Flags

Statesmen who visit Zagreb and are being driven from the airport to the center always take the Ulica hrvatske bratske zajednice, the Croatian Brotherhood Society Street or something. Croats have a talent for abbreviating lengthy names of streets and squares, but unfortunately there seems to be no alternative for Ulica hrvatke bratske zajednice. Any suggestions?
Traditionally, at the end (or beginning) of Ulica hrvatske bratske zajednice the flag of the visiting country's guest is hoisted. So it was when Chinese president Hu Jintao came to Zagreb, and so it was for someone from some country. By the moon I could tell the visitor represents an Islamic country, but which? After bit of googling I found the answer: Turkmenistan. The always informative website of the Croatian government provides pictures for media use, so I felt free to show Sanader and the gentleman from Turkmenistan shaking hands.
I bet we will read later that Turkmenistan supports Croatia's bid for EU membership. It's good to have some friends left. This article from Jutarnji list paints a gloomy picture of Croatia's international position. The essence: EU diplomats recommend Sanader not to blame Slovenia for everything but to finally get some serious work done (the over and over again mentioned corruption, crime, Tribunal, state run firms, violent and racist football fans...).
Traditional allies like Germany, Austria, Italy, Luxembourg and Slovakia (new to me) have turned their back on Croatia or pay lip service at best. Croatia is a country without friends.

Buy one, get more

Enough about politics, it's time for a culinary event: cleaning fish. Don't read or scroll down if you can't stand bloody pictures.
First a general observation. Buy one, get two. Buy two, get three. Supermarkets in Western Europe try to attract customers that way, but it is unheard of in Croatia. Only recently supermarkets started to discount certain products. In pubs it is not uncommon to see on the menu:

Karlovačko 15 kuna (0,5 liter)
Karlovačko 30 kuna (1 liter)

I thought the capitalist mentality is inborn, but some nations apparently don't have a knack for trade. Perhaps half a century of communism is enough to damage the fragment of DNA that is responsible for commerce. Karlovačko, by the way, is a beer.
I went to Dolac, Zagreb's central market, this morning to get fish. In the ribarnica (an indoor fish market that unfortunately lacks any Mediterranean ambiance) I bought this well size mackerel (40 centimeters) for only 18 kuna.

When home, I sliced it open and saw I got more fish than I had expected. The mackerel, when caught, was actually half way swallowing a smaller fish, so I could tell from the little fish tail sticking out of the mackerel's mouth. In it stomach I found remains of an earlier meal. A bit gross, but the mackerel itself was, in a word, super fresh. I could have made sashimi with it. Bit of soy sauce, bit of wasabi.... delicious!

Air space

When Chinese president Hu Jintao left Croatia, his presidential plane was escorted by two Croatian fighter jets. These two jets seems to have violated Slovenian air space. Hardly surprising, I thought. You almost need a helicopter to take off from Zagreb airport if you don't want to enter Slovenian air space, as Zagreb is very close to the Slovenian border.
Some Slovenes are very angry about the violation. I am not going to dwell on it, as I have no idea how normal or exceptional such violations are. I just want to show you the language that was used by a Slovenian member of European Parliament. It is exemplary of the sour relations between Croatia and Slovenia.
"The theatrical incursion into our airspace that Croatia permitted itself, by abusing the military escort of a Chinese protocol state aircraft, is an abuse of that state and, at the same time, a display of arrogance that cannot be practice either in the EU or NATO," said Jelko Kacin.
I don't think Croatia will enter the EU in 2011, even if Slovenia lifted the blockade right now. I suspect the Sanader government uses the blockade to turn attention away from other pressing problems in Croatia: corruption, organized crime and lack of cooperation with the Yugoslavia Tribunal in The Hague. The EU, meanwhile, has given up on trying to find a solution for the border conflict, after its numerous proposals were blocked by either Zagreb or Ljubljana.
Sanader uses big words in complaining about the Slovenian attitude. He said that if the EU negotiations with Croatia fail, also the idea of Europe (that is: uniting nations) fails. I can understand Sanader's frustration over Slovenia, but his words show a chronic overestimation of Croatia's importance to the Europe. Even if Croatia never joins the EU, the EU is and will be a uniquely successful project. (Although I sincerely hope Croatia will join the EU). Secondly, Croatia's entry into the EU hinges upon many more things, as I mentioned above. As soon as Slovenia lifts it unfair blockade these things will come to the fore once again.

Croatian diaspora

"The term diaspora refers to the movement of any population sharing common ethnic identity who were either forced to leave or voluntarily left their settled territory, and became residents in areas often far remote from the former." Thus says Wikipedia and so I've always thought. Therefore, it strikes me as unusual to describe Croats living in Bosnia as "diaspora". Yet, this is very common in Croatia. Most of these Croats have lived in Bosnia for generations, for hundreds of years, very close to the Croatian border. Mostar is their unofficial capital.
Bosnian Croats find themselves in a difficult and complicated situation. With the Muslims they form the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, one half of Bosnia (the other half being the Republika Srpska). It is a loveless marriage, arranged by the "international community". Bosnian Croats number half a million, which is much less than both Serbs and Muslims. However, unlike the Muslims they have a fatherland outside Bosnia, so if Bosnia breaks up in the future (which seems rather likely) they have some place to go. Or Croatia will simply attach the Croatian part of Bosnia.
The Croatian homeland (diaspora Croats, be it in Bosnia or Australia, are often called "Hrvati izvan domovine", Croats out of the homeland), or rather the Sanader administration, has decided upon a new strategy towards Bosnian Croats. A Council for Croats outside of Croatia will be founded, presided by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a law to strengthen ties with Bosnian Croats will be send to parliament.
"Children are Croatia's blessing", says the rundown facade of the Croatian Population Movement. One of the strategy's aims is to stop the downward demographic trend. Many countries face the problem of aging populations, but Croatia is in a particularly difficult situation. This country has an enormous number of pensioners, mostly laid-off people who got early retirement. Although a firmly catholic country, Croatia has a very low birthrate, despite financial support for parents and a generous pregnancy leave. Result: an annual population growth of minus 10.000.

Bird's view

A service to the poor bastards who are so unlucky to live anywhere but on the Croatian coast. Croatia Airlines lowered the prices of selected domestic flights. If you choose an early or late flight, you can fly from Zagreb to Split, Zadar or Dubrovnik for a price much lower than if you go by car. Zagreb-Dubrovnik by car is a lengthy (at least 9 hours of driving) and expensive trip: 187 kuna toll for the highway up to Ravča/Vrgorac, not to mention fuel costs.
Google Maps incorrectly still thinks the highway doesn't go further south than Šestanovac. A 45 minute flight Zagreb-Dubrovnik should cost no more than 300 kuna if you book a last minute or far in advance. Dubrovnik's famous city walls welcomed 9 percent less visitors in the first five months of 2009 than in the same period last year, so hajde!.
Annually 800.000 tourists walk on the thick walls, resisting the temptation to jump in the Adriatic. Some dare devils do jump, though from the rocks right below the walls.

Hop o' My Thumb

Last week China's president Hu Jintao visited Croatia. It was only for 24 hours, but Croats were understandably proud. A man who represents a nation of 1,3 billion people takes the time to come to a country with a population that's smaller than Jinan, China's 15th largest city. Hu Jintao spoke friendly words to his Croatian colleague Mesić: "Croatia is China's biggest trading partner in South Eastern Europe". Partner is a peculiar word in this, as Croatia imports 53 times more from China than China imports from Croatia. Damn it! If only those Chinese would like Cedevita or Napolitanke... Croatia would experience an incredible economic boom.
Mesić apparently didn't have the Chinese much to offer. He invited them to invest in Pleso airport and Ploče harbour, both equally moribund, desolate and unwelcoming to visitors or cargo. I think efforts to attract more Chinese tourists to Croatia are smarter. Of the 12 million Chinese that visit Europe per year only 6.000 come to Croatia, 0,05 percent. That is not much.
It was interesting to see how this visit is different from Hu Jintao's visits to Western European countries. In Croatia not a word was said about Tibet, the Dalai Lama or human rights in general. Instead, Taiwanese were classified as "separatists". Unusual language if you know that Croatia separated itself from Yugoslavia (with justification, I must add) and recognized Kosovo as an independent country. (I see know that Firefox doesn't know Kosovo yet. It wants me to choose between Kosher, Kossuth, Oxford, Kosygin and Kovacs. Obviously a pro-Hungarian spell checker.)
The minimalism of Croatian-Chinese relations was aptly summarized by the Chinese ambassador to Croatia, when he spoke the already legendary words: "The relation between China and Croatia is an example of a relation between a big and a small country".

Frightening numbers

Browse the morning papers and news sites for a week and you will find numbers about anything. A short selection of this week's offer:
Every single day 65 Croats find out they have cancer. Daily 35 die from malignant diseases.
Annually 1000 qualified scientists leave Croatia to continue their career abroad. Almost 9000 Croats a year migrate to an EU country to seek a better life. 1 on every 14 Croats lives in an EU country.
In 2008 127 motorcyclists lost their lives in traffic accidents. Nearly half of them did not wear a helmet. The total number of people killed in traffic in 2008 is 664. In the UK less than 3000 died per year in traffic, although the UK's population is 13 times larger than Croatia's.
The minimum wage in Croatia is 2.814 kuna. That is some 380 euro per month. Pensioners need to survive with even less. The average pension is 2.169 (slightly less than 300 euro). However, 1 out of 3 pensioners receive only 120 euro or less per month.
The average Croat eats only 8 kilo of fish per year. Only Irish, Germans and Hungarians eat less fish. Other Mediterranean nations eat a lot more: 44 kilo in Spain, 33 in France and 24 in Italy.

Old Europe, New Europe

Train travelers in the Balkans are used to waiting at borders. Officials check your passport and ask: "Nešto za prijaviti?". Something to declare? No one ever declares anything, last of all the Croatian women who smuggle cheap textile from Italy to Zagreb.
When Slovenia joined the Schengen area I expected the endless waiting to be over. But no. Villa Opicina, at the Slovenian-Italian border is one of those notorious places where you stare out of the window and think: "Are we really in the EU?" After an hour or so the train finally starts moving to Venice.
I had to think of this as I read an article in Die Tageszeitung, published on Presseurope. Presseurope translates articles from several European newspapers into the main EU languages. Something like the International Herald Tribune, but than online and very limited in scope.
The fall of the Iron Curtain should have united two towns, but Italian Gorizia and Slovenia's Nova Gorica continue to snub one another with great distinction. While Nova enjoys an economic boom, old Gorizia tearily remembers the rare old times.
The enormous car park is almost completely deserted. It has enough space for hundreds of cars, but only a few stray vehicles are parked under the pale light of the street lamps. And save a handful of guests at the nearby pizzeria, there isn’t a soul in sight.
A cab? The waiter frowns as though he’d been asked an utterly absurd question. “After eight you can’t get a taxi anywhere in Gorizia.” Gorizia has called it a day...
We'll consider the phrase Iron Curtain a slip of the tongue.

Dubrovnik last minute

Yesterday I wrote about the competition Dubrovnik faces from Montenegro. The bigger problem, of course, is the world wide economic crisis. Dubrovnik's tourist sector saw a 20 to 30 percent fall in business. To counter this downward trend, Dubrovnik mayor Andro Vlahušić said two million kuna would be set apart to finance a management body that will deal with Dubrovnik as a tourist destination. Let's hope this awkward management new speak will deliver.
Vlahušić added: "We have to see whether Dubrovnik can collectively organize a last minute offer. We are not talking about low cost, but about last minute". That would be a revolution in economics. Where's the financial reward for the tourist who books a last minute trip to Dubrovnik?

Money talks

When the government strikes a deal with the Catholic Church you can be sure our liberty is in danger. And so were denied the pleasure of shopping on a Sunday afternoon. For the sake of a handful of childless priests and nuns, many hard working shop owners and parents lost income or even their job as they suddenly had to close their business on Sundays. According to Večernji list already 1152 shops went out of business.
Some smart local guys found a way to defeat the unholy alliance between the national government and the universal church. Towns simply organize a fair, week after week. During fairs, shops are allowed to work all Sunday long. That is, after all, the essence of a fair: buying and selling.
Especially in Dubrovnik, tourists were unpleasantly surprised to find the doors of souvenirs shops closed. Often they arrive with huge cruise ships and spend one day in Dubrovnik. If that day is a Sunday, they won't be able to buy Dubrovnik's best selling souvenir: Babushka dolls (Matryoshka dolls), mostly made in China. Inventive entrepreneurs from Dubrovnik started organizing trips to nearby Montenegro (Herceg Novi, Kotor, Budva), with its beautiful beaches, lower prices, liberal opening hours and night clubs.


Oh, and with its euro, which is really convenient.