ZAGREB, 20 Dec 2021 - The Vinkovci Josip Runjanin Music School on Sunday held its traditional Christmas Carols concert with about 150 current and former students and teachers of the school participating in the event.

The concert with singers standing by the school windows is traditionally organized on the fourth Advent Sunday, and only last year the COVID-19 pandemic prevent the organization of the concert

This year's traditional Christmas carols concert also paid tribute to the composer of the Croatian anthem, Josip Runjanin, in memory of the  200th anniversary of his birth in this eastern Croatian city. The music school in Vinkovci is also named after him.

"I don't think anyone in Croatia has something like this. We all got together and unified around this project which has grown into a traditional event with former and current students and teachers and Vinkovci citizens to give this city a present it deserves," the school principal Dinka Peti said.

The concert "Let there be Music..." was staged with the choir standing along with the high school's windows while the orchestra played on the plateau in front of the school with a large audience attending, including Mayor Ivan Bosančić.

"This is one very beautiful event which makes us all proud and which ushers in the Christmas holidays. As we can see a large number of our citizens turned up and I am pleased that Vinkovci has been recognized for this concert as something that will enrich us all and make us happy for Christmas," Mayor Bosančić said.

For more, check out our lifestyle section.

Can you name the smallest town in Croatia (and the world)? What about the biggest, oldest, or safest? Take a guess, and then check out our list of champion towns in six different categories

Did you know that the Croatian language doesn’t distinguish between the terms city and town? We call them both grad, which refers to an urbanized area with more than 10,000 inhabitants. Exceptions are made for less populated settlements if they have significant historical, economic or geographic features. 

If there’s one thing we don’t lack around here, it’s places of historical significance, and thus our technical nomenclature goes down the drain. You’ll often see very sparsely populated places being referred to as towns - what’s basically a village in terms of population could have easily had a status of a city in medieval times.

When you think about Croatian cities and towns in terms of superlatives - largest, oldest, safest - none of the leading tourist destinations make the cut. The biggest Croatian cities sure have their appeal, but this time around, we’re looking at a few peculiar title holders among Croatian towns.

Smallest: Hum

This medieval hilltop settlement located in central Istria is not only the smallest town in Croatia, but also referred to as the smallest town in the world. 

Its exact population is somewhat debatable: Hum had 30 residents at the time of the 2011 census, but more recent sources place the number closer to 20. We’re curious to see what the 2021 census data will show.

Entirely built in stone, Hum is also minuscule in size, but packs a handful of houses, one restaurant, two churches and a cemetery within its town walls. While it's not technically a town, its history, cultural significance and urban structure make it quite a distinctive settlement.

One of the many Istrian legends has it that the giants who built other central Istrian towns in the valley of the Mirna River used the leftover stone blocks to create Hum as one last masterpiece. 

It’s a place worth visiting on a tour of Istria: it’s incredibly picturesque and well preserved, is the last stop of the scenic Glagolitic Alley route, and is also the home of biska, a popular Istrian brandy made of rakija, white mistletoe and several other herbs. 

Largest: Gospić  

Based on population alone, the winner in this category would definitely be Zagreb - expected and a bit too boring for a list of this kind, so we’ll go for different criteria instead. What’s the biggest town in Croatia based on surface area?  

If you’d stick with Zagreb as the answer regardless, you’d be wrong. Surprisingly, the biggest town in Croatia only has a population of about 6,500, but is larger in size than Paris, Berlin or Barcelona.  

Gospić / iNekic Wikimedia Commons

The biggest town in Croatia is Gospić, with an impressive area of 967 square kilometres. The town itself definitely isn’t that big - it owes its staggering size to some 50 smaller settlements in its wider area that administratively belong to Gospić, as there are no other municipal units nearby to take them under their wing. 

Fun fact: Nikola Tesla, the groundbreaking inventor, was born in the nearby village of Smiljan and grew up in Gospić. 

Highest: Delnice 

Unsurprisingly, we’re heading to a mountainous area to look for an elevation champion. Located in the Gorski kotar region, the town of Delnice sits at an altitude of approximately 700m above the sea level. Its lowest point is situated at an altitude of 210m, and the highest at 1528m!  

Delnice / Lan Vlad Wikimedia Commons

We’d be remiss not to mention Begovo Razdolje, officially the highest settlement in Croatia at an altitude of 1028m. It’s located in the same region, on the slopes of Bjelolasica mountain, and has a population of 40. While it’s not technically a town, it’s the only inhabited place in Croatia situated at an altitude over 1000m! 

Oldest: Vinkovci 

In a country that counts an amphitheatre and a Roman emperor’s palace among its cultural monuments, you’d probably look for the oldest settlement somewhere on the coast. And while it’s true that the Adriatic is lined with some of the oldest towns in Croatia, we have to look inland for the oldest of them all.

The town of Vinkovci in Slavonia has been continually inhabited for 8300 years, making it not only the oldest town in Croatia, but Europe as well! 

Vinkovci has a lot to be proud of other than its age: it’s the birthplace of two Roman emperors, home to the oldest known calendar in Europe, and hosts the biggest Croatian folklore festival. Check out the 10 things to know about Vinkovci in this dedicated piece. 

Youngest: it’s complicated

How to approach the concept of youth when it comes to a town? We can think of three main ways to look at it:

Among the 128 towns and cities in Croatia, Popovača is the one which gained the legal status of a town most recently. It used to be a municipality and was ‘upgraded’ to a town in 2013, effectively becoming the youngest town in Croatia in terms of administrative status. 

If we ditch the legal criteria and focus on how long it’s been since the inception of a certain settlement, the youngest town in Croatia is Raša. It’s located in south-eastern Istria and was purposely designed and built as a mining town in the 1930s during Mussolini’s colonization of the region. Two pairs of streets lined with former miners’ houses meet at the central square, where you’ll find the church of St Barbara, uniquely built in the shape of an overturned mining cart. 

Raša © Raša Tourist Board

And finally, what about the population? Well, this is a tough one to track down as the demographic situation varies from year to year, and data isn’t always readily available. With apologies to any other town that potentially took over the title at some point, we’ll declare Solin to be the youngest town in Croatia population-wise. Located near Split in Dalmatia, Solin has a population of some 30,000 inhabitants, 6,500 of which are under 18 years of age. The average age in Solin is 34,3 years - well below the Croatian average of 43,6 which ranks us among the oldest populations in all of Europe.

Safest: Sinj

Croatia is widely considered to be a safe country overall. Its population definitely seems to think so: a recent report published by Numbeo and represented on a map by Landgeist shows that Croatia is one of the countries in Europe where people feel safest walking alone at night. It ranks second, after Slovenia - read more here. 

What’s the safest place in the second safest-feeling country in Europe, then? For this we turn to actual statistics in an annual report published by the magazine Zaštita and the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb. They rank the 29 biggest Croatian cities and towns according to four separate crime rates (assaults, traffic offences, property crimes and drug abuse).

Sinjska Alka © Romulic and Stojcic

The town of Sinj, located in the Dalmatian hinterland, ranked safest in Croatia four times in a row in recent years. It’s a nice title for Sinj and just one of things it’s known for - the most famous certainly being Sinjska Alka. 

Inscribed on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage, Sinjska Alka is a traditional knight’s game held every year in August. It commemorates the victory of 700 Croatian soldiers over the army of 60,000 Turkish invaders in 1715 - a report from a reenactment of the battle is available here.

ZAGREB, 7 Nov 2021 - Dutch humanitarian activists Tineke Sta-Bol and Ton van Bree, who have been organizing summer holidays for children from eastern Croatia in the Netherlands for 20 years, were received by the deputy mayor of Vinkovci, Josip Romić, this week.

Romić praised the efforts of the two humanitarians, who every year raise donations for summer holidays for about 40 children from Vukovar-Srijem County in a summer camp in the small Dutch town of Ermelo. During their stay there, Croatian children have many interesting activities aimed at improving their social skills.

For many of those children it has been the first such experience to travel abroad for summer holidays, the deputy mayor said.

Summer holidays for children in Ermelo have been organised by the Stichting Vrienden Speciale Kinderhulp (SVSK) for 20 years.

The war and suffering of people in eastern Croatia in the early 1990s prompted Tineke Sta-Bol and Ton van Bree to launch this humanitarian drive. They have also helped raise funds for the construction of playgrounds in the villages of Bapska, Čakovci, and Petrovci in Vukovar-Srijem County.

The two Dutch activists have been decorated by Queen Beatrix for their humanitarian work.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, 3 Oct, 2021 - An agreement on cooperation in drafting and implementing the Vinkovci urban development strategy for the financial period 2021-2027, worth at least €25 million, was signed in this eastern city earlier this week by the mayors of Vinkovci, Otok and nine adjacent municipalities.

Besides Vinkovci, as the centre of the urban area, and the city of Otok, the agreement was signed by the municipalities of Andrijaševci, Ivankovo, Jarmina, Nijemci, Nuštar, Privlaka, Stari Jankovci, Stari Mikanovci and Vođinci.

This agreement has opened up new opportunities for the city of Vinkovci and the entire urban area, said Vinkovci Mayor Ivan Bosančić, underscoring that this was an opportunity to give fresh impetus to the development of the urban area using the mechanisms and funds of the European Union.

"Through the ITU mechanism, local government units connect and work together, and we have many links. From the economy and culture to education, there is almost no area in which we are not connected," he said.

According to Bosančić, the signatories of the agreement will have about €25 million at their disposal for projects important for the development of the area, and the focus will be on projects in the field of education and economy.

Otok Mayor Josip Šarić said the city authorities were interested in investments in projects for the reconstruction and construction of unclassified roads.

"This is a great opportunity to use EU funds for projects we consider most necessary," the mayor of Otok said.

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September 19, 2021 - The Vučedol Archaeological Park project was presented at the Museum of Vučedol Culture to introduce the events that will follow in the next two years.

Namely, this extensive project includes the construction, reconstruction, and revitalization of the archeological site, communal and catering infrastructure, and the tourist promotion of the entire project on an area of slightly more than 28 hectares, reports HRTurizam.

“The Vučedol Archaeological Park project is conceived as a platform, backbone, and initiator of a complex program of systematic interdisciplinary research of the Vučedol archaeological site, which expands the area of Vučedol. It presents as an archeological-historical, but also a tourist-catering and sports-recreational center," said the director of the Museum of Vučedol Culture, Mirela Hutinec.

At the future site, there will be a planetarium, info point and scientific research center, restaurant, area for the presentation of Vučedol livestock, a museum square, Vučedol labyrinth and children's playground, reconstruction of the Megaron and Vučedol settlement, a stilt house on Orlov otok, and passenger and communal port for boats. These are big plans that, once realized, will be the backbone of tourism in Slavonia and Baranja and an important place for scientists and researchers.

The project's specific objectives are preserving the Vučedol archaeological site and enriching the cultural (archaeological) and tourist offer by using creative, innovative, and technologically advanced solutions in education, presentation, and promotion of the Vučedol Archaeological Park.

The partners of this vital project are the Croatian Ministry of Culture and Media, the City of Vukovar, the Public Institution Port Authority of Vukovar, and the Vukovar Tourist Board. The project value is 117,299,998.51 kuna, of which 85%, or 99,704,998.72 kuna, are grants from the European Regional Development Fund.

In the entire locality of Vučedol, after 40 years of systematic research, only 10 to 12% of the area has been explored. So, we can still expect new knowledge about the Vučedol culture.

"In Europe, the highest level of civilization was developed by the Vučedol culture, which began here on Vučedol around three thousand years ago. As far as we know, this is the oldest locality of the Vučedol culture, and everything started from this area. Here we have the oldest Indo-European calendar, excavated at the site in Vinkovci. If we can recognize and read it, then we have the oldest pictorial letter of Indo-Europe," said Professor Aleksandar Durman, who has been working on researching Vučedol culture for many years.

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

September the 5th, 2021 - Vinkovci isn't a place that most people associate with economics in any way. Located in continental Croatia and further east than the City of Zagreb, many perhaps wrongly lump it in with other wrongly overlooked parts of the country which rarely get a mention in a positive economic light. That said, the Vinkovci employment rate is very encouraging, and entrepreneurs bringing job opportunities have their eye on the town.

As Novac writes, according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Vinkovci is the only city in all of Eastern Croatia that is among the ten cities in the Republic of Croatia in terms of the number of employees per thousand inhabitants. Thanks to the support of the state and the City of Vinkovci, the number of entrepreneurs in Vinkovci is growing day by day, and there are no more places in the entrepreneurial zones - that's why new ones are being built.

In one Vinkovci plant, oak, walnut, ash and elm are cut, cut and dried, they make wooden products related to the serving of food for the hospitality and catering industry, said the owner Dragan Zaksek for HRT. The more unusual boards and trays are designed by Borna, who plans to work with his father after completing his high school education.

Vice Bozic successfully runs a digital marketing agency and is looking for new employees. He currently has three employees in his agency and their goal, he says, is to expand his business and work for companies from all over the world from Vinkovci.

The Vinkovci employment rate is encouraging, and there are eighteen enterprises looking for more labour in the now full business incubators, said manager Josip Cacic. They are even willing to co-finance the training of the workforce provided they commit to staying and working for them.

''We have a historically large number of employees, and this is perhaps a more important fact at this time. Throughout this pandemic, we felt almost nothing in terms of the number of employees, the gross salary grew by over 1000 kuna and there have been over 1000 new employees,'' stated the mayor of Vinkovci, Ivan Bosancic, of the impressive Vinkovci employment rate.

Vinkovci also provides subsidies to entrepreneurs and their companies, and they then provide higher salaries to their workers. Both entrepreneurial zones have been filled up, and they're now planning to bring foreign investors into the new one they're building and thus create even more new jobs.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated business section.

September 3, 2021 - There is only one week left until the beginning of the 56th Vinkovci Autumns, which will shine with their old splendor this year. Once again, for ten days, the Vinkovci Autumn will bring a handful of events and show why it is the biggest manifestation of traditional culture in this part of Europe.

Yesterday, the Organizing Committee of Vinkovci Autumns officially presented the program of this year's event, reports HrTurizam. Unlike last year’s which were organized for the first time in special circumstances, the 56th edition takes on a look that everyone is already used to.

It all starts on September 10th with Folklore Evenings that will last until September 15th. 46 societies from Vukovar-Srijem County have registered, 43 will perform at the Folklore Evenings, while three societies will host the State Folklore Festival on September 18th and 19th. The first weekend is reserved for the youngest guardians of traditional culture and the Inter-County Festival of Children's Folklore Groups. 12 counties and the City of Zagreb will participate, and in the Children's Parade on Sunday, September 12, we will be able to see a total of 47 groups.

Slavonski sokak opens its doors on the first day, and as it has always been there, with the support of tamburitza players, you will find a rich offer of domestic and indigenous products of 51 exhibitors. Six winemakers this year will be at the Wine Alley where you will be able to from Monday, September 13, while the next day the main stars will be members of the Folklore Ensemble Lisinski who are celebrating 70 years of existence.

The highlight of the event begins with the grand opening on Friday, September 17th. Saturday is reserved for the National Folklore Festival, and on Sunday we traditionally go to the festive Parade in the city center. The parade of the 56th Vinkovci Autumns will be enriched by 42 local folklore societies and 28 invited societies, which are the highest ever.

Vinkovci is the oldest town in Europe, and it is located 21 km west of Vukovar, 39 km east of Đakovo, and 43 km south of Osijek.

"Thank you to everyone who contributes to Vinkovci Autumns being the biggest event in Croatia and beyond. I hope that we will all adhere to epidemiological measures and try not to endanger anyone. I think we’ve learned to live with that already. A lot is waiting for us, we had to leave something out, but everyone will have the opportunity to enjoy the rich content for all ages", said the President of the Organizing Committee, Mayor Ivan Bosančić. He stressed that there will be no tents this year and everything will take place in the open, more precisely on the stage in the city center.

For more information, visit the Vinkovci Autumns official website, or their official Facebook page.

For more, make sure to check out our dedicated travel section.

July 3, 2021 - In sixty seconds, participants had to visually express why the county or the place where they live has grown close to their hearts. After reviewing all 21 videos, the jury decided on the Vukovar-Srijem team, led by director Saul Tikvić, as the winners.

Vinkovci's Saul Tikvić is the winner of the final of the Moja.hr project, a competition for the best one-minute film about the county or place where the author lives, reports Turističke priče. It is a project of Večernji list in which the Croatian Radio and Television was a partner, and it was supported by the Ministry of Tourism and Sports and the Croatian Tourist Board. The young team, which included Davorin Kresic, Dunja Šaran, and Dario Hegeduš, along with Tikvić as the host, made a winning film about Vukovar-Srijem County. The award was presented to them at a ceremony held on Thursday night by the Minister of Tourism and Sports Nikolina Brnjac.

''We did not expect the award, because the competition was really high quality. After announcing third and second place we thought we had no chance of being first, but then came a surprise for all of us on the team. We couldn't believe how we shot the best video in the country'', Tikvić shared his impressions from the awards ceremony.

According to the director of the Vukovar-Srijem County Tourist Board, Rujana Bušić Srpak, the beautiful images of Vukovar-Srijem County, together with the music and narrative of Dunja Šuran, who appears in the video, send a correct and positive image, and the experience of young people living here give extra importance to the whole project.

''We made our first contact with Saul Tikvić last year when we organized a photo workshop, in which he also participated. For the Moja.hr project, we formed a team that worked completely on a voluntary basis, and we as the tourist board were the coordinators, that is, we helped and gave support to these young people. Ultimately, the film is entirely their own work, because we didn’t want to interfere with the script. This success is an excellent promotion for our county, which will host the awards ceremony next year, which will further promote Vukovar-Srijem County'', said Srpak.

The Moja.hr project aims to encourage young people to show the beauty, creativity, and emotion of the county in which they live. In sixty seconds, the authors had to say why the county or the place where they live has grown close to their hearts, why they love living there, and express their personality and creativity in these answers. After reviewing all 21 videos, the jury decided on the Vukovar-Srijem team as the winners.

''The shooting of the film lasted about a month at locations throughout the Vukovar-Srijem County. We changed the script several times, but in the end, we were satisfied with what we did. The award means a lot to me because I decided to dedicate myself completely to photography, filming, and editing. Namely, a few hours before receiving the award, I resigned from my job, because photos and videos are my love, to which I want to dedicate more time, and I intend to do videos and commercials. The award will certainly help me achieve that goal'', director Saul Tikvić points out.

For winning first place, Tikvić was awarded a cash prize in the amount of HRK 15,000, a tablet, and an annual e-subscription to Večernji list. The money will be shared with the whole team, and one part, as required by the rules in Slavonia, will be spent on a celebration, or a party with friends.

''In Vinkovci, where we came from Slovakia, I have been alone since I was five years old and it is a city that I love and that I would never leave. I worked for a few months in Sweden, it can be well earned, but it’s not the life for me. I returned to Vinkovci where I feel much better and I would never leave them again'', said Tikvic, who announced that in a few days the Tourist Board of Vinkovci will publish a video of the Roman Days in Vinkovci, where he worked with Davorin Krešić.

In the end, the second prize of the Moja.hr project went to the team from Medulin consisting of Darko Privrat, Mateo Ostojić, and Hugo Vojak, and the third to Timon Terzić, Bojan Horvat, and Dario Mikulek from Varaždin.

For everything you need to know about filming in Croatia, in your language, be sure to check Total Croatia's page.

For more made in Croatia news, follow TCN's dedicated page.

May 19, 2021 - The Vinkovci City Museum has become the second pet-friendly museum in Croatia! 

HRTurizam reports that museums around the world are celebrating International Museum Day with the theme “The Future of Museums: Recovery and Rethinking.” Numerous Croatian museums joined the celebration, including the Vinkovci City Museum, which has become a pet-friendly museum as of Tuesday!

The number of pet-friendly destinations in Croatia and the world is constantly growing, especially in the tourism sector, and more and more often, many museums are opening their doors to pets. As of Tuesday, the selected society of European and world museums has been joined by the Vinkovci City Museum, which, unlike most others, visitors will be able to enter with pets during regular working hours.

"We have thus become the second museum in Croatia and the first museum that allows its visitors to visit the museum with their pets during regular working hours. The Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb is the first pet-friendly museum, but it allows you to visit with pets only on Saturdays. We have promulgated house rules, rules that must be known. We must not forget that some people are afraid of dogs, but this action intends to get rid of fear, to accept the fact that our pets are our responsibility, but also joy and pleasure," said the director of the museum Hrvoje Vulić.

Pets marked the International Museum Day in Vinkovci. Several foster dogs were shown, children participated in the workshop "Find a paw," several workshops on pets were held in the Gallery with the museum therapy dog Bella "Meet the museum snout," and the organizers prepared a tour of the museum with Bella and an award for the most beautiful selfie of the day with a pet in the museum.

To learn more about museums in Croatia, check out our Total Croatia page. 

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

April 18, 2021 - Continuing our Croatian Graduate Perspective series with Emma in Vinkovci, who believes great job offers and careers that provide lots of traveling would encourage young people to stay, because "it wouldn't make you wish to leave Croatia." This is her full story.

With many young people emigrating from Croatia, what keeps those who decided to stay (at least for now)?

The emigration of young people from Croatia in search of better business opportunities and living standards, unfortunately, is a well-known story. Each of us young people in Croatia knows at least a few people from their environment who, at one point, said that enough was enough and decided to seek happiness somewhere abroad.

According to official Eurostat data, from 2015 to 2019, Croatia's population decreased by 4.26 inhabitants per 1,000 citizens only thanks to emigration. Therefore, the Croatian emigration rate is the second-worst in the European Union (after Lithuania).

These data indicate that economic prosperity influences population decisions to emigrate. Besides, due to the exodus of the young and working population, there is an additional reduction in GDP per capita that closes the cycle of poverty and decline in Croatia.

However, there are many who are aware of the poor position of young people in Croatia but still do not want to give up and decide to stay in Croatia. We're wondering what do those young people, recent graduates, think about this whole situation and what are their reasons for staying in Croatia.

We continue our series with Emma from Vinkovci in eastern Croatia.

First of all, please introduce yourself. What are you studying/what did you study? Do you have a job currently? 

My name is Emma Stephanie Gaunt. I am studying costume design, and I am in my final year of MA. I am currently working as a key costumer and as a costume standby on a project for a television series.

What is it like being a student/recent graduate in Croatia during this coronavirus time?

For faculties that operate on a project basis, it has not been easy. We had very few opportunities to connect and meet new collaborators, and the main thing with this job is to be known for who you are, how you work, and what you want to do. But currently, the situation is improving, and projects are coming to be a bit unexpectedly.

What are your experiences searching for a job in your profession in Croatia?

I haven't been actively searching for the last year because of Covid-19, and theatres aren't permitted to make new productions yet, so I am sure not many theatres need a costume assistant or wardrobe assistant in the theatre. Sometimes in this profession, jobs get offered to you. Usually, people from past projects contact you about a new project and want to include you. That has been working for me for now, but it wouldn't have happened if I have been passive in the past about my work.

What do you think of the Croatian Government's efforts to provide opportunities for graduates?

I think they are doing a fine job regarding engineering and medical students, but I don't think there is much they can do for costume design students.

Many young people your age decide to emigrate from Croatia to find a better job opportunity and/or life standard. What do you think about it?

I think they should go for it. Croatia is not a big country, and some jobs are not as wanted here as they are somewhere else. One of the main reasons for choosing costume design is to go out, travel, and improve. There is a lot of things you can learn out there. Everyone works differently.

In your opinion, what would encourage young people to stay in Croatia?

I have noticed lately that primarily students attached to their family or the ones who are going to inherit a house or piece of land are optimistic about staying here. I have also noticed that lots of people who leave Croatia come back for its relaxed everyday approach and way of working and living, and of course the great weather that we have here. I think for every student, the key to staying is mainly attachment and home. I guess the thing that would encourage young people to stay are great job offers straight after university and a career that provides lots of traveling because it wouldn't make you wish to leave Croatia.

Have you ever considered moving out of Croatia and why?

Yes. I feel that Croatia is really small for me and that if I could reach more audience, I think I should. I don't have many attachments here in Croatia, so it is easier for me to leave.

As a recent graduate, what is your impression of the education system in Croatia? What do you think is good about it and what could be better?

What I like about the Croatian education system is that, unlike some other countries, we can go to high schools that educate us about a particular vocation and craft. It is very useful, and it has also been for me.

Based on your own experience, can you say that everything is possible in Croatia if you work hard, work on yourself, are educated and ambitious?

Yes, I believe it is, just some jobs here don't have the audience for it, and that can maybe be a problem, but sometimes you can reach your audience online, so it also works.

If you could change only one thing in Croatia, what would it be, and why do you think it's important?

The thing I really don't like in Croatia is the old communist system stemming out in different ways and functions. For instance, last year, during the first lockdown, people were being checked if they stayed at their homes by the police a few times in 2 days for some people. Even people who lived during Tito's time still stand by his politics.

As a young Croatian, what are you most proud of in Croatia?

The country's beauty and the lifestyle. And of course, our football players.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of Croatia, and will it be a better or worse place for your children?

I think Croatia is one of the best countries to raise your children. It is a really safe and innocent country. I believe it will be a better place.

Are you a student or recent graduate who would like to contribute your voice and experiences to this series? If yes, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject "Graduate."

To read more from the Croatian Graduate Perspective series, follow TCN's dedicated page.