As part of the second edition of the "Meet Your Country" project, the Croatian Tourist Guides Association and partners will organize free guided tours in many cities across Croatia. The free guided tours will take place on the International Day of Recognition in Croatia, Sunday, January 13, 2019, at noon, reports HRTurizam on January 9, 2019. 

The guided tours are intended firstly for locals to get to know their city better and become ambassadors of Croatian tourism, but, of course, to all other visitors and tourists too.

“We wanted to highlight the importance of protected land sites in the country and the Ordinance on the List of Protected Locations (which is still under construction), which are the only places in Croatia which will be presented exclusively by tourist guides who have been educated in the Republic of Croatia,” said Kristina Niuć Prka, the president of the Croatian Tourist Guides Association, adding that the initiative this year includes 58 cities.

The list of cities and municipalities where free guided tours will be organized are Trogir, Split, Solin, Klis, Sinj, Trilj, Dubrovnik, Korčula, Šibenik, Drniš, Zadar, Rab, Opatija, Vepribac, Lovran, RIjeka, Krk, Vrbnik, Trsat, Labin, Rovinj, Pula, Vodnjan, Pazin, Buje, Poreč, Karlovac, Zagreb , Varaždin, Slavonski brod, Lipik, Osijek, Vukovar, Vinkovci, Otočac, Plitvice, Đakovo, Buzet, Roč, Hum, Motovun, Viškovo, Imotski, Cres, Novalja, Krapisnke Toplice, Jastrebarsko, Pag, Bakar, Daruvar, Hrvatska Kostajnica, Nin, Kastav, and Sisak.

In Croatia, there are a total of 555 local self-government units, namely 428 municipalities and 127 cities, making it interesting that not all cities and tourist boards are participating in this action. 

“Meet Your Country” is an excellent tourist story and a significant segment in the mosaic of Croatia’s tourism story which the country cannot continue to neglect. It is the people that make up the best cities, thus the locals are tourism and the best ambassadors of Croatian tourism. The local population gives a rhythm and pulse to the destination, and visitors want to be introduced to the city by locals through their culture, lifestyle, customs, and stories because it is precisely the essence of tourism.

In conclusion, getting acquainted with your city and transforming citizens into ambassadors of Croatian tourism is crucial for the development of tourism. Get out there and learn more about your city this Sunday! You can find out more about where you're meeting in your city here. 

To learn more about tourism in Croatia, follow TCN's dedicated page. 

It seems that Gypsy Table, a unique concept of top-quality dinners whose location is hidden until the final moment, has really conquered Croatia. The author of the idea is Richard Gruica, the ultimate gastronomic maestro and a visionary who has dedicated his latest edition of Gypsy pop-up dinners to women.

Inspired by his mother, the gastro-director this time brought together a strong female "cast" of chefs, artists, winemakers and other entrepreneurs in the world of food, wine, beauty and fine spirits.

At the very beginning of the year, on Friday, January 4th, Gypsy Table saw its third Zagreb edition, which again delighted the guests. After having fun the last time at "Katran", with acrobats, fire-breathers and fortune tellers, this time the location was the Avant Garden restaurant, which offered chic industrial experience to the guests.

As usual, the dinner started with welcome drinks, the Kraljica sparkling wine by winemaker Ivana Puhelek and cocktails mixed by Lori Brnčić and Gordana Muktić, inspired by the Santa Clara liqueurs, the Gin Mare and the 1724 tonic. The MC (mistress of the ceremony) was our well-known jazz singer Ines Tričković, who greeted the guests with a beautiful a cappella performance of La Vie En Rose.

The first course was a snack made with lard of black Slavonian pig, salad and sourdough bread, and chef Petra Plantak paired this dish with the 2017 Wild Skins wine, produced by the well-known winemaker and the Master of Wine, Jo Ahearne, who personally presented her wine. The second course consisted of black pudding with coleslaw black radish salad, red cabbage and a sauce made of cumin and a jam of purple onions, pomegranates, red wine and carob breadcrumbs, paired with 2013 Zinfandel by the Bura-Mrgudić winery. Antonija and Marija Mrgudić presented the wines.

The third course, tuna goulash with polenta by Ružica Jukučić, was paired with the 2014 Ahearne South Side Plavac Mali, while the fourth course was named “Crispy and Fragrantly" and consisted of lamb confit in olive oil, the Luganina sausage, barley, pumpkin cream and chickpea puree. The delicious meal was accompanied by the Bura-Mrgudić 2016 Plavac Mali Sivi, a Plavac Mali "mutant" macerated for four days and made by just three wineries in Croatia.

Throughout the evening, famous illustrator Maya Beus, whose background is with the international fashion houses, was making portraits of guests – each costing about 200 kuna. The income went to charity, more precisely to the Autonomous Women's House Zagreb (AWHZ), a feminist organization with the mission of providing support and assistance to women who have survived violence and of empowering women's position in the society.

The end of the evening was marked by the creation of famous Croatian pastrycook Petra Jelenić, the Great Dame Pumpkin. Antonija Nikolić paired it with the Spanish 75 cocktail, designed by the owner of "50 A Burger and Champagne Bar" Adena Lavin. The dinner was also supported by Ivana Urem Marohnić (the famous Korica bakery in Zagreb), Bosiljka Belić (excellent extra-virgin olive oil Oleum Viride), Sanda Martinčević (+ Gligora cheeses), Ana Teskera and Maja Šepetavec (Brlog craft brewery) and Irena Bastijanić (Poeticacao) whose sweet delicacies were given as presents at the end of the dinner.

All ladies were wearing clothes designed by Iva Karačić. 

MaliParty was the event space designer, while cocktails were also supported by Althaus and Hug & Punch Coffee Co, both female owned companies.

More news on the culinary events in Croatia can be found in our Lifestyle section.

ZAGREB, January 9, 2019 - During the Christmas and New Year holidays, namely between November 30 and January 6, Zagreb recorded excellent tourist results. It welcomed 140,633 tourists, or 11% more than in 2017, the Zagreb tourism board reported on Wednesday. Tourists in Zagreb generated 271,244 overnights.

Of the total number of tourists, 45,349 were from Croatia, up 10% on the year, and 95,314 were foreigners, up 12%.

Croatian tourists generated 82,402 overnights, or 14% more on the year, while foreigners accounted for 188,842 nights or 16% more than in 2017.

The majority of tourists came from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Italy, Slovenia, Austria, Germany.

Over 860,000 holiday makers visited the second largest Croatian city of Split in 2018, making more than 2.5 million overnight stays, which was respectively 18% and 16% more than in 2017, the local tourist board said in a press release on Wednesday.

The bed-night statistics show that the most numerous were visitors from the UK, the US, Germany, France and Poland.

Apart from the peak summer months, Split was also an attractive destination during the Advent season in December when 14,195 guests visited the city and made 33,416 overnight stays, up by 17% and 19% respectively in comparison to December 2017.

The statistics about the tourist trade in December show that Split has been recognised as an ideal tourist destination in the winter months. Split continues registering excellent results in the tourism sector owing to continued investments in year-round cultural and entertainment programmes, according to the press release.

Users of the Booking.com platform included Split among the best 20 cities to visit. Zadar and Dubrovnik also made the list, ranking 16th and 20th. The list was topped by Rome and Saint Petersburg.

Booking.com also revealed the Most Welcoming Places on Earth according to customer reviews. Croatia ranks 6th given that 34,027 properties in the country have been seen as places that deserve a Guest Review Award.

"For the seventh annual edition of the awards, 759,845 properties in total across 219 countries and territories are being given an award, with the top countries receiving the most awards being Italy (106,513), Spain (46,646), France (45,286), Germany (36,042), United States (35,626), Croatia (34,027), United Kingdom (31,206), Russian Federation (26,729), Poland (26,572), and Brazil (24,477)," Booking.com said.

The most welcoming countries are: Austria, Czech Republic, Poland, New Zealand, Taiwan, Romania, Hungary, Ireland, Serbia, and Greece, the plaform reports.

"The most welcoming destinations are Goreme (Turkey), Slunj (Croatia), Eluanbi (Taiwan), Niagara on the Lake (Canada), Lake Tekapo (New Zealand), Bendigo (Australia), Newport (United States), Nozawa Onsen (Japan), Fernando de Noronha (Brazil) and El Chalten (Argentina).

"This is especially relevant for the 73% of global travellers that say friendly and interesting locals are one of their top considerations when selecting a destination for their next trip."

More news on the Croatian tourist industry can be found in our Travel section.

A project for Medvednica, a mountain located in Central Croatia just north of Zagreb, will see trees planted. Medvednica nature park is a popular destination, located close to Zagreb with its highest peak being the much loved Sljeme.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 8th of January, 2019, the JYSK retail chain has launched a project which will see the shopping giant collect all the funds made from the sale of plastic bags containing 50 percent recyclable material from January the 2nd to March the 31st, 2019, and putting them to good use for the purpose of preserving the environment in the Republic of Croatia.

In close cooperation with Croatian forests (Hrvatske šume), the funds collected from the sale of the bags will be intended for the purchase of as many as 10,000 beech seedlings for the purpose of the afforestation of two zones of the popular Medvednica nature park near Zagreb. The goal of this praiseworthy and highly socially responsible project is to raise further awareness of the importance of the need for forests and of their development.

"As a large international company which is in daily contact with thousands of customers, suppliers and associates, we're aware of our roles in the development of socially responsible business, creating a new value for all participants. Our wish is to raise public awareness of the important issues and we're confident that we will encourage many to behave more conscientiously towards nature,'' said Vesna Kukić-Lončarić, JYSK's country manager for Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia.

JYSK has initiated a project on the basis of a new directive of the European Union which was introduced in Croatia on January the 1st, 2019. It is a measure to reduce the use of non-recyclable plastic bags. In addition to the effect the retail chain wants to have over regular citizens, JYSK wants to encourage its own employees to actively engage in afforestation in Croatia, and plans to plant the huge number of aforementioned beet seedlings after the end of the fundraising cycle, which will be in April 2019.

"We're pleased that JYSK has recognised the importance of forest care in Croatia. Planting on surfaces that have suffered several times after stormy weather is crucial to restoring the balance of nature. We hope this will also encourage other companies to launch similar initiatives,'' said Damir Miškulin, head of the Zagreb branch of Croatian forests.

Make sure to stay up to date with more news on Medvednica and much more by following our dedicated lifestyle page. If you fancy yourself as a bit of an eco warrior, give Total Eco Croatia a follow.

ZAGREB, January 8, 2019 - Independent Democratic Serb Party (SDSS) president Milorad Pupovac said on Tuesday that Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandić was destabilising parliamentarism.

Asked by reporters about actions taken by the USKOK anti-corruption office in connection with MPs who left their own parties to join the parliamentary group of Bandić's party, Pupovac said there had been cases of crossing the floor before and that he doubted that actions taken by the authorities would yield results.

The situation in some parties is bad and people are leaving them for various reasons, he said, wondering what made MP Marija Puh more significant since she left the Croatian People's Party. "Nothing, because before she only spoke out once a week and now not even once a month."

I respect Mayor Bandić but there's a limit to everything. He's not an unreasonable man and should realise that this is an extreme destabilisation of parliamentarism in the country, regardless of intentions and motives. It's necessary to keep a minimum of the credibility of MPs and of morality in parliament, said Pupovac.

He said he was not the whip of Bandić's party, Robert Jankovics, who mentioned Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and his support to the government five times in two sentences, recalling that he expressed support to the prime minister three days ago and that he still supported him because he did not want to cause him problems.

Pupovac said it was necessary to change parliament's Standing Orders so that all ethnic minority MPs could be in one group and not serve as rent-an-MP because thereby they deeply compromised minority seats in parliament.

He said the MPs who joined the parliamentary group of Bandić's party had not signed the ruling coalition agreement nor taken positions on the government's programme, policy and future, so in the best case scenario they could be considered an associated voting part of the ruling majority.

"For now, I see nothing more than that and as long as it stays so, it doesn't have to be a problem for us, but it can become one if some parties start voicing concern about the circumstances under which their MPs are leaving them," Pupovac said.

More news on the Zagreb mayor can be found in our Politics section.

As Ana Blaskovic/Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 8th of January, 2019, the Croatian capital city of Zagreb exports 33.2 billion kuna of goods annually, whereas all of the counties of coastal Croatia together export only 15.9 billion kuna annually as a whole.

Despite ever louder warnings that the Croatian domestic economic model is growing weaker because of excessive reliance on tourism, it's likely that not only will that trend change soon, but that the changes will continue to strengthen in the future.

When analysing the figures on commodity exports, the Croatian Chamber of Commerce (HGK) points out that Zagreb exports 33.2 billion kuna of goods annually, twice more than the total exports of all of the counties of coastal Croatia put together - just 15.9 billion kuna. While the commodity export of Zagreb stands for one third of Croatia's total exports, these startling regional differences are so high that, for example, Croatia's southernmost county of Dubrovnik-Neretva, fails to even produce 157 million kuna's worth of goods, let alone export it.

If exports are looked at per capita, then the largest regional exporter is Varaždin County, followed by Zagreb and then Međimurje County. With 172.5 euro per head, Dubrovnik-Neretva County is far, far below the national export duty, of 3,360 euro per capita. The Croatian Chamber of Commerce says that Zagreb is far ahead of all of the others for the simple reason that data on foreign trade is recorded at the headquarters of companies, which logically gravitate to the capital.

Zagreb has the largest foreign trade surplus among Croatia's counties, standing at 46.8 billion kuna. Following are Sisak-Moslavina with 1.2 billion kuna, Brod-Posavina with 868 million kuna and Međimurska with 766 million kuna.

"Despite the shortcomings of the statistics, including the temporary relocation of large companies, it can be concluded that Croatia's accession to the EU and the period of recovery of EU-level demand were the most profitable for Lika-Senj, Zagreb County, and Brod-Posavina, which have achieved the largest export growth rates,'' stated Zvonimir Savić.

Make sure to stay up to date with our dedicated business page for more. If it's just Zagreb you're interested in, give Total Zagreb a follow.

Click here for the original article by Ana Blaskovic for Poslovni Dnevnik

On January 5, 2019, the Zagreb Soloists marked the 65th anniversary of their first concert. The legendary chamber music ensemble, which in the 1980s had the best-selling classical music album in the world, will devote this whole year to the citizens and streets of Zagreb and other parts of Croatia, reports Večernji List on January 8, 2019.

“Just as the name suggests, we belong to Zagreb, not just to its lavish concert halls, and those in Vienna, Rome, Madrid, Berlin, London, New York, Sydney..., to kings, diplomats, elites that have been following us for years. Although we are proud to receive many acknowledgments and recognition on a worldwide scale, on the other hand, that gives the impression that the music is something distant and expensive. On the contrary, it is here, available to everybody, and we want to show that to our fellow citizens,” said Krunoslav Marić, the chairman of the ensemble’s management council.

The Zagreb Soloists will soon surprise the citizens at some of the famous locations in Zagreb, such as the Dolac farmers’ market and the Cibona basketball hall since the team was also at its best in the 1980s. They will perform at locations where today’s citizens of Zagreb spend a lot of their time, such as at shopping malls. It is also possible you will hear them perform a part of a string concert in your local cafe.

Each of the activities and locations, depending on the weather conditions, will be announced on time by the Zagreb Soloists, so that the citizens can come and listen to some of the best classical music of all genres. The first "street” performance will take place at Dolac on Saturday morning. The musicians are especially looking forward to the concert of “The Carnival of the Animals”, but the location itself will for now remain a secret.

According to the official website, “the Zagreb Soloists ensemble was founded in 1953 as a Radio Zagreb ensemble under the artistic leadership of the renowned cellist Antonio Janigro. They gained a reputation as one of the world’s most outstanding chamber orchestras. The Zagreb Soloists have given over 4,000 concerts on all continents and in many prestigious venues such as the Musikverein (Vienna), Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Royal Festival Hall (London), Berlin Philharmonic Hall, Tchaikowski Hall (Moscow), Santa Cecilia (Rome), Carnegie Hall (New York), Opera House (Sydney), Victoria Hall (Geneva), Teatro Real (Madrid), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), etc.

They have regularly performed at the major music festivals such as those in Salzburg, Prague, Edinburgh, Berlin, Bergen, Barcelona, Istanbul, Prades Ossiach, Dubrovnik and elsewhere, playing with numerous distinguished soloists, for example – Henryk Szeryng, Alfred Brendel, Christian Ferras, Pierre Fournier, Leonard Rose, James Galway, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Aldo Ciccolini, Katia Ricciarelli, Lily Laskin, Zuzana Růžičková, Mario Brunello, Isabelle Moretti, Guy Touvron and many others.

Zagreb Soloists’ performing repertoire entails baroque, classicist, romantic and contemporary music, with particular attention given to Croatian composers – both of those who represent the musical heritage and those of the younger generation.”

More news about the music in Croatia can be found in our Lifestyle section.

Translated from Večernji List.

The Snow Queen Trophy continued today on Zagreb’s Sljeme with the men’s race. 

Graffiti of a hammer and sickle, a proletarian solidarity symbol which primarily symbolised the unity of the peasants and the workers during the 1917 revolution and eventually became closely associated with Communism, has appeared on the newly placed Zagreb statue of independent Croatia's first president, Dr. Franjo Tuđman.

As Vecernji list (view photos here) writes on the 6th of January, 2019, the controversial hammer and sickle graffiti was sprayed by as yet unknown vandals on the new Zagreb statue to the Independent Republic of Croatia's very first president some time during Saturday night.

To briefly recall, Zagreb's new monument dedicated to Dr. Franjo Tuđman was officially unveiled on the 19th anniversary of the death of the first Croatian president. Croatian politicians, Homeland War defenders from all corners of the country, and people from across Croatia came to the capital and laid wreaths in memory of Dr. Franjo Tuđman.

Dr. Franjo Tuđman remains a controversial character and for many is a dividing character depending on which side of the political spectrum one stands on. While many consider him to be the heroic first present of the then newly independent Republic of Croatia, freed from the former shackles of an increasingly oppressive Yugoslavia, others see him in a rather different light, with many speculating on his placement as being one coordinated at the hands of those with underhand motives working against the newly independent state.

In any case, statues of the first Croatian president can be found all over Croatia, with the newest in the Croatian capital attracting a particular amount of attention, in both a positive and a negative sense.

The monument stands at a height of almost seven metres, making it the largest in the whole of the Republic of Croatia currently.

Make sure to stay up to date with our dedicated politics page for much more on the Croatian political scene.

American skier Mikaela Shiffrin is the winner of the Snow Queen Trophy on Sljeme in Zagreb!