March 28, 2020 - A very moving and uplifting video in the Zagreb earthquake aftermath, combining great images with poignant property (English with Croatian subtitles).

No need for any words from me, the YouTube channel Marko_Zido says it all about a video it uploaded 2 days ago called Sjeti Se - Remember. 

A few days ago something big happened in Croatia's capital, Zagreb. In the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, we suffered a huge earthquake of 5,4 Richter magnitude. Some people lost their homes, some lost hope & some lost both. It woke us all up in every aspect of life and I want this video to be a reminder to myself & everybody else that our time here is limited, but our love is not.

Take a step back. If you have somebody who would give their whole world just to have you by their side with a smile, don't take that for granted, ever. It's a most precious gift you could actually get on this planet. 

A true and honest human connection. Love. 

Don't waste your days. Go out there, love like you never got stabbed in your heart. Dream and smile like you're 12 years old again. I know, it's not that easy. Some of us have huge baggage from the past, some have toxic people holding them back & some simply don't have the strength to move on anymore. But it's ok. There will come days like this to remind you, that the baggage you're carrying is not that heavy when you have the help of your loved one. That toxic person in your life will leave when you stand up for yourself and that strength you're lacking, it's there just take a look inside. Just don't forget what this life is when everything is over. Be an example for younger generations, fight for the things you believe in or we'll have world filled with people who don't know what love is anymore.

The words to the poem, Good Timber by Douglas Malloch, are below:

Good Timber

by Douglas Malloch

The tree that never had to fight
For sun and sky and air and light,
But stood out in the open plain
And always got its share of rain,
Never became a forest king
But lived and died a scrubby thing.

The man who never had to toil
To gain and farm his patch of soil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow with ease:
The stronger wind, the stronger trees;
The further sky, the greater length;
The more the storm, the more the strength.
By sun and cold, by rain and snow,
In trees and men good timbers grow.

Where thickest lies the forest growth,
We find the patriarchs of both.
And they hold counsel with the stars
Whose broken branches show the scars
Of many winds and much of strife.
This is the common law of life.

For the latest on the Zagreb earthquake aftermath, follow the dedicated TCN section. 

As if a global coronavirus pandemic, a set of earthquakes and snow weren't enough, Zagreb now has to deal with another problem - a concerning amount of air pollution hanging over the city. Does the answer to the city's poor air quality lie in Turkmenistan?

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes on the 28th of March, 2020 in the western part of the Karakum desert in Turkmenistan, sand dunes as high as ninety metres extend in parallel, in a meridional direction.

Unusually high concentrations of PM10 particles were recorded across various cities and areas in Croatia, more specifically in Zagreb, Osijek, Kopački rit, Sisak and Zoljan near Našice yesterday, according to a report from Večernji list.

Experts from the ''Dr. Andrija Štampar'' Public Health Institute and the DHMZ are telling the public that this air pollution of sorts is made up primarily of sand particles which have travelled from Turkmenistan's Karakum desert, located east of the Caspian sea.

They noted that air pollution should drop down to significantly lower levels over this coming weekend. According to the Croatian Encyclopedia, the the Karakum desert, sometimes referred to as the Garagum deser, is a sandy desert in Turkmenistan, Central Asia. It extends from Lake Sarikamish and Amu ‑ Darje in the north, to the Kopet Dagh mountains in the southwest and the Garabil hills in the southeast. It covers about 350,000 square kilometres in total.

As previously stated, in the the western part of the Karakum desert, sand dunes which are almost ninety metres high extend in parallel, in a meridional direction. Along approximately 1300 kilometres of the Karakum canal (Amu-Dar-Murgab-Aşgabat-Serdar/Gyzylarbat), which irrigates about one million hectars of land in total, cotton is also grown. Sulfur, oil, and gas deposits are rich there. The southern part also sees the the Trans-Caspian railway pass through it.

Make sure to follow our lifestyle page for more. If it's just Zagreb you're interested in, give Total Zagreb a follow.

March 28, 2020 - Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Dinamo Zagreb decided to cut salaries by 30 percent to players, staff and members of the working community over the next six months. Everyone in the club agreed to the pay cut except the first team, coach Nenad Bjelica and his staff.

T.portal reports that on Wednesday, the Croatian football champion decided to cut salaries for all 450 Dinamo-based employees, to which all but the players and first-team professional staff agreed. On Thursday, the Dinamo leaders brutally retaliated by terminating the contracts of Bjelica’s closest associates - his staff. Namely, assistant coaches Rene Poms and Nino Bule, goalie coach Silvije Cavlina, conditioning coaches Martin Mayer and Karlo Reinholz and analyst Jasmin Osmanovic have been sacked.

The only one pardoned was head coach Nenad Bjelica.

On Friday, Dinamo handed over two fully equipped ambulances to the health system of Croatia, worth half a million kuna, with two donations of 250,000 kuna each for the reconstruction of the Zagreb Pediatric Disease Clinic and the Petrova Clinic for Women and Diseases, which were both damaged in the devastating earthquake on Sunday. 

After the ceremony at Maksimir Stadium, Kresimir Antolic presented the position of the GNK Dinamo Management on media reports about the split between the club management and the locker room after the decision to reduce salaries.

'We have said everything about the measures we have taken in our statement. Anyone who is reasonable, realistic, normal will recognize our intentions and why we have now introduced rationalization and austerity measures. Not because we are in a panic, but because we are thinking about what will be in three, six or nine months,” Antolic said, adding that “everyone must be responsible for what they say” and not speak of “manipulations and untruths”.

“Let us deal with our players and let them understand through conversation that this is aimed at safeguarding their contracts and securing their livelihoods, as 90 percent of other people who receive a salary from Dinamo each month accept. In a situation where people have no place to live, when apartments and houses are destroyed, when people die in hospitals, the topic now is the relationship between Dinamo's players and Dinamo. These are our players. These are no other players. Let's not make hysteria out of it. We will sit down with them and they will fully understand what this is about, that it is not about any impact on them,” Antolic revealed to the media about the club’s next move.

In a statement issued Thursday, in response to the reaction of the players, the GNK Dinamo management stated that “it had brought in measures to rationalize the remuneration of all employees for the next six months to maintain the overall stability of the club" and that they "informed every club employee in a timely manner, in accordance with the coronavirus pandemic restriction," and that the first to know was head coach Nenad Bjelica and captain Arjan Ademi with several other first-team players.

Dinamo said in a statement that the coach and the players on several occasions decisively rejected the measures imposed and that the club "received such refusal as soon as possible and in writing". The same statement read that all other employees agreed to the measures introduced and that the allegations of expeditiousness, one-sidedness and lack of analysis and communication were simply incorrect.

T.portal also reported that Dinamo did not sack coach Nenad Bjelica because they could lose millions, as Dinamo would have to pay his contract until the end, which is the summer of 2021, with all bonuses and arrears.

Bjelica currently has a contract of around 1.2 million euro a year, and until the end of the contract, he is owed over one and a half million euro. Add to that the agreed bonuses for their Champions League success this season and likely another Croatian championship, the sum could easily exceed two million euro. 

Dinamo fan group Bad Blue Boys released a statement on Friday.

Some excerpts read:

“The despotic, absolutist principle of governing our club has again shown its true face.

Amid the biggest crisis since the war in which most people in the country have been struggling to survive, using the lowest passions, the club has brought its players and coaches to the pillar of shame by sticking the label of greedy millionaires on them and leaving them at the mercy of the masses and the media, thirsty for blood and sensations. And many fans, nevertheless people, sometimes naive and confronted with the great problems of life and the threatening black clouds, reflexively perceived this situation as black and white.

For the past three days, the public has separated players and first-team coaches into simple factors by which the so-called "management" clasped their hands and closed their mouths to defend themselves and tell their side of the story in a situation that is all but black and white. They did not run the risk of rebelling coaches and players, nor did they direct this play for less money. Nor is it by chance that the entire operation was performed at this exact time.

It is a completely surreal fact that the one behind everything has been abolished by the body of the club, while at the same time, humiliating the coach and players whose character they had swore on yesterday. 

All this is just a reflection of the general schizophrenia the club is in, complete opacity and throwing dust in the eyes of fans and anyone who loves Dinamo.

The players now have the opportunity to show who they are; do they feel for this club, the fans, for the people of this city and this country, which the higher forces again threw to their knees.”

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

March 28, 2020 - Croatian libraries may have closed their doors, but that doesn’t mean you have to stop reading. A look at the e-book collections available around Croatia.

Looking for more ways to pass the time at home? Croatian libraries have you covered. While their doors may be closed during the coronavirus crisis in Croatia, you can still explore a variety of book collections from the comfort of your home, thanks to the e-books made available.

Here’s a look a part of the offer in Croatia’s three largest cities -  Zagreb, Split, and Rijeka.

Zagreb

The National and University Library in Zagreb is allowing everyone interested in heritage and collections of other heritage institutions in Croatia to explore exhibitions as part of the Library’s online exhibitions portal. Three of the exhibitions are available in English (Croatian Glagolitic Heritage, Marko Marulić and Faust Vrančić) and one in German (Marko Marulić).

“The exhibitions present valuable digitised heritage using an interactive approach, while their varied dynamic additional content, such as quizzes and jigsaw puzzles, is aimed at bringing that heritage closer to younger generations. Coordinated by the Library’s Croatian Digital Library Development Division, operating as part of the Croatian Institute for Librarianship, several Library’s departments participate in the preparation of the exhibitions. Technical support is provided by the Library’s IT Department, and, as of recently, the Blue Factory IT company, participating as an outside collaborator,” the National and University Library said on its website.

You can also find a list of digital collections, from old Croatian journals to historic newspapers here. Visit the National and University Library website.

Split

The Marko Marulic Split City Library has recently introduced e-books, making it easy for users to read while library departments are closed.

Those interested will have to download the mobile app ZaKi Book, which is available for free download through the Google Play, Apple store and Microsoft store online. Reading is thus available on Android, iOs and Windows 10 devices.

The application is logged in with a membership number and PIN.
Users can borrow the e-book for 21 days, without the possibility to extend. A member has the right to rent two titles at a time, or a maximum of five titles within one calendar month. The e-books can be read on four devices at a time.

If you do not have a PIN, please contact GKMM by email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., send your first name, last name and ID number and you will receive it as soon as possible. Visit the Marko Marulic Library website.

Rijeka

While measures are underway to protect and prevent the spread of coronaviruses, the Rijeka City Library is closed until April 14. But thanks to modern technology, library users can also rent books through the ZaKi Book app. There are more than 700 titles available, and there are currently 587 members using the application. The City Library also reports that 1,236 rentals have been made so far: in January 214, in February 446, and in March, for the time being, 576. 

The five most-read e-books so far are: "The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Recognize, Understand, and Use the Gift of High Sensitivity" by Elaine A. Aaron, "A Gentleman in Moscow" by Amor Towles, "My Not-So-Perfect Life" by Sophie Kinsela, "Anatomy of Love: A Natural History of Mating, Marriage, and Why We Stray" by Helen Fisher and "20 Steps Forward" by Jorge Bucay. As the director Niko Cvjetkovic pointed out, the Rijeka librarians are active on the web and have prepared a list of recommendations for journalism and fiction, reports Novi List.

Visit the Rijeka City Library website.

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

March 27, 2020 - Hajduk Split and Croatia basketball are the latest to join the Croatian humanitarian chain, which includes more and more athletes and clubs by the day.

Namely, Hajduk players and employees have decided to raise money for the needs of KBC Split, reports 24 Sata.

The humanitarian action is in the beginning phase, and details are still unknown, but it is alleged that about 250,000 kuna was raised immediately at the start of the first day, and that amount will surely increase when all club leaders, coaches, players, employees are involved.

The intention at first was to raise funds to buy one respirator and then to launch a bigger action to buy at least one more. However, because of the high demand globally and the lengthy delivery, Hajduk instead decided to raise money to be used for the needs of KBC Split.

Just last week, Hajduk employees collected all the remaining food in the closed club restaurant and donated it to the MoSt Association, which takes care of the homeless. The club also regularly responds to the actions of Split sports journalists '4N', who once a year collect donations for social services. A few months ago, a campaign involving numerous Split clubs raised 110,000 kuna.

There are also numerous individual examples at Hajduk, like player Stefan Simic who donated to the Crisis Headquarters in Supetar on Brac to combat the coronavirus in Croatia. Mayor Ivana Markovic publicly thanked him. 

Furthermore, the players and staff of the Croatia basketball team decided to raise funds collectively and paid over two million kuna to fight the coronavirus and repair damage at Petrova Hospital in Zagreb.

"We want to support the most sensitive part of the system at the moment - the health sector, so that patients and medical staff who are on the front lines of defense in this crisis are taken care of. We initiated this action with the hope that we would help in the fight against the coronavirus, as well as with the renovation and rehabilitation of the Petrova Hospital building, as well as procuring necessary apparatus, medicines, or anything assessed to be primary. Although we are not physically together at the moment, our hearts are in the same place - with Croatia and Zagreb,” said the players and the staff of the national team.

Many national team members, some of them former, as well as members of the staff, took part in the action.

GNK Dinamo also decided to help fight the coronavirus pandemic and the aftermath of the Zagreb earthquake, Narod.hr reported a few days ago.

The club will donate 250,000 kuna for the reconstruction of the Zagreb Children's Disease Clinic on Klaićeva Street, which was damaged in the earthquake, as well as 250,000 kuna for the KBC Zagreb, a clinic for women's diseases and childbirths in Petrova Street, which also suffered in the devastating earthquake.

It will also allocate funds to purchase two fully-equipped ambulances, valued at half a million kuna, so the donation totals one million kuna

Follow TCN's live updates on the coronavirus crisis in Croatia.

ZAGREB, March 25, 2020 - The Seismological Service registered two more earthquakes in the Zagreb area on Tuesday evening, with the epicentres at Markuševec, just north of the capital.

The first quake, measuring 3.2 on the Richter scale, occurred at 8.53 pm and the second one, measuring 2.2, at 8.55 pm.

The intensity at the epicentre of the first tremor was of IV degree on the Mercalli scale, while the second one reached an intensity of II-III degree.

The Zagreb area was hit by a 5.5 magnitude earthquake at 6.24 am on Sunday, leaving considerable property damage and fatally injuring a 15-year-old girl. It was followed by a string of 74 lower magnitude tremors over the next 42 hours, ranging from 5.1 to below 2.0 degrees on the Richter scale.

More earthquake news can be found in the Lifestyle section.

March 24, 2020 - The Croatia national football team has raised HRK 4.2 million which will be donated to the Croatian government fund opened today for two purposes - the fight against the coronavirus and to help rehabilitate Zagreb after the earthquake.

HNS announces that the state of emergency, caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the devastating earthquake in Zagreb, has spawned many well-known and unknown heroes across the country, who show exceptional effort, courage and organization every day to cope with this crisis successfully.

Therefore, in addition to a series of personal initiatives and donations, the players and the staff of the Croatia national football team decided to raise funds for the fight against the coronavirus and to support the City of Zagreb and raised HRK 4.2 million!

The funds will be paid into two separate accounts opened today by the Croatian Government: "Croatia against Coronavirus" and "Together for Zagreb". The funds will be used to rehabilitate hospitals and purchase the necessary appliances, medicines and other medical supplies to combat the pandemic.

"With this action, we want to show that we are committed to supporting our people and our capital, and that together, as always, we will overcome these great challenges. We stand with all our heart with the people who have shown great courage, ability and strength in this crisis, from doctors and nurses to firefighters, police officers, soldiers and members of the Civil Protection Headquarters to the people who work daily for us to live relatively normally, such as merchants, delivery drivers and many others. We will win together again,” said the Croatia national team and staff in a joint statement.

In less than two days, the Vatreni have collected more than half a million euros for epidemic and earthquake relief. When we call our team and our fans a #Family, this is exactly the kind of unity and solidarity that we're referring to! ??❤ pic.twitter.com/KbDHnqkIjI

— HNS (@HNS_CFF) March 24, 2020

“In less than two days, the Vatreni have collected more than half a million euros for epidemic and earthquake relief. When we call our team and our fans a #Family, this is exactly the kind of unity and solidarity that we're referring to!”

The Croatia national team has shown many times both through public actions and also through their private initiatives far from the public eye that they have a big heart and a great sense of social responsibility. Through the Vatreno Srco Foundation, they have been raising funds for needy children and young people for years, but this amount has surpassed all previous actions.

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

ZAGREB, March 24, 2020 - The Bosniak National Council in Croatia on Tuesday condemned the insulting messages which appeared on the Zagreb mosque on Tuesday morning, saying that this act of desecration was an expression of serious chauvinism and xenophobia.

"At a time when we are being shaken by the greatest crisis in recent history, when human solidarity is needed more than ever, conduct like this is impermissible. We demand that the relevant institutions, even though they are justifiably involved in managing the crisis caused by the coronavirus and earthquake, should find the perpetrators," the president of the Council, Armin Hodžić said in a press release.

We warn that this type of desecration to a Muslim place of worship is an expression of serious chauvinism and xenophobia and it requires urgent action in order to prevent a chain reaction of dehumanising processes toward minority groups in Croatia, added Hodžić.

Croatian society has to be aware that insulting messages like the one that appeared on a Muslim place of worship could tomorrow already lead to a new wave of desecration of religious premises of other religious minorities and of the serious deterioration of the rights of national minorities, the press release said.

"At a time of general crisis, we once again call for solidarity, togetherness and tolerance and express hope that the majority Croatian population in Croatia will adhere to the principle of 'love thy neighbour as thyself'," Hodžić appealed in the press release.

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

March 24, 2020 - The Croatian government has opened a donation fund to help those affected by the Zagreb earthquake and the coronavirus. The campaigns are titled “Together for Zagreb" and "Croatia against coronavirus”. 

Index.hr reports that the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement that Zagreb and its citizens were hit by the strongest earthquake in the last 140 years, measuring 5.5 on the Richter scale.

In order to enable the payment of donated funds through the state budget account for the purpose of earthquake rehabilitation, the decision to open a donation account in the "Together for Zagreb" action shall determine the account numbers to which the donations will be paid.

To donate to “Together with Zagreb”

Donations within Croatia are paid to the account: HR1210010051863000160, with reference to the approval number: HR68 5371 - and their OIB number. 

Donations from outside Croatia will go into the account of the Ministry of Finance with the Croatian National Bank, to the account number IBAN: HR12 1001 0051 8630 0016 0

“To donate to "Croatia against coronavirus”.

Donations within Croatia are paid into the account HR1210010051863000160, with reference to the approval number: HR68 5380 - and their OIB.

Donations from outside Croatia are paid into the account of the Ministry of Finance with the Croatian National Bank, to the account number: IBAN: HR12 1001 0051 8630 0016 0

In the Government press conference, Plenkovic said:

"The pandemic is changing the world. Functioning as we know it is changing. In just three months, the pandemic has arrived in 195 countries ... The number of cases is accelerating. We predict that the pandemic will take many lives ...

The scale will have unprecedented economic consequences for the whole world... We were convinced that the biggest crisis with us had passed. We had a crisis around Agrokor. Thanks to our measures, we have prevented the costs that had to go to the budget. Today, three years later, this is happening.

What we presented last week was the first crisis plan.

Our economy is slightly stronger than it was before this crisis.

We have reached the highest number since independence, returning our economy to a higher level since before 2008.

There is now a battle to maintain production and preserve jobs. We are aware of the situation in which our businessmen are in, all of them are in the sales channels, all of whom, through their hard work, contribute to our society functioning in increasingly difficult circumstances.

It is certain that this crisis will last longer than a few months and will affect all our activism.

We are witnessing asymmetrical shock.

We will go to cut all costs that are not necessary on the expenditure side. All of these measures have been prepared in a unique and holistic way, designed as a conceptual approach for this first initial phase.

We had a government phone call on the day we opened the accounts: one for Zagreb and the other for combating the coronavirus, so anyone can donate.

We will donate our salary for March to the Zagreb account."

Follow TCN's live updates on the coronavirus crisis and the Zagreb earthquake.

ZAGREB, March 24, 2020 - The Zagreb crisis management head Pavle Kalinić on Monday announced that the city authorities would set up a special support fund and that many, including Russia's Ambassador to Croatia, Anvar Azimov, the cities of Moscow and Saint Petersburg offered support to the quake-hit Croatian capital city.

Kalinić told the commercial RTL broadcaster that experts from the Faculty of Civil Engineering and the Faculty of Architecture had been also engaged to help in efforts to assess the extent of damage on buildings in the city.

He recalled that statics experts had inspected 450 damaged buildings during the day and added that a lot of chimneys had been damaged and that falling bricks had caused more damage to pavements and parked cars.

More news about the earthquake can be found in the Lifestyle section.