The space-themed hostel is a new accommodation option in the centre of Zagreb.
If you have ever wondered how astronauts sleep in a space station, now you can find out in the centre of Zagreb. Two decades after the first Internet cafe in Croatia was opened in a basement at Tesla Street, the same location is now the home for the first “space hostel” in the European Union, reports Večernji List on November 26, 2016.
Hrvoje Krlić, who has been a fan of sci-fi movies since childhood, while searching for something on the Internet found capsules which are used in Asian countries as accommodation units in some hostels and hotels. He came to an idea to open a hostel which would be unique not only in Croatia, but also in the European Union.
“When I saw these ‘space’ capsules, I was flummoxed. But just a moment later, I was already visualizing them at a place where the Sublink Internet cafe had been located for 20 years. The name Subspace Hostel came naturally, and then I decided to turn the idea into reality”, said Krlić.
He first contacted a manufacturer in China which produces capsules, and later he visited the production facility in China and placed an order. The whole story began to slowly turn into reality. To finalize the project, Hrvoje needed more than a year and just over two million kuna, but the hostel he now owns really does look like it is in outer space. “We offer 20 capsules. Each has Wi-Fi, Android screens of different sizes with more than a thousand TV channels, several levels of air conditioning and ventilation. Guests have access to lockers and toilets which we have designed and patented”, explained Krlić.
The basic idea of this unique offer for guests of Zagreb was to offer the privacy of a hotel for the price of a hostel, in the heart of the city. Each guest can close themselves in a capsule, put on the headphones and “isolate” themselves from the outside world.
Room rates are between 25 and 35 euros per night, depending on the equipment found in each capsule. Krlić added that the rest of the space would remain an Internet cafe, and there is also a common area with a couple of couches and chairs, small tables and a kitchenette with a refrigerator where hostel guests can prepare tea, coffee or a sandwich.
In addition to accommodation units, Subspace Hostel is unique due to walls which have been painted by hand for months by painter and vice president of the Croatian Association of Artists Tomislav Buntak. It is interesting that the ceiling is painted with a special paint which glows like stars in the sky when illuminated with ultraviolet light. Since the entire hostel is conceived as outer space, Buntak presented on the walls his artistic vision of meetings between people and beings from other worlds.
