April 29, 2019 - The 31st round of the Croatian First League was held from April 26 to 28, 2019. While the Croatian champions Dinamo have nothing to play for but pride for the rest of the season, they did manage to lose to Osijek - and after a brilliant display by Hajduk in the 30th round, the Split club fell to Gorica. 

Without further ado, here is our round 31 HNL recap. 

Lokomotiva v. Istra 1961 (1:1)

Lokomotiva and Istra opened the 31st round on Friday, April 26, 2019, in Zagreb in front of 480 fans. 

Lokomotiva was the first to score thanks to a goal by Ivanušec in the 40th minute for 1:0 at the half. Fuentes equalized for Istra 10 minutes later for 1:1. 

Lokomotiva is currently in 6th place with 48 points, while Istra is in 9th place with 22. 

Gorica v. Hajduk (3:0)

Gorica and Hajduk met on Saturday, April 27, 2019, in Velika Gorica in front of 8,000 fans. 

Gorica scored their first goal already in the 11th minute thanks to Miya. Just before the half in the 45th minute, Zwolinski nailed Gorica’s second goal, which was a penalty, for 2:0. Miya scored again for Gorica in the 47th to confirm the blowout win. 

Gorica is currently in 5th place with 49 points, while Hajduk is in 4th with 50. 

Osijek v. Dinamo (2:1)

Osijek and Dinamo met on Saturday, April 27, 2019, at City Garden Stadium in front of 3,310 fans.

Dinamo was the first to score thanks to a goal by Šitum in the 20th minute. Talys equalized for Osijek in the 36th for 1:1. 

After Dinamo’s Perić was given a red card in the 66th minute, Osijek’s Marić was able to score for the win in the 76th minute for 2:1. 

Osijek is currently in 3rd place with 53 points, while Dinamo is in first with 79. 

Inter Zaprešić v. Slaven Belupo (1:3)

Inter and Belupo met in Zaprešić on Sunday, April 28, 2019, in front of 263 fans. 

Goda scored for Belupo in the 6th minute for 0:1 at the half. Tsonev equalized for Inter in the 54th, though it was Canadjija to retake the lead for Belupo in the 58th. Delić secured Belupo’s win in the 60th for 1:3. 

Inter is currently in 8th place with 21 points, while Belupo is in 7th with 29. 

Rijeka v. Rudeš (3:1)

Rijeka and Rudeš closed out the 31st round at Rujevica stadium on Sunday, April 28, 2019, in front of 2,846 fans. 

Lončar scored for Rijeka in the 35th minute, which was followed by a goal by Puljić just two minutes later for 2:0. Lisakovich was able to score for Rudeš just before the half for 2:1. 

Čolak scored for Rijeka in the 69th minute for 3:1. 

Rijeka is currently in second place with 59 points, while Rudeš remains in last with 10. 

You can see the full HNL table there. 

To read more about sport in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page. 

This Croatian startup from Zagreb is a real mix of classical and virtual mobile games, but also has an educational mission.

As Ivan Tominac/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 28th of April, 2019, today, virtual games have replaced classic ones like ''Čovječe ne ljuti se'' (Ludo) or ''Monopoly'', but when classically associated with a digital game, you end up with a smart social game - Mundus.

A passionate love for technology is shared by three students from Zagreb. They all came together two years ago, and their project is Mundus. Social games are undervalued today, these guys agree, and although industry experts might say that their project isn't in demand in this day and age, the fact is that they entered the startup world directly from their school desks and are learning in parallel with the development of the project.

"We had to combine what was unknown knowledge to us back then. But given the fact that we love to learn and to develop technology, it wasn't difficult for us,'' stated of Mundus's members, Filip Hercig, who was the one to kick off the project initially.

The idea for Mundus was quite spontaneous back at the end of 2015 when Hercig, who is now in charge of business development, showcased the very first concept of this clever game during a competition for young technicians and young entrepreneurs. The name changed several times - at the earliest stage it was called ''Zabavan put Hrvatske'' (A fun journey of Croatia) and then ''Svijet na dlanu'' (The world in your palm), before taking on its current name.

"In the summer of 2017, when we came to the CROZ company to develop our ideas, we decided to shorten its name from Svijet na dlanu down to just Svijet, but as it didn't sound good, we decided to translate into Latin, and that's how Mundus began,'' said Filip Hercig.

It seems that Mundus isn't just your regular type of game, and the focus of the project today is on the application of this technology within the scope of formal education. It's actually an educational system, and the game is just one of the solutions the Mundus team is working on. A mobile device acts as a kind of gaming agent, where players choose the theme for the game and launch a quiz, and everything else is played on the game's board, like with classic games before the Internet age.

Things became much more serious for this Croatian startup back in September of last year, when they won the Good Game Liftoff startup competition.

"They chose us as the best startup and besides giving us their trust, they also gave us 100,000 kuna. We can't forget to mention the Good Game Global company that actually organised the competition and raised all the funds for that prize,'' added Hercig.

After winning the Good Game Liftoff, this Croatian startup managed to secure numerous collaborations, is currently working with 48 schools across the Republic of Croatia, and interest in the game has stretched far beyond the borders of the country, and even beyond the borders of the EU and the European continent.

"There's interest on the Australian and New Zealand market, specifically in the education sector. We're currently conducting tests that are a prerequisite for serious moves in these markets,'' said Hercig. Mundus is actually still a non-profit organisation, explained Hercig, and in 2019, it should turn into a real company.

"We're oriented towards cooperating with educational institutions, but of course we're not closing the door to purchase options for private users. We've got potential there tool, and in order to best explore the mass market, we plan to launch a Kickstarter campaign in September 2019,'' concluded Mundus' Filip Hercig.

Make sure to follow our dedicated business and Made in Croatia pages for much more.

Click here for the original article by Ivan Tominac for Poslovni Dnevnik

A young Croat has broken the Guinness World Record for pushing a 730 kg car with a driver inside through Zagreb.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 26th of April, 2019, Ivana Trump, President Donald Trump's first wife, has been staying in Zagreb over the past few days, and one of the main reasons for her visit to Croatia is for her to undergo eye surgery that has now been safely and successfully performed at the Zagreb's well known Svjetlost Clinic.

Owing to the intervention of Svjetlost Clinic, the first wife of Donald Trump has permanently resolved her vision problems.

Ivana Trump is an internationally known public fiture who decided to entrust the health of her eyes to Croatian experts from the Svjetlost Clinic, more specifically to prof. dr. sc. Nikica Gabrić, who personally operated on her.

''I was told about the top ophthalmic clinic in Zagreb by friends from New York who had already had their operations here. With them, I noticed that their operations had totally raised their quality of life,'' said Ivana Trump after surgery.

Ivana Trump visited Zagreb's Svjetlost Clinic last year when she arrived in Zagreb to participate as an honorary guest of the Miss Universe Croatia competition. Then, she underwent an examination with Professor Gabrić, who advised her to install Symfony intraocular lenses to solve her vision problems. Back then, she couldn't undergo the surgery due to obligations she had, but that's why she visited Zagreb again to get rid of the need to wear glasses forever.

"The operation was fast, painless, and I can see today without any problems without glasses. I have a completely different and glorious view of the world I'm going to discover again,'' added a satisfied Ivana Trump.

"With the arrival of patients like Ivana Trump, the perception of Croatia is beginning to change as a country that offers guests just the sea and the sun. Such events create the story of Croatia as a desirable destination for health tourism and the country where the most demanding patients can get top medical services. The Svjetlost Clinic crossed over the borders of Croatia long ago and has become a brand known out there in the world, and this can only be achieved if you have modern technology, top-notch experienced specialists, but also a special approach for every patient,'' stated dr. sc. Nikica Gabrić.

Make sure to follow our dedicated lifestyle page for much more. If it's just Zagreb you're interested in, give Total Zagreb a follow, or find out everything you need to know in one page here. Interested in health tourism in Croatia? Click here.

As Lucija Spiljak/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 24th of April, 2019, Vid Juračić, a young Croatian architect, is the initiator of the fun and educational YouTube project ''Kvart priča''.

''It's important to try and do a variety of things while you're still at college because that's the right time to experiment and capture your dreams,'' these are the thoughts which are guiding 26-year-old Vid Juračić, a young Croatian architect, YouTuber and entrepreneur, and the initiator of the aforementioned educational and entertaining YouTube series project.

As part of the series, Vid visits various Zagreb neighbourhoods and, through the stories of this young man and an old man, he gets his followers better acquainted with some of the most hidden corners and the sights of the Croatian capital city of Zagreb in just fifteen minutes. Although he has successfully completed his education in architecture, Vid isn't spending his time designing houses but producing video content, and given the many ideas, plans and ambitions he has, this is just the beginning of the innovative content he creates which will be offered to his growing follower base.

After this multi-talented Croatian video maker realised that creating video content was what he wanted to do in life, he opened a company for making video footage, in which he offers video and movie production services; from the development of scenarios, recording, directing, to editing.

"I make a living from that. I can't complain, there's work. At the moment, I've been taking a break from working with clients and devoted myself solely to my own projects like Kvart priča,'' Vid explained. He first became lured by scenography four years ago, and then he began to work with recording, editing and directing. That's how his desire to create his own film was born. "I recorded my first short feature film back in 2015, and shortly after that I started working on YouTube videos. Working with videos and movies is a lot more exciting for me at this moment in time, but I'm sure I'll get back to architecture eventually, even if it's just to design my own house for myself,'' said Vid.

YouTube and all of the similar networks that have emerged with the birth and quick development of the Internet are currently the mainstream media, though such platforms may not be well-known to some people, says Vid, adding that it's difficult to state all of the jobs YouTube offers today.

"Americans have put all of this under one name, it's a bit banal, ''content creator'', which is perhaps the simplest way to describe these new types of jobs. Therefore, there's room for everyone's ideas. If people want to watch what you're doing, even if that's a relatively small number of people, then there's an opportunity to make more out of it than just a hobby. Attention is the top currency in the world, through attention, time is spent, and time is money. What people spend time on is worth it; that's why Instagram and YouTube get it,'' he explains.

This young Croatian entrepreneur believes YouTube will be a long-standing source of earning for a long time, given that we're actually only at the very beginning of the era in which people are making money from posting online.

"As far as YouTube is concerned, more people are watching it than creating videos on it, which is a great thing for those of us who do create; the demand is huge, the offer is limited, it couldn't be better,'' says Vid. The secret of his success is authenticity, but also the fact that he values ​​everyone who watches and follows him, which is one of the main reasons why he doesn't want to sell out.

"I don't do what I'm doing to become richer, but because I want to leave behind something that people will be able to appreciate today and in fifty years, but of course I still want to be financially successful," he says.

''It's recommended that people doo something alongside their current job because you never know what opportunities will come knocking with time. It is important to emphasise that it is very difficult to dedicate yourself properly to something when you already have a job and work from 09:00 to 17:00, so I'd especially like to emphasise the fact that it's important to try and do various things while you're still at college. That's the right time for experiments and capturing dreams,'' noted Vid.

"I have a lot of ideas for new projects and it's always a fight with time because I don't have enough of it to do all these projects. I want to make a spin off series of Kvart priča - Otok priča, where I visit the Adriatic islands during the summer. Of course, there's also the ability to make Kvart priča for other Croatian cities. But I'm also planning some projects unrelated to Kvart priča, such as directing a long film. I've always got plans,'' concluded Vid Juračić.

Make sure to follow our dedicated lifestyle and Made in Croatia pages for much more on Croatian products, companies, services, and creations.

Click here for the original article by Lucija Spiljak for Poslovni Dnevnik

On Thursday, April 25th, in the Biggest Little Rock Club in Zagreb (officially called Hard Place, located in a building right in frot of the building of Croatian National and University Library in Zagreb at Hrvatske bratske zajednice street in Zagreb) the sixth edition of the Biggest Little Rock Festival will start!

This year, just like all the previous years, the festival will host 9 amazing rock bands in a very friendly environment, with loads of supporting events.

On Thursday night the headliners will be a band from Rijeka called the Blagdan Band. While that name does not have a lot of recognition, the band members most certainly do: they come from the greatest bands in Rijeka (Laufer, Let 3 and En Face)! Blagdan band mostly does covers of the songs by some of the rock greats, such as T Rex, Clash, Pink Floyd or Pro Arte! In addition to them, on Thursday you will be able to hear a band from Zagreb called Terminator, and a garage rock band called Thee Melomen, who have recently had their songs appear on recent compilations sold worldwide. 

On Friday evening, the main event will be the performance by Neno Belan and his band Fiumens, and they will be performing all of the biggest hits originally recorded by Belan's former band, Đavoli. It will be a very nostalgic concert, as they will try and become the band from the late eighties, which tried to sound as if they were from the sixties! One of the signature sounds of Đavoli was the saxophone, and of course, Jakša Kriletić - Jordes on his sax will be joining the Fiumens for this performance. In addition to them, a band from Zagreb called Mačke will perform, and their biggest hit Crvena Kristina will certainly be heard, as well as the Sunnyriders.

On Saturday, Atomsko sklonište, a band that's celebrating 42 years of active career will be performing for the Zagreb crowd. Bruno Langer, the band's frontman, says that their audience these days covers three generations - a grandmother, a mother and a daughter can all enjoy their concerts. And if Atomsko sklonište is not enough for you, there will be two other bands performing on Saturday: Side Effects and a young band Magnar.

If you want to get to know Zagreb and Croatia rock scene, the Biggest Little Rock Festival is not to be missed!

April 24, 2019 - The latest news from around Croatia’s airports for new flights to Croatia with updates from Zadar and Zagreb airports. 

Although the Croatian economic situation isn't the most promising one in the world and you’ll encounter and many young people are leaving the country in search of better future, not everything is as bad as the news might suggest.

Croatia is full of young, driven, educated and ambitious individuals who want to create something for themselves in their own country by founding startups.

On a very long list of successful Croatian startups, TalentLyft, is a name you should remember. It was recently recognised as the best Croatian startup by Global Startup Awards. EU-Startups, the leading online publication with a focus on startups in Europe, has also found TalentLyft to be the most promising Croatian startup you should look out for in 2019 and beyond.

Founded in 2015 in Zagreb by two developers, Mario Buntić and Nikola Biondić, TalentLyft is a startup that developed a recruiting software that modernises and simplifies the recruiting process, in other words, it is a recruiting tool that helps companies find, attract and hire the best talent. It offers both recruitment and marketing solutions to attract the best candidates, and an applicant tracking system to solve post-application problems such as effective candidate communication, a database with all the applicants and their profiles, candidate assessment kits and scorecards, and interview scheduling all in one place.

Today, TalentLyft boasts thirteen full time employees and is currently located at Technopark (venue for startups at Velesajam).

In a brief interview with Total Croatia News, they revealed that startup life in Croatia isn't easy. There are many barriers to overcome in order to enter the market and start a business, starting from bureaucratic conundrums to finding capital investors, which is difficult to do in this environment. There is not much support for small firms and startups, so you’re very much on your own. Instead of focusing on new, promising sectors such as IT, the Croatian Government still invests in outdated industries.

Times and job markets are changing, and so should their investments.

‘’There's always a solid chance that your product will fail,'' they say. The startup life is risky, challenging and uncertain and requires a lot of hard work, devotion, persistence and compromise. However, despite, or exactly because of that, working in a startup offers a unique chance for personal and professional skill development and career advancement. When you are a small startup, you need to deliver a game changing solution and product in order to compete with the big guys. The only way to do that is by having all of your employees constantly learn new things, experiment and innovate.

‘’Since TalentLyft is a small group, every employees’ opinion is important; changes are embraced rapidly making us more agile’’, they state.

They are also proud of the fact that they're working with latest technologies in the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning, emphasising the fact that their employees’ knowledge needs to be up to date and that you can lose good people if they’re stuck working with old technologies.

‘’Yes it’s the employees’ responsibility to keep learning, but it’s our responsibility to provide them with the tools necessary for that,'' they state from this Croatian startup.

They love the fact that they are a small team because it means there's a better connection: ‘’You know everyone by their name, you work hard together, you share your struggles and the laughs, and you get the chance to build something from the ground up.’’

The startup life is for those who embrace challenges, seek new ways of doing things, and question the status quo.

‘’When you manage to gather together a group of people like that, every day feels like an adventure and there is no challenge you can’t tackle in the end.’’

Let's hope we'll see more examples like this across Croatia in the near future.

Follow our dedicated business page for more information on Croatian startups, Croatian companies, products and services, and doing business and investing in Croatia.

Just how close are we to a real digital Croatia? The answer is unclear and as varied as ever, but some Croatian cities have shown promise with some rather impressive and encouraging results.

As Novac/Gradonacelnik.hr writes on the 23rd of April, 2019, although more and more cities are gradually digitising their business and investing in smart city solutions, and some of the most advanced have almost completely switched to doing solely digital business, generally speaking, Croatian cities are only in the very early stages of the much needed digital transition, just as Croatia is, as a country, at the very bottom in Europe in terms of the digital readiness of general society and the economy.

As the methodology for ranking cities in terms of digital readiness is only at its very beginning even at the European level, stories and analysis of the "smart city" concept development here in Croatia are still very much based on individual experiences, examples and projects.

That is why, in order to gain a real elementary insight into the digitalisation of Croatia's services and the communication of the country's many city administrations with citizens, experts from Apsolon, a consulting company specialising in digital business development, has undertaken the very first major study of the ''digital readiness'' of twenty of the largest cities across Croatia. This study, according to project manager and smart management director at Apsolon, Ivana Novoselec, is the basis for the further development of research tools and methodology that will track the development and progress of Croatia's cities on an annual basis.

In its study, Apsolon divided the cities into three categories - large (Zagreb, Split, Rijeka, Osijek), middle (Zadar, Velika Gorica, Slavonski Brod, Pula and Karlovac) and smaller cities (Sisak, Varaždin, Šibenik, Dubrovnik, Bjelovar, Kaštela, Samobor, Vinkovci, Koprivnica, Đakovo, Vukovar.)

The digital readiness index at Apsolon was set based on several criteria - the availability of e-services (the number of administrative services and their digitalisation rate in Croatia), the availability of site service information and the development of unified services for making payments in the city, then came the availability of city data, the level of citizen participation in decision making and communication channels between the city administration and citizens, ie, the availability of data and time in which citizens receive answers to their various questions. At this stage, Apsolon hasn't entered into the internal processes in Croatia's city administrations, but rather focused on what services are offered to the city's citizens and how long such things typically take.

After this type of indexing and ranking, the title of the ''digitisation champion'' among the Croatian cities was awarded to the City of Rijeka, thus confirming its status as the best city in the Smart City category which it won last year. Apsolon pointed out that the City of Rijeka has achieved the greatest advances in the systematic raising of the quality of its services, but also the opening of data and communication channels to citizens.

"Rijeka as the most advanced city in Croatia in terms of digitisation and is characterised in particular by the emphasis on openness and communication with its citizens. Its administration is oriented towards clear communication (a very clear centralised e-services approach with well-organised access to all automated services and available forms), openness and participatory management," said project manager Ivana Novoselac.

In many categories, especially those relating to the functional aspects of digitisation (advanced digital services, e-citizen connectivity, etc.), Rijeka is followed closely by the City of Zagreb.

The city of Pula is the most advanced middle-size city in Croatia, which also presents its services and available information to its citizens in a systematic and very detailed way, raising standards in terms of transparency and interaction with citizens, and is certainly a champion among cities with between 50.000 and 100.000 inhabitants.

In relation to the criteria relating to specific functional and technological solutions, Karlovac, Velika Gorica and Zadar follow. For the City of Karlovac the large number of available administrative procedures on its website and responses to citizens' inquiries are generally quick made it stand out from the crowd.

Among the small cities in Croatia, there is no distinctly dominant digital champion, but according to research findings in different aspects of digitisation, Dubrovnik, Samobor, Sisak, Koprivnica and Varaždin appear to be the most successful ones, according to this research. Among the prominent representatives of this category, Dubrovnik is strategically trying to profile as Smart City and has a high quality City Card, e-Visitor platform, is very active on social networks and it continuing to develop innovative application solutions. When it comes to the number of digitally available services, Koprivnica ranks above all.

Samobor, which is particularly active on social networks and is the category winner for social networking, has a very comprehensive and interactive website which separates the site accordingly and has adjusted all of the information for citizens and for visitors, as well as separating foreign visitors from domestic ones.

It should also be noted that Bjelovar is extremely proactive in the field of the digitalisation of its administration, it is working on applicative transparency solutions as well as on internal digitalisation processes. What is particularly commendable is Bjelovar's focus on the digitalisation of its internal processes.

Make sure to follow our dedciated lifestyle page for much more.

Click here for the original article by Novac/Jutarnji/Gradonacelnik.hr

ZAGREB, April 23, 2019 - The Zagreb city authorities have decided to close down the city's most successful independent cinema, Europa Cinema, despite the lack of a renovation plan and a strong legal basis for the extension of the lease contract held by the Zagreb Film Festival organisation, the cinema's press service said on Tuesday, noting that the cinema would be returned to the city's possession and further management on June 1, but that the leaseholder would continue its legal battle for the cinema.

Recalling that they had asked the city authorities to allow the cinema to continue operating until the start of renovation work and that their request was turned down, as well as that they had proposed their own renovation plans for a number of years, the Zagreb Film Festival and the Propeler Film d.o.o. company said that on June 1 the management of the cinema building would have to be transferred to the city.

The Kino Europa press service also noted that over the past ten years the Zagreb Film Festival and the Propeler Film d.o.o. company had raised the cinema's status to one of the European cinemas with the best programme and that the 120,000 people who had seen its programmes in 2018 testified to its status of an unavoidable place on Zagreb's cultural map.

"The case of Kino Europa is only one in a number of disturbingly similar cases where the city authorities, by ignoring the will of citizens and professionals' demands, are systematically destroying the city's cultural scene. That is why until June 1 we will launch a number of activities to draw the public's attention to the ongoing destruction of culture in Zagreb," the Kino Europa press service said.

The cinema, which turns 94 years old this month has been extremely successful over the last ten years, holding over 14,000 projections with over one million visitors. In 2016, it won the European Best Cinema Award.

The Zagreb city authorities recently decided not to renew the Zagreb Film Festival's lease contract for the cinema, citing plans to renovate the cinema building, located in downtown Zagreb.

More than 2,000 people gathered outside the cinema on April 6 to show support for the cinema’s management.

The management has said that the City is using the guise of renovation to get rid of the cinema’s current management and bring a new tenant in.

The Office of Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić has said the cinema will remain an art cinema after the necessary renovation.

More Zagreb news can be found in the Lifestyle section.