15,000 residents (15,139) while the optimal number of residents for a municipality is 3,744. Only one in four cities or municipalities meet that criterion.

The study was published after the recent local election and its authors put forward several recommendations for politicians, suggesting voluntary merging of the smallest local government units or interest-based cooperation between neighbouring municipalities.

There are 556 local government units in Croatia, of which 127 are cities and 428 municipalities. The City of Zagreb has a special status of city and county.

Only 35 cities have more residents than the optimal number, as do 102 municipalities. The budgets of all local government units amount to around HRK 28 billion.

The country's existing territorial organisation is not based on a historical administrative division but is a result of discretionary decisions by policy makers in the early 1990s, the authors of the study say.

Considering the size of territory, population, fiscal capacity, system of financing and functions of local government units, many domestic experts warn that the current territorial structure is inefficient and calls for their merger.

The HNB study focused on population density, demographic structure of local residents, socioeconomic factors such as the amount of taxable income and unemployment rate, as well as transfers from the central government, the daily says.

For more on politics in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page.

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