Local elections

On 17 May Croats will go to the polls in local elections. To inform myself, I checked the main newspaper websites and TV stations. Surprisingly, it is Nova TV's website (a commercial station) that offers the most extensive information on the local elections. Their news program, Dnevnik, is usually rather sensational and focuses almost exclusively on Croatian affairs, in which respect it resembles Croatian newspapers. None of the newspapers nor state run public television HRT has a site about the elections.
In Osijek, Croatia's fourth largest city, the main candidates competing for the position of mayor belong to the right or extreme right. Krešimir Bubalo is leading the polls. Bubalo is a member of the HDSSB party, led by Branimir Glavaš who is charged with war crimes. His main opponent is Anto Đapić, who belongs to the HSP, a party known for its strong anti-Serb attitude.
Another interesting city to watch is Split, Croatia's second by size. In Split entrepreneur and independent candidate Željko Kerum is leading the polls. In national elections Split was firmly controlled by the governing HDZ party of prime minister Sanader, himself a son of Split and great fan of football club Hajduk. Kerum's political independence is part of a wider trend in Croatia towards non-aligned candidates for political posts.
Then, of course, there are the usual outsiders and irregularities. In Kaštela, a small town not far from Split, former porn star Lidija Šunjerga runs for the office of mayor. Her campaign is centered around gender equality and environmental protection. More worrying are reports about manipulation of the number of registered voters. Dusina, a tiny village in the Dalmatian hinterland, counts a total of 530 voters of which 404 are registered at the same address. You would need a skyscraper of 35 stories to accommodate so many voters at one and the same address, the paper Novi list calculated. In Zadar, 19 voters are registered at the address of a two-story house.
The political blog Pollitika launched a site where you can check how many voters are registered at a certain address. By looking up addresses and seeing the number of registered voters, Pollitika wants to map (literary) irregularities. This evening a television program on Nova TV will be dedicated to electoral manipulation, so Pollitika's map should get more details.

Napolitanke, or about heroes and losers

Each nation has its peculiarities, habits and preferences that are sometimes unexplainable to foreigners. The culinary field is no exeption. As far as Croatia is concerned, I never quite understood why Croats love bananko, an artificially banana-flavored sweet, coated in chocolate. Its taste is, in one word, terrible.
Much of Croatia's chocolate and sweets are made by Kraš, a company with a indestructible positive image in the whole of former Yugoslavia. According to Kraš's website: Chocolate-coated banana, BANANKO, is a hit with the youngest consumers, though the adults cannot resist it either. Kraš's Bananko is the leading product within the category of foam candy bars on the Croatian market. According to the consumers' opinion, Bananko's key to success lies in the "magical combination of a soft banana-flavoured foam centre, covered with the traditional Kraš chocolate".
Other famous Kraš products are Ki-Ki, Bajadera and Dorina. If you want to know what's hiding behind these names, you can find the details in English on their site. That site speaks well for Kraš, as it in rather exceptional for Croatian companies to offer English information.
Kraš does export some of it products tot non-Yugoslav countries, but it has never reached the status of, say, Nestle, Lindt or Van Melle.
That might change, as somebody spotted a box of Napolitanke (cookies) in a scene from "Heroes", a SF-series. He or she put it on Facebook, and then the "news" found its way to every self-respecting newspaper. Have a look here for the crucial scene, in photo and video.
I could be very negative about this manifestation of provincialism and small-mindedness. But I won't. I am sincerely happy that a box of Croatian cookies found there way to an American series, even if only for a few seconds. Congratulations! Way to go! Next time, if someone spots a Croatian product, inform me.
If you live outside of Croatia (probably) and you know nothing about Croatian products (certainly), take a look at this website, although it's actually aimed at Croatian consumers who want to avoid buying foreign products.
Own products first!
Unless you live outside of Croatia. In that case: Croatian products first!
And please come for holidays to Croatia to spend your euros and dollars, because only strangers and Serbs can save the tourist season.

Balkanblogs

Waarde lezers,
De schaarse regelmatige bezoekers van dit weblog zullen hebben gemerkt dat ik de laatste maanden weinig heb gepost. (Wie denkt: "He, dit heb ik al eerder gelezen!" heeft gelijk. Scroll door naar het tweede plaatje voor nieuws.) Opvallend genoeg blijft het aantal bezoekers constant. Dat wil zeggen: een handjevol per dag. Enerzijds is het verheugend om te merken dat sommige berichten nog gelezen worden, anderzijds is het teleurstellend dat het nauwelijks uitmaakt of ik veel of weinig schrijf.
Daarom heb ik besloten de Engelstalige markt aan te boren, wat nog niet zo eenvoudig is. De concurrentie is moordend.
Niet dus. Blogs met nieuws over nieuwe veerdiensten, de zoveelste overwinning van de Kroatische gastronomie, de fantastische wijnen die hier gemaakt worden maar om onverklaarbare redenen buiten Kroatië volslagen onbekend zijn, zulke weblogs zijn er genoeg. Daar hoor je mij dus niet over.
Op Croatian Crescent probeer ik van tijd tot tijd goed en slecht nieuws uit Kroatië te brengen. Ik vraag begrip voor mijn onvolmaakte Engels. Ik behoor niet tot de categorie mensen die denken dat ze in Engels toch net iets puntiger en geestiger formuleren dan in het Nederlands, integendeel. Het is een noodgreep (bij wijze van spreken dan), meer niet.
Servië kan vanuit Nederland op meer belangstelling rekenen. Dat bleek onder meer uit het inmiddels ter ziele gegane Bureau Belgrado. Al geruime tijd (en zeer getrouw, gemiddeld anderhalf bericht per dag) schrijft correspondent David Jan Godfroid verrassende stukjes over Servië en, als daar reden toe is, over zijn buurlanden.
Voor die grotere belangstelling kan ik wel een paar redenen bedenken. (1) Het wagenpark is veel gevarieerder. (2) Kroatië heeft geen Kosovo. Dat is niet trouwens niet helemaal waar... (3) De Servische politiek is interessanter, om eens een eufemisme te gebruiken. (4) Belgrado is de grote broer onder de Balkansteden. (5) Zo kan ik nog wel even doorgaan.
Maar misschien zijn ze gewoon vaardiger met de pen. Hoe dan ook - samo uživajte, zoals aan deze en gene zijde van de Donau wordt gezegd.

Nives Celzijus, or the internet democracy

Generally, I write about serious things. The terminal decline of Croatian literature, the beauty of Dubrovnik, the economic crisis, language issues - you name it. Sometimes, a literary prize is awarded to a celebrity known for her unconventional sex life, Nives Celzijus. "Serious" literary critics subsequently showed their anger and a scandal was born. I dedicated a post to it. It went unnoticed I thought, like most things I write here (please allow me some self-pity). Therefore it was a kind of shock to me to see what people were actually looking for when visiting Croatian Crescent. The number one search term is, believe it or not, "nives celzijus naked". This is the top 10:

1. nives celzijus naked
2. dubrovnik murder
3. Nives Celzius Naked
4. ikea graz
5. Ikea zagreb
6. slovenian partisans
7. nives celzijus nude
8. meštrović “Seljaci”
9. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you in croatian
10 ikea zadar

Apparently some people looking for nude pictures of Nives Celzijus prefer capital letters. As they left out the "j" in Celzius (required, as Slavic languages are largely phonetic) I suspect they are Germans. By coincidence, the much wanted pictures of Nives can be found in a magazine with a title in capitals.
FHM in Germany has everything you want to see of Celsius ("die schönste Spielerfrau der Bundesliga") and I am not even going to try to compete with their photo's. I close the Celzijus case by saying that her fan club (i.e. certain visitors or this weblog) is truly international: from Italy, Ireland, Germany and Belgium to Peru. Should husband and Karlsruhe footballer Dino Drpić ever play for a club in another country, a red carpet will be laid out for the couple.

Open doors to the East

We have been waiting for several months, with clamped firsts and and in full hope. Today it was finally delivered: the baby of Damir Bajs, Croatia's Minister of Tourism. Alas! The baby, with the name "Action plan for tourism", is stillborn.
Let me start mentioning a proposed measure that makes sense. Bajs wants to ease the visa regime for tourists from Russia and Ukraine. Also, some local fees will be cut. But that's pretty much it. It is still being considered whether visa requirements will be suspended for Chinese and Indian tourists too. One out of three people in the world is Chinese or Indian, but Croatia is not sure if it's smart to let them save the Croatian economy (every fifth Croatian euro is earned in tourism). Croatia's VAT rate of 22 percent might be cut next year at earliest, so the Russians and Ukrainians won't come here for a cheap cup of coffee.
I would have appreciated if, for example, Bajs had urged tourist agencies to be more customer friendly, to provide accurate information and, most important, to offer tourists access to Croatian cultural heritage. I can give countless examples of how Zagreb could become a much more interesting tourist destination than the rather dormant provincial town it is now. However, this example is from Križevci, a small town northwest of Zagreb I visited last weekend. You might say: "Who cares about that part of Croatia?" But then you don't know how much Croats expect from rural tourism and how frequently one can see reports on Croatian state TV about the "rich cultural heritage" of town like Križevci (not to mention places without any obvious touristic potential, like Sisak).
Here is a photo manual:
1) If you have no car, take a train or bus. If you are from Africa or Asia, please ignore the few idiots that make fun of you (this is not a joke, unfortunately).
2) Križevci welcomes you in Croatian. "City of history, culture and the Križevci statutes".
3) Walk to the centre. This 35-minute walk will lead you along the socialist history of Croatia. As it is unclear where the centre is, please follow the locals who have left the train with you.
In the good old days, factories provided much more than just an income. So did and do the local tileworks. (Radnik means "Worker")

4) Pay attention to culture and nature. You'll see storks all over.
5) Visit the true treasure of Križevci: its churches. There are normally closed, so you need ask the nuns to open the doors.
The director of the local museum proved to be very kind and helpful.
6) Sit back and relax with a beer.
Finally, have a second beer to wash away your grief over the fact that you couldn't visit the beautiful Kalnik mountain range because there is only one bus per day from Križevci.

Croatia in NATO

"Following the English alphabet, Croatia's flag flies after the Canadian and before the Czech," was one of the comments that was repeated over and over again in Croatian news programs yesterday. Below is a report from Nova TV. Even if you don't understand Croatian, the flags, anthems and speeches make clear that Croatia is very proud of being a full member of NATO as of yesterday. Croatia's flag was hoisted in Brussels and, in turn, NATO's flag in Zagreb, where many gathered in front of the Ministry of Defense. Looking at the facade of the building, you'll see the EU flag waving too. I don't know if there are any rules concerning the right to fly the EU flag. I guess not, since you can see them all over the country, even though Croatia won't join the club before 2012.

Despite opposition from some Slovene nationalists, Croatia belongs now to the "world's most elite club", as prime minister Sanader once called NATO. Croatia's own elite gathered in the evening in the National Theatre to celebrate the entry with a concert.
Croatian satisfaction with NATO membership is more than understandable. Next time the Serbs, or whoever, attack "our beautiful homeland" (a very normal way of saying in Croatia) American, Turkish, Canadian and Dutch troops will kick in to kick out the enemy. So we hope...
Less understandable is the habit of Croatia's political elite to link NATO membership with EU accession. I heard people saying that "Croatia is now half way" and Sanader even thinks that EU countries will reconsider the Croatian-Slovenian border dispute, to Croatia's advantage of course.
Personally, I don't see why. First, not all EU members are NATO members. More important, not all NATO allies belong to the EU. Turkey is a great example of the latter categorie. Despite old promises about EU membership and unwavering support from the United States, Turkey is not an EU member and maybe will never be one. Although Turkey is a NATO ally since 1952!
As the Croatian-Slovenia border dispute is concerned: Marrti Ahtisaari was tipped as mediator, but he himself says he has never been formally asked to solve the crisis. Asked what his answer would be to a possible request, he said: "Highly unlikely. I am tired of the Balkans".

Meštrović's relief damaged in Zagreb

In an earlier post I wrote about the sculptor Ivan Meštrović (1883-1962), one of Croatia's most famous artists. "Zagreb isn't exactly a top destination for art lovers," I wrote then, "so it is a pity that it neglects its greatest artist. After all, Meštrović is omnipresent in Zagreb."
Maybe his omnipresence has led to neglect. Otherwise, how can you explain that a construction company, in order to provide support for the scaffolding, made holes in Meštrović relief?
The scaffolding was put up for a huge advertising banner. After it was removed, the construction company provisionally filled the holes in the relief with some substance and painted over some parts, pretending there was no damage at all. In the end the truth was revealed.
The relief was put up in 1907, some 30 meters above street level on the facade of a rather ugly building overlooking Zagreb's main square, Trg bana Jelačića. Not much is known about the work, except that is is popularly called "Seljaci" (Peasants) and made of ceramics. It was Meštrović first public work in Zagreb and as there is no model of it, restoration will be difficult.

Spain and Serbia must save Croatia

The Croatian government has finally announced its budget revision to combat the consequences of the economic and financial crisis. From the first of April onwards, wages of public sector personnel will be cut by 6 percent. Considering the fact that Croatia's public sector is oversized and terribly inefficient you wonder why this measure wasn't taken a whole lot earlier. I know that cutting wages by 6 percent is unthinkable in Western Europe, but the number of Croats on sick leave and the overall lack of productivity of those that bother to show up at work is unthinkable in Western Europe too.
The budget revision is the first accomplishment (of ten promised) after the government put forward an anti-crisis plan, about a month ago. In a few days, all eyes will be on Damir Bajs, Croatia's minister for tourism. He is supposed to present a plan to draw more tourists to Croatia by the end of this month. Only tourism can save Croatia's ailing economy. (The idea is the Croatia is the nearest Mediterranean country - instead of flying to Greece, Germans will travel to Croatia by car.) But it won't, I am afraid. All indicators predict a mayor downturn in the tourism industry too.
So far we haven't heard much of Bajs plan, except for Croatia's strong presence at Belgrade's tourism fair. Last year 17.000 tourists from Serbia visited Istria, and some 10.000 spent their holidays in Split - negligible numbers compared those from other countries and, also, to the great number of Serbs that go to Montenegro. I would welcome more Serbs to Croatia, but I doubt their willingness to the spend their dinars on the rather expensive Croatian coast.
Another way to boost the Croatian economy is to penetrate foreign markets with Croatian products, something that has not succeeded so far. But there is a first sign of success. A Spanish department store chain, called El Corte Inglés, will put products on the shelves that are world famous in Croatia: Kraš, Gavrilović, Klara Marić, Franck, Zvečevo, Jamnica, and others. If you live in Spain, buy them! You not only help your Croatian brethren but you also show that you are a real gourmand. And please send me a picture of the Croatian product you bought, as many promised success stories of Croatian products abroad turn out to be false after all. As is the case with Croatian trams, that were supposed to be seen on the streets of Beijing and Helsinki, but, in the end, only cruise in Zagreb. More about that in the next post.

Let love live - homosexuals in Croatia

Life is not easy for gays and lesbians in Croatia, as the almighty Catholic church is one of their principle enemies. Croatian bishops recently asked people to sign a petition against rights for homosexuals and against abortion. One signer explained why he put his signature under the petition: "Gays are not only annoying, it goes without saying that they are weird".
The church and minorities (ethnic, sexual or else) in Croatia - an awkward relationship.
Kontra, an organization for lesbians and Iskorak, a center for the promotion of equal rights for sexual minorities, started a campaign for more rights and less discrimination. Posters like the one above will be hung all over Zagreb, Osijek, Split and Dubrovnik. One of their wishes is the possibility of same sex marriages.
I keep my fingers crossed, but I am very pessimistic. If you want to know how tragic things can be in Croatia, please read this article (in English) about a girl who received a mental treatment for five years after she had told her parents she was lesbian.

The paper crisis

Which is the fate of the Croatian press? This question was being debated at yesterday's round table conference on the future of Croatian newspapers, magazines and other periodicals. The media landscape in Croatia is not very diverse anyway, and newspapers are being hard hit by the economic crisis. Newspaper sales went down by 20 to 40 percent and advertising revenue with 30 percent.
One of the participants of the conference was Večernji list. In an article about the meeting it writes: "Although the facts indicate that the sale of newspaper copies is in decline, those present rejected the possibility that the press will disappear."
What I find most interesting is the word "facts". As a matter of truth, we know preciously little about the facts. For example, there are no data available on newspaper circulation and sales. We have no idea how many copies a paper like Jutarnji list or Vjesnik sells on average per day. A public opinion poll, done by Mediapuls, produced incredible statistics about newspapers and their readers in Croatia. Of all Croats 63 percent daily read a newspaper. What is most surprising is that these are not the pensioners that make up a large part of Croatia's population. An amazing 72 percent of young people, age 15 to 19, read a paper every day.
There are no official data to prove this poll wrong. But my gut feeling says it is wrong. I don't believe that more than two million Croats spend a euro per day on newspapers. I hardly see people reading newspapers in the tram and not a single family in my sizable apartment block is subscribed to a paper. Not even the National and Scientific Library in Zagreb is a subscriber! Can you image the British Library or the Library of Congress without a single newspaper?
I would not mind if some papers disappeared. Croatia's biggest paper, 24Sata, writes mostly about fun and sex, gossip, celebrities and "black chronicles" - murder, rape, corruption, you name it.
I am rather pessimistic by nature, but I do think that, also in Croatia, their is a market for a serious, non-aligned, internationally oriented newspaper. Or maybe a regional newspaper, if that would boost sales. That has nothing to do with "jugonostalgija" (Slobodna Dalmacija, for example, has a page on Bosnia). Serbia's Politika issues a regional edition, but unfortunately it is printed in Cyrillic only.
If you have data about newspaper sales and the media landscape in Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia or Montenegro, former Yugoslavia, the Western Balkans, South Eastern Europe, this part of Europe or what ever you want to call this region, please comment below.