Category Archives: Nešto hrvatskog

Maribor (CEEPUS)

Helsinki Summer School

In August this year, I attended Helsinki Summer School (HSS).

Although this post is not (all) about advertising the Summer School, I don’t know how exactly to name the post because, except Helsinki, I did see other places (less than I’d like to, but still more than one 😀 ). Naming the post Finland wouldn’t do either ’cause we went to Tallinn, Estonia; and I’ll probably mention Germany a bit to (I switched planes there).

Content

Use Ctrl+F codes to quickly navigate through the rest of the post:
Textual Part (cf01)
– About Helsinki Summer School (cf02)
– About Politics of Nations in Contemporary Europe (cf03)
– Fins and languages (cf04)
– Amazing Summer School Race (cf05)
– Touching the sky (cf06)
Picture time (cf07)
– Helsinki (cf08)
– Suomenlinna (cf09)
– Islands and islets of Helsinki (cf10)
– Trams (cf11)
– Nuuksio (cf12)
– Helsinki Zoo (cf13)
– Tallinn (cf14)
Other crap (cf15)
– A few final words about Finland (cf16)

TEXTUAL PART (cf01) :S

I’ll start with text, so the following part of this post will be mostly textual.

About Helsinki Summer School (cf02)

First, lemme tell you about the Summer School. Helsinki Summer School is an annual summer school taking place in August, organized by the University of Helsinki, Aalto University and Hanken School of Economics. The school lasts two and a half weeks (it was from 5th to 21st of August this year). You can choose (rather apply to) lots of courses, from Science Fiction in Literature and Culture to Designing Sustainable Forest Landscape. I attended Politics of Nations in Contemporary Europe.

Most courses, this year, where held at the University of Helsinki, some where held at Aalto University (Arts Marketing and Management, and Physics of Functional Materials) and one at Hanken School of Economics (Service Marketing and Design). Courses have changed over the years and are likely to change in the future. Most, especially those popular, have stayed and are likely to stay in the curriculum. Some include only minor changes. For example, the course I attended had been called Politics of Nations in Europe Today the year before. Today and contemporary are pretty much the same shit. The change was a result of the course getting a new co-ordinator who finds Politics of Nations in Contemporary Europe a better name 😀

The University of Helsinki is located in Helsinki city centre; Aalto University is located in Espoo, a city adjoined to Helsinki; and Hanken School of Economics is located in Helsinki, 2 klicks west of the University of Helsinki.

Accommodation suggested by the School is a room in Eurohostel (a hostel on the island east of the south Helsinki harbour, which is in city centre) or a flat (in Pihlajamäki, a neighbourhood well connected with the city centre by public transport, 11 klicks away from the centre). The school, also, encourages personal accommodation organization. More info can be found here.

This year, a flat in Pihlajamäki was cheaper than a twin room in Eurohostel. Last year, a room in Eurohostel was cheaper, so that might change again in the future.
Advantages of Pihlajamäki that I know of are: only single bed flats, the flats are bigger than the rooms in Eurohostel, free Internet access (you have to bring your own LAN cable though) and a bus line that leads you straight to the Central Railway Station (in the city centre, just a few minutes away from the Uni). These are the advantages of Eurohostel: breakfast every morning (check the pic bellow 😀 ), reception working hours 24/7, the hostel is in the city centre (a tram line takes you to the Uni in just a few minutes). Internet access ain’t free in Eurohostel, but HSS students can purchase 5-day wi-fi Internet connection for €4. Now, officially wi-fi lasts five days, but I only bought wi-fi two times and could connect to either accounts during the whole 2.5 weeks. I only bought the second account ’cause I’d gotten spooked I might get charged extra on check-out, that the only reason I hadn’t been notified my wi-fi account had expired and I could still use it was so the hostel staff would have an excuse to issue a fine, but Scandinavians ain’t so devious 😀 Well, I’m not sure how it’s gonna work next year, but this year you could have Internet access for the whole 2.5 weeks for only €4.

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Yes, you can have your breakfast served in bed in Eurohostel. You just had to sleep in the kitchen 😀

If a country mate of mine winds up in Helsinki, I would definitely recommend Eurohostel, simply because the hostel is like 400 m away from Croatian embassy 😀

Click on the image to enlarge it though I doubt you’re actually going to see all the countries. This picture was taken at the Opening Ceremony. All the countries students this year were from are written on the slide. The bigger the letters of a country, the more people from the country. Now, I dare you to find Croatia! In addition to me, there was only one more Croatian this year, meaining Croatia was written in very small lettering [and there were no other students from ex-Yugoslavia (i.e. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia)] 😉

Update 2015/1/17
I found out recently that there had been a Bosnian attending HSS. He lives in Finland and that’s probably why HSS staff didn’t find him. They probably searched for Bosnia and Herzegovina and he was listed in Finland. I recognized his name when he liked my post in HSS 2014 Facebook group, so it’s likely I’d recognize him if I had seen his nametag. In addition, he was forced to leave the school prior to the official end of the school.

A group photo of Helsinki Summer School students 2014 (click on the image to enlarge it) I’m near the left middle pillar. Find me 😀

This is a map of the world (click on the image to enlarge it) on which students can stick a note with their name on the part of the world they’re from. Note how Europe is crowded. That’s ’cause we’re so densly populated, the continent is small and there are 50 UN members in Europe, so it’s really hard not to stick your name on someone else 😀 If you read this post completely, you can count how many countries I referred to one way or the other. In addition to Finland, I think I mentioned the whole ex-Yugoslavia (i.e. Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia), Albania, Italy, Germany, the UK, Ireland, Poland, Estonia, Russia, and Sweden (probably more). That’s 16 there. All of them are in Europe and that’s only a third of the 50 mentioned above.

Before the school ends, you can ask for a certificate of attendance. The certificate looks like this. Aye, a black and white print on a simple A4 format piece of paper. Well, the seal and the signature are blue!

The arrival of a diploma depends on the course. Diplomas are usually sent by mail in October [if you pass (the grades are 5 – excellent, 4 – very good, 3 – good, 2 – acceptable, 1 – poor and 0 – fail), of course]. I was emailed the grade a few weeks earlier.
However, that depends on the grading system of a course. If, for example, you have an essay due till New Year’s, you don’t get a diploma until you write the essay, turn it in and have it graded. So, this is how the the diploma looks like (a little better than the certificate 😉 )

Helsinki Summer School staff is great. For any other information, visit Helsinki Summer School homepage.

About Politics of Nations in Contemporary Europe (cf03)

Me and my classmates

As for my course, the course was interesting. The exam was based on the obligatory reading the School provides you with before the beginning of the School. Likewise, the reading was interesting, except for one article which was full of crap. Well, maybe not full, but when you know at least one of the two “chilling” examples is a lie, you do come to question the overall quality of the article… But, that’s another story.

What I learned from the course is that far right parties [yeah, Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP) – like] have risen lately throughout Europe. They have risen very fast. The Sweden Democrats (SD), for example, weren’t taken seriously as a party just a few years ago. Yet on the last Swedish general elections (September 14th, 2014), they won 49 seats in the Parliament, which made them the third strongest party in Sweden. They beat the 4th party by 24 seats! Now, Sweden is often looked upon as the most tolerant country on the planet. This made me realize that we’ve learnt nothing from our past. Instead of “dealing with” the scum at the beginning, we’ve let them, again, become influential. It’s like Hitler’s NSDAP rising to power all over again! Bloody hell, sometimes the words of Timo Tolkki (yeah, a Fin 😀 ) sound so true 😮

I have to “brag” here that a far right party hasn’t entered Croatian Parliament (yet). That yet is an important word even thought I put it in brackets because a drop from 5 to 3% of votes threshold to enter the Parliament has been proposed. Such a drop would definitely allow far rightists to enter the Parliament. In addition, according to how things are going in the rest of Europe, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if far rightists gain large support in the next election. Even now we have a member from a coalition which includes a far right party [namely Croatian Pure Party of Rights (HČSP)]. Luckily, she (note that I emphasized the pronoun she, ’cause far right parties have few female members, mostly because of their male-domination stance towards women) is (rather “was” because she had left the party in the mean time) from the “light” part of the coalition.

I’d, also, like to say that I found surprising how far right parties in Western Europe usually don’t have any irredentist pretensions. For example, Åkesson, from the SD doesn’t mention Åland (more about Åland later in Finns and languages) at all, even though the islands are Swedish-speaking and the people are More Swedish- than Finnish-like. Now, if Åkesson were here, he just wouldn’t be able to let go of Åland.

Since I mentioned sex above, I’m gonna say now that the only two criteria for the co-oridnator of my course in choosing students were that we come from various countries (reasonable, so you get various perspectives) and that there would be an equal number of guys and girls in the course. Now, what the bloody fuck?! You’re either competent or incompetent, good or bad, smart or stupid, courages or a wuss whether you do or don’t have balls in your pants. All of us, students and the co-ordinator alike were great, but choosing students by their sex (that being one of the only two criteria)… Don’t people realize they’re not fighting for gender equality that way? All you do that way is play with “gender” statistics.
I recently defended my master thesis. All the reviewers were of the same sex. Goddamn, how did I manage to survive the defence…
Although I must admit that I had been secretly hoping for a male guinea pig before I’d got him. I had already had a female cat and I live with Mom, so if the piggy was a girl, the women in the house would seriously outnumber me 😀

In addition to the co-ordinator, we had four teachers that presented their area of expertise. I find that a very good thing because the teachers were real experts. The only teacher I would change is the one about Russia. Don’t get me wrong, she is an expert, definitely knows what she’s talking about and has personal experience from being in Russia many times, but she’s not Russian. I think it’s a shame that you don’t get a Russian teacher about Russia at a Finnish summer school, Finland bordering Russia [most importantly, Helsinki being close to St. Petersburg (Russian licence plates are the most common foreign plates in Helsinki and you can hear Russian in every corner, most notably at Eurohostel 😀 ), the second largest and most important Russian city (right after Moscow)]. Mkay, Russian citizens do need a visa for the EU (and the other way around) and tensions in Ukraine are rising, but those shouldn’t be obstacles in education. Besides, those “obstacles” don’t seem to stop all the Russians in Helsinki from coming to Helsinki 😉 The co-ordinator told me that this way we have 2 male and 2 female additional teachers… I seriously wouldn’t look in teacher’s pants even if I had a Russian teaching about Russia…

We were divided into groups to do presentations. My group had the presentation entitled Scotland and Greenland Case. Basically, we had to do a presentation about Scottish and Greenlandic self-determination. The reason I’m mentioning this is that Scottish self-determination had been based on the independence referendum held on September 18th. Now, at the time we were doing the presentation (9th-12th of August, just a month before the referendum), polls said that the Yes vote had the least support since the beginning of the campaign (35%), mostly because Alistair Darling, the leader of Better Together (a campaign against the independence), pretty much owned Alex Salmond, the First Minister of Scotland at the time (he resigned on November 19th) and the main proponent of the independence, in the last debate at the time. Public opinion about the independence was all about how well Darling and Salmond did in latest debates. There were big shifts in the opinion on weekly basis. We ended the “Scotland case” with saying that a lot can happen in month. So, Scotland is still in the UK, but from an almost certain rejection of the independence just a month before, the independence was narrowly rejected.

Finally, a few words about the exam: The grading system included the presentation, activity during class and the final exam. The exam covered the obligatory reading plus an article we were given to analyse during the exam. We had to write, rather type two essays. The keyboards we were provided with were Finnish, of course, though we could (at least, I could on my computer), choose Sami input. meaning that depending on the keyboard layout you’re used to you need to adapt. Most importantly, the exam was an open-book exam, meaning we were provided with the obligatory reading and had Internet connection. Of course, without prior reading, there’s no way in hell you’d be able to get around all that mess. You get an hour to write the essays. You can ask for more time on medical grounds (I was provided with an additional hour).
This might change next year, of course, but should stay the same or roughly the same if Cristian Norocel remains the course co-ordinator.

I want to mention here that the relation between a student and a professor is much more open in Finland. You’re on first name basis with your professors. Our co-ordinator told us Fuck, the weather is crappy, something uptight professors would hardly say (not in front of students at least 😉 ). Professors outside Scandinavia often think they’re a special caste or whatever, so this open relationship was quite a welcome change.
Da, Finska je puna Šterčeva 😉

Fins and languages (cf04)

Fins are a special ethnicity with two national languages – Finnish and Swedish. Both of those are official languages of Finland at the country level. 5% of Finnish population (total population is about 5 million) is Swedish-speaking. That being said, most Fins don’t speak Swedish though all of them have some knowledge of Swedish since the lingo is taught at schools. Note that Swedish-speak Fins consider themselves Fins and show patriotic love and loyalty to Finland, not Sweden. At the municipal level, though, only municipalities with the percentage of Swedish-speakers higher than 5% are bilingual. In addition, Swedish is to remain a co-official language in the cities of Helsinki, Turku and Vaasa even if the percentage drops below 5%, which is unlikely in Vaasa. I mean the percentage of Swedish-speaking Fins has been declining constantly for more than a century, but Vaasa is the centre of Ostrobothnia, where most Swedish-speaking Fins live. Basically, most municipalities of Finland are monolingual and the percentage of Swedish-speakers in bilingual municipalities outside Ostrobothnia is very small, so Finland as a whole is pretty much monolingual. Indeed, Swedish can barely be heard in Helsinki which is officially bilingual. So what does bilingualism in Finland mean? Everything in bilingual municipalities must be in both Finnish and Swedish although many Finns don’t actually speak Swedish. A notable exception is Eurohostel where everything is in Finnish, English and Russian (no Swedish).

SAM_4497 (800x600) A bilingual street sign in Helsinki

SAM_3885 (800x600) The destination of a tram line written in Finnish (Munkkiniemi) and Swedish (Munksnäs) in Helsinki

DSC_0281 (800x600) Swedish name of Suomenlinna (Sveaborg) on a ferry to Suomenlinna.
Now, I’ve seen -borg (borg means castle in Swedish) being part of Swedish names throughout Helsinki. All that talk about the Borg makes me think that Swedish-speakers want to assimilate us all 😀

Åland, an archipelago between Finland and Sweden (Closer to Finland though. You can spit on Åland from Turku), is a special case. Åland is an autonomous region of Finland. The Islands are Swedish-speaking and the sole official language of the Islands is Swedish. Over time, Ålanders have developed their own insular identity separate from Finland and Sweden.

Finnish language is very complex and quite different than its European neighbours (except for Estonian). At first, I thought to write about Finnish here, but the text turned out to be too long, so I decided to make a separate post 😀 You can read about my thoughts of Finnish here.

Swedish, on the other hand, is nothing special. That is, it is an Indo-European lingo and by that it’s like most other European languages. Basically, not that interesting 😀

Now, English is spoken almost by all Fins. And I don’t mean that Fins just speak English. Finland is a non-English speaking country, yet people are fluent English speakers (pretty much the case throughout Nordic countries), so you can’t really get lost in Finland if you speak English. All the information throughout Finland is available in English and before asking a question, you don’t have to ask a stranger in Finland Do you speak English? because it’s expected the stranger speaks English. I mean, occasionally a person in the street tells you No English when you ask a question in English, but that’s rare and at least they can say No English. English is, also, often used for communication between Finnish- and Swedish-speaking Fins. Although both should understand national languages of Finland, since they’re taught national languages at schools – well, Sami isn’t taught in most of Finland, but I’m not sure Sami is considered a national language [I mean, Sami are indigenous people of Finland, but their language(s) are mostly spoken up north (in Lapland) and not by many people (and there’s no one standardized Sami language so Sami speaking “Sami”, in fact often speak different languages, which is quite confusing)] – they often don’t. Not at the level to conduct intermediate to advanced conversation, at least; so they speak English as a compromise. Just as an example, our course co-ordinator was from Swedish-speaking part of Finland (Ostrobothnia to be precise) and he didn’t speak Finnish at all, and spoke English with Finnish-speaking Fins.

De facto, most Fins are bilingual, mostly in Finnish and English; some are multilingual and just a few are truly monolingual.

Amazing Summer School Race (cf05)

HSS has a rich social programme, full of various events, most of which are free of charge. Basically, you catch two birds with one stone – you learn something (earn a diploma of the University of Helsinki) and have fun along the way.

The social programme is constantly being improved by student feedback at the end of the school (each student has to fill a feedback form).

A new event, one which I hope is going to be kept, this year was the Amazing Summer School Race.

You “race” around Helsinki.
We were divided into teams. The objective is to collect as many clues as possible and return to the University main building (by 6 PM if I remember correctly). The team that collects most clues wins. Through collecting clues, you learn about Finnish culture and history, and interact with locals (note that that would hardly be possible if Fins weren’t fluent in English).

Unfortunately, my team took the race a bit to seriously 😦 Dunno, maybe they thought they were in the Olympics… Anyway, me being screwed, they quickly outpaced me and I was left behind. Luckily a team mate stayed with me, for which I am eternally grateful 🙂 We roamed around Helsinki for an hour or so trying to find our team. Then we returned to the main building and became a new team. Since teams were named after fruit, we were given mandarin. Expect for mandarin being my favourite fruit (I eat way too much of the shit 😀 luckily, they’re not available throughout the year 😦 ), my team mate’s native lingo was Mandarin Chinese.

In the end, the seriousness of my original team paid off ’cause they won. However, since after finding each clue, you have to send a selfie of your team and the clue and since we, mandarins, found the first clue with our original team; we were in the original team’s first selfie and, therefore, declared winners too. At first I was thinking of not accepting the prize because of the bitchiness of the original team, but then I saw the prizes: a notebook (paper notebook, not a computer) and a shiny wooden 4 GB USB flash drive (check the pick below) with a magnet in its cap, so the cap can’t fall off. After seeing the flash drive, I thought screw you assholes, this flash drive kicks ass 😀

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An Amazing Summer School Race prize – a USB flash drive

Touching the sky (cf06)

Since there are over 2000 km between my town and Helsinki, I had to fly there.

There are no direct flights from Zagreb to Helsinki, so I took connecting flights although when I waited for the plane to take me to Frankfurt in Helsinki, I saw a plane was scheduled to leave for Dubrovnik (yes, King’s Landing) soon. I should’ve just ran into that plane and spend a weekend after the school at a nice Dalmatian beach 😀 Would avoid missing the plane in Frankfurt anyway.

Anyway, on my way to Helsinki, I switched planes in Munich and on my way back home, I switched planes in Frankfurt.

Now, I, being screwed, had an escort at the airports. The escorts did their job good… expect in Frankfurt. So, I was told to always follow the escort, which I did and it worked good everywhere expect at the Frankfurt airport. I did follow the escort all the time, and they’d taken me all around the airport (note that Frankfurt airport is the biggest airport in Europe, continental Europe at least) until the plane for home left without me… I kept looking at my watch and I did hear the “final call for flight to Zagreb”, but I decided to just wait for the escort because if I had gotten lost in the maze that is Frankfurt airport, I would have been stuck in Frankfurt ’cause missing the flight in that case would have entirely been my fault. Well, not entirely, but try explaining that to the airport staff. Actually, the staff just presumed I didn’t speak German, which I don’t, I just understand enough of the lingo to know that they blamed me for the whole fiasco (es war nicht mein Fehler und Schluss!), but in the end they booked me the next flight to Zagreb. Now, they wouldn’t have done that if missing the previous flight was really my fault. So, I arrived happily home the very same day (and my baggage didn’t get lost!), just at 1:30 PM instead of 11:30 AM. Oh, I waited for the plane in Frankfurt with an elderly Croatian woman from Australia. She said she was only visiting then, but that she had lived in Zagreb back in the sixties. She spoke to me in semi-Croatian. Just wanted to mention that Croatian is so fucked up a language that many people of Croatian origin, especially those born abroad, don’t speak the lingo at all, so Finnish is not a lonely “incomprehensible fellow” out there 😉
At the very least, I spent a few hours in an Imperial base (despite having Republic characters on ToR!) 😉

These are some photos I took, mostly from a plane:

DSC_0224 (800x600) This two-winged bus was my plane to Munich.

Although, I don’t have a pic, a similar, just bigger, bus was my plane from Frankfurt to Zagreb.

SAM_3810 (800x600) This is a pic of Zagreb Airport.

SAM_3826 (800x600) That’s Croatia down there.

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SAM_3843 (800x600) I’m pretty sure that’s Germany (i.e. Bavaria) down there, but it could be Austria 😮

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That’s Munich Airport down there.

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And, we’re back on Earth again. This is Helsinki Airport from a bus to take us to the city centre (Central Railway Station to be precise).

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– Helsinki Airport again

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– and again

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– Finland from the air

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– Finnish coulds from the air 😀

SAM_4516 (800x600) – clouds above the Baltic Sea from the air

I’m pretty sure that’s Germany down there. I heard passengers mentioning we were above Germany and we arrived to Frankfurt soon afterwards.

SAM_4523 (800x600) Ah, Frankfurt, the most modern city in Europe 😀

SAM_4524 (800x600) – Frankfurt again

SAM_4525 (800x600) – and again

SAM_4527 (800x600) – and again

SAM_4529 (800x600) – and the sole pic I managed to take of the “magnificent” Frankfurt airport when I settled in plane for Zagreb and before passengers to my left (those blocking my path to the window) arrived

PICTURE TIME (cf07) 😀

After these “amazing” pics from the sky, why not continue with pictures? Oh, I am going to write more text (a short story here, a description of a pic there), but from now on, there are mostly be pics.

Helsinki (cf08)

So here are some pics of Helsinki:

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This is Snellman’s statue. The statue is located near where my course was held. Actually, even the street where the course was held is Snellman’s street. Now, Snellman was strongly against Swedish (despite being a Swedish-speaker himself, even his name reeking of Swedishness – Johan Vilhelm), yet the course was held in Swedish School of Social Science, so Swedish School of Social Science is located in a street named after a guy who was totally against Swedish 😮

This is the Helsinki Olympic stadium. Click on the image to enlarge it and you might just see the five-ringed Olympics symbol in the left, right of the tower.
The stadium is most popular for being the centre of activities in the 1952 Summer Olympics.

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This is Upsenski Cathedral. The cathedral is the main cathedral of the Finnish Orthodox Church and the largest orthodox church in “Western” Europe.
Just like having two official languages, Finland has two state religions: the Finnish Orthodox Church and the Lutheran Church of Finland. The Finnish Orthodox Church may be a state religion, but it ain’t that popular in Finland. Wiki says the church has only 58 000 members (out of 5.5 million citizens of Finland). Our guide kept saying the cathedral was of the Greek Orthodox Church leaving an impression she doesn’t even know the Finnish Orthodox Church exists and if a tour guide of Helsinki is unaware of the existence of the Church…

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This is Helsinki Cathedral. The Helsinki Cathedral, on the other hand, is a cathedral of the Lutheran Church of Finland.
Now, see the bus parked before the cathedral. Says Integral – Novo Mesto (da, občasni prevoz u Helsinkiju 😀 )? I was quite surprised to see a Slovenian bus that up north. Finland, and Scandinavia in general, being that much north (and being quite expensive), doesn’t see many South Slavs (tourists at least, many of us are workers in Scandinavia, especially Sweden). Mkay, we do come up there occasionally. After all, I was there, but we rarely venture that far with a bus. The distance between my town and Helsinki is 2150 km and Helsinki is even a few klicks farther from Novo Mesto (Novo Mesto being 75 km southwest of my town), so to travel such a distance in a bus is quite bold. Turned out, they were on a Scandinavian tour (Helsinki being only one destination). I guess they could have just rented a Scandinavian bus, but they toured Germany and stuff along the way. An elderly couple wanted to take a pic of me, so they could show their friends they saw a Croatian in Helsinki.
I saw a bus from Maribor later (the bus was parked a few metres east of the spot the bus from Novo Mesto had been parked 😀 ), but blah, they weren’t “new” then 😉 and weren’t that talkative. When I told them they were the second group of Slovenians I had seen in Helsinki, they just told me there were a lot of them (polno ih je)… Speaking of Maribor, Maribor was the first place where I saw a vehicle with Finnish licence plates (yeah, just four months before my time in Finland 😮 ) 😀

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A statue of Alexander II of Russia in front of Helsinki Cathedral

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As I said, Croatian embassy is some 400 m away from Eurohostel 😀
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Note how Croatian flag is worn. You can compare it with the EU flag on the left. The EU flag is quite new and the colours are well preserved. The colours on the Croatian flag should be darker in hue. This can especially be seen in blue, which should be a hue similar, if not the same, to the EU blue.

Also, I went to the embassy and it’s like a flat on the top floor. Basically, Croatia has 100 m² of territory in Finland tops 😉
I came there a day after the Croatian Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving is on 5th August and I went to the embassy on the 6th). I wanted to go on Thanksgiving, but they were closed on that day. Anyway, I asked them if they’d roasted a lamb for Thanksgiving and they said Of course not. Now what kind of a Croatian doesn’t roast a lamb on Thanksgiving?! 😀 And then says of course…

Now, this is more like it. Irish embassy looks like an embassy 😀
Irish and Croatian embassies are the only two places in Finland where I saw the flag of the EU, meaning I saw two EU flags more than Finnish flags 😀 Mkay, I did see a Finnish flag here and there, but mostly only a tourist waving a Finnish flag. There’s even no flag at government buildings. Considering the EU flag, while, other than the EU logos on licence plates 😀 there are no EU flags flowing in Finland, despite Finland being an EU15 country (yes, one of the stars of the EU flag represents Finland 😀 ), an EU flag pops up from a toilet in Croatia. Now, we’re not the only EU member covered with EU flags (e.g. same shit in our neighbour Slovenia). However, unlike Slovenia that’s been a member since 2004, we only joined the EU in 2013. Despite the flags, we still don’t have the EU logo on licence plates. There has been talk of a complete redesign of our licence plates, which would include the logo, coming soon, but the talk’s been going on for a year and we still have to stick stickers on a licence plate if we want it to have the EU logo 😀

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This is the Finnish National Theatre

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Ah, the flag of Sweden, Finland’s best friend.
Finland used to be under Swedish rule for centuries without any kind of autonomy, but they’re best friends now. Now, Imagine if Croatia and Serbia became best friends one day 😮

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The city hall is nearby [actually, the hall can be seen in the previous pic (the white building left of the one with the Swedish flag)].

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Inside the city hall. That’s Helsinki coat of arms up there.

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These three pics are also the city hall indoors. We were quite honoured ’cause people not working in the hall are rarely admitted inside. We attended a Night of Future Possibilities, an event promoting higher education in Helsinki.

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The view of the Finnish Government building from the cathedral.
So, Helsinki Cathedral, Alexander II statue and the Government are all on the Senate Square. Right across the Government building is the main building of the University of Helsinki. The building is identical to the Government building (both from in- and outside). This whole complex was build in the Grand Dutchy of Finland during the reign of Alexander II (hence the statue of him).

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This is the Finnish Parliament building.

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This is the council room of the Finnish Parliament.

Note that there’s no Finnish flag in front of the Government building nor is there one in front of the Parliament building nor in the council room nor did I see a single Finnish flag inside the Finnish Parliament.
Now, not showing the national flag at state institutions, especially the Government and the Parliament is just way odd to me.

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We met Tujia Brax, a former minister of justice of Finland, at the Parliament.
Although I forgot to ask Mrs. Brax in person, I did email her the “flag” question. She gave me the list of Finnish holidays when the flag is flown in- and/or outside the Parliament. In addition, the flag is flown during a visit of a foreign delegation to Finland. Still, the national flag should always be in front of a state institution if you ask me.

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You’re probably asking yourself why the fuck did I take a pic of a pair of seagulls and why would anybody in his right mind post such a pic on his blog… unless the blog is about seagulls 😀 Actually, I took quite a few pics of gulls and am just posting one. Gulls are pretty bold in Helsinki. The pic was taken at the Central Railway Station and these guys were just calmly roaming the square. Indeed, gulls venture in the heart of the city just like that. Coastal towns in Croatia are indeed full of gulls. But they rarely stray far from the coast. Actually, I haven’t seen them anywhere so deep in the city. They’re probably so “bold” in Helsinki because the city is situated on a peninsula and many islets and small islands. Basically, the coast is not far from any part of the city.

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Now, shouldn’t the guards in front of the Buckingham Palace have such roofs on their posts? 😀 After all, London can be quite rainy 😮

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This is a statue in the South Harbour. Now, a statue of a naked guy colloquially called the Dick (Pimpek) is quite popular in my town. In addition, there’s a fountain of a (male) kid peeing in the city centre I keep passing by. Basically, a dick seems to be a very popular organ.

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Helsinki World Center is quite different from the trade centers in New York [at least from the outside, I have been inside no trade center (neither this one nor either one of New York WTC) so I can’t really say if there are any similarities inside]. Helsinki and New York ain’t the only cities with a trade center, of course. If I remember correctly, there’s one in Graz, Austria. Nevertheless, since I passed by Helsinki WTC before the One World Trade Center was opened in New York, I did kinda feel I was in the past.

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Yes, there are beaches in Scandinavia. Helsinki has several. This is Hietaniemi beach.

Click on the image to enlarge it and you just might recognize me standing there 😀 Unfortunately, I wasn’t equipped for swimming when we went to Hietaniemi beach (we didn’t plan to go to the beach, but it was along the way, so we stopped at the beach). I did take a swim in the Baltic Sea (Gulf of Finland to be precise 😀 ) a week later, but on a crappy beach on Suomenlinna, just so I can say that I swam in the Baltic. The lack of the swimming equipment shouldn’t have stopped me ’cause the guy in the water behind me didn’t have neither a swimming suit nor a towel. He just undressed everything but underpants and jumped in the water 😀 Now, the water was not freezing (Helsinki being unusually hot at the time probably had a lot to do with the water being warm 😉 ), but the water is so unsalty. The Gulf of Finland has salinity between 0.8 and 5.8 ‰ (as a comparison the salinity of the Adriatic Sea is 38-39 ‰).

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Yes, it (a thermometer at the Central Railway station) says 45 °C. The first week in Helsinki was unbelievably hot. I had been checking the forecast for Helsinki before going there and wasn’t all that surprised, but some people, like my roommate came dressed in long sleeves. He was quite shocked as soon as we exited the airport. He was Italian. Italians and other people from the Mediterranean and Central Europe were especially surprised ’cause we had an unusually cool summer. Basically, those temperatures in Helsinki would be considered hot here too and melting summers are expected here. So imagine, when we come from cool weather to extremely hot Scandinavia 😮 Luckily, the heat was accompanied by a cool breeze. We’re usually not that fortunate down here 😦

Suomenlinna (cf09)

So Helsinki is situated on a peninsula and many islets and islands.

One such island is Suomenlinna. Suomenlinna is a fortress island. The fortification of the island started shortly after the Russo-Swedish War of 1741-1743.

The island became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1991.

The island can be reached all year round by a ferry for which Helsinki Travel Card (used for buses, trams and metro) is good enough. In addition, there’s another ferry going to the island in summer.

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SAM_4422 (800x600) There are six museums on Suomenlinna. I went to the Museum of War.
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And this is the crappy beach were I took a swim, but at least I can say that I took a swim in the Baltic 😀 The water was warm, but I guess the salinity at the beach is 0.8 ‰. Goddamn, I swear fresh water lakes are saltier!

Islands and islets of Helsinki (cf10)

We went on a cruise around the Helsinki Archipelago. The cruise is part of the social programme and the archipelago really is beautiful and, therefore, the cruise was beautiful too. Nevertheless, the cruise was labelled Baltic Sea Cruise yet not only that we didn’t leave the Gulf of Finland, we didn’t distance ourselves one klick from the coast of Helsinki. Well, technically the archipelago is in the Baltic see, so they didn’t lie though I’m pretty sure that a cruise around Bracelona or Marseille or, dunno, Genova and so on ain’t considered a Mediterranean Sea cruise. You can see the location of the Gulf of Finland within the Baltic here.

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Aye, the flag in the red frame is Dutch, not Croatian 😀

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We had a lohikeitto (Finnish salmon soup) on the cruise. I can honestly say this shit is one of the best things I’ve tasted in my life 😀 You can find the recipe here. I haven’t tried the recipe, so I can’t guarantee it’s the real deal.
A evo i recepta na Coolinarki 😀 Nije identičan receptu od lohikeitta na slici (znam da oriđiđi nema mrkve, a sumnjam da Finci stavljaju Vegetu 😉 ). Ipak, lohikeitto s Coolinarke je isproban i nisam primijetio ikakvu razliku u okusu od onog koji sam jeo u Helsinkiju 😀

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The pic is of pretty bad quality, but the tallest building in Helsinki can be seen.

Trams (cf11)

What the fuck is so special about trams?!

In 2007, Helsinki decided to renew their tram park. A CROTRAM was sent to Helsinki. Those trams make the majority of trams in my town. The reaction of the citizens of Helsinki was negative mostly because the interior was uncomfortable and the company’s offer was rejected.
Mkay interior is far from cosy, but I thought better arrangement of seats wasn’t possible because engines of a low-floor tram have to be somewhere, so I was thinking like What the fuck?! Are Fins just spoilt?! Especially because, unlike for example in Milan, rail tracks in Helsinki have the same dimensions as those in Zagreb. The proof is that the tram shipped to Helsinki was designed for the tracks in Zagreb and used to ride around the town.

But when I saw trams in Helsinki and went inside, I realized that our trams are indeed crappy.
At least one row of seats has a pair of seats instead of a single seat. There are recycle bins inside a tram; there’s a small table between the seats facing each other. Although, I must point out that the drivers are suicidal maniacs, so you can’t really put anything on the table without it ending up on a passenger’s face.
Basically, if low-floor trams in Helsinki can be so cosy, so can those here! End of story!

In additions, even the oldest trams have at least one low-floor entrance (to a part of tram that doesn’t have engines or wheels).

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An old tram (the low-floor portion of the tram is in the red frame)

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Wee, a pubtram! 😀

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A low-floor tram in Helsinki

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SAM_3862 (800x600) These two pics show the interior of an old tram. The second shows the low-floor portion of the tram.

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These two show the interior of a low-floor tram

Nuuksio (cf12)

An organized visit to Nuuksio National Park is a part of HSS social programme.

Nuuksio is one of many national parks of Finland. Many endagered species of animals and plants live in the park.

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When he found the frog, our guide proudly said we had just found our first animal of the day. Indeed, he found the little fellow shortly after we’d started the hike.

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This is an ant house. It is approximately 1 metre in height. The guide told us the ants had been building the house for 300 years. This is just the roof actually. Most of the ant house is underground and this “roof” keeps the underground levels warm during winter.

In the end, the only animals we saw that day were the frog, ants and the most dangerous animal of Finland – a mushroom 😀

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We had a traditional Finnish sausage for lunch. Turned out to be just a fat frankfurter. Nevertheless, since I love meat, including sausages, I had two 😀

I remember an annoying wasp while we were having lunch. We kept saying bloody bee because we didn’t know the word for a wasp ×D Other than the colour of wasps being of a lighter hue than that of bees and them being “better built”; bees are hard working and rarely annoy humans being busy going from flower to flower taking the “ingredients” for honey (and others protecting the hive… and mating with the queen). Wasps, on the other hand, are those nasty little buggers whose only purpose in life seems to be annoying humans and other animals. The sting of a wasp hurts more than the sting of a bee and they do not die after they sting you!

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Finland is called a country of 10 000 lakes (actually there are more than 80 000 lakes in Finland). There’s at least a dozen lakes in Nuuksio. We went canoeing on one and took a swim in the lake.
I thought I wouldn’t go canoeing at all since I can’t even climb a canoe on my own… But, in the end, people pulled out a larger canoe and helped me climb in the middle of it, so I could balance the canoe.

The lake was quite warm. That was because it had been so warm outside for so long and the lake wasn’t big. Actually an Italian was shocked how the water was “hot”. The Italian was from Northern Italy, so she’s used to those big Italian lakes.
The water was of reddish colour because of its bottom

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Someone was bold enough to bring her phone on canoeing.

Helsinki Zoo (cf13)

I planned on going to Tampere on the last Sunday in Helsinki. But things rarely go according to plan, so I went to the zoo (and Suomenlinna) instead.

There’s a special “Zoo Bus” going directly to the zoo from the central railway station. The bus is operated by HRT, the public transport authority in Helsinki, meaning you can use your HRT travel card to take a ride in the Zoo Bus.

During my visit, the zoo celebrated its 125th anniversary

Like I said, Helsinki is located on a peninsula and dozens of islands and islets. Anyway, the zoo is located on an island – the island is strictly reserved for the zoo. That makes Helsinki Zoo kinda unique. Other than that, the zoo is nothing special. Well, there is one other thing I found shiny: literally everything is written in English [along Finnish and Swedish, of course (and Russian if I remember correctly)] (those little stories about animals, the information about animals – everything).
I mean, we do have some things in English (usually in German too) in the zoo in Zagreb, but very few things. Basically, if you don’t understand Croatian (and only a handful of people outside the former Yugoslavia do), all you can do is see the animals… which mostly is the point of a zoo 😀

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This pic was taken on the bridge connecting the Zoo Island with the mainland. That’s the island up ahead.

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This is what I meant when I said everything was in English. I took a pic of this text because before going to the Helsinki Zoo, I didn’t know male lions kill the cubs of previous pride leaders.
By the way, seems the Helsinki Zoo supports the united Ireland because the Union Flag is the one before the Acts of Union 1800 (you can read more about the Union Jack here) 😀

A kitty! Cats, like lions, tigers, leopards and jaguars are the first animals I go to see in a zoo. Unfortunately, other than a leopard sleeping on a tree branch, this wildcat was the only cat I saw that day (I didn’t even see a lynx)! All the others were so lazy that they just hid somewhere out of sight. It seems that the heat in Helsinki this August was too much even for the cats native to tropical climate 😉
Actually, feeding of tigers was at 1 PM I think, so I ran too see the tigers. The feeding caught me by surprise and I left my camera on the bench I’d been sitting on. I realized I’d lost the camera as soon I grabbed for it to take pictures of tigers, so I ran back to the bench right away. The camera was already gone. A guy I asked if he’d seen a camera asked me A silver camel?! [yeah, I speak (very) badly]. In the end I found the camera at an info point. The point was only a few metres from where I had lost the camera, but I was smart enough to encircle the whole island! A visitor found the camera and brought it to the info point. If someone found a lost camera in my town, he’d most likely keep it for himself. Mkay, my camera is a piece of shit, but not on the first glance. Anyway, in the end, I didn’t see even tigers!

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This peacock is freely roaming the zoo. It ain’t the only bird freely roaming the Helsinki Zoo.

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Ah, a sleeping teddy :$ Bears are one of the most dangerous animals of Finland. Actually, not counting mushrooms of course 😉 the most dangerous animals of Finland and Croatia are often quoted the same: a wolf, a bear and a lynx – “the dangerous trio”. Yet, every time I’ve seen a bear, it was either sleeping or aimlessly and lazily wandering around. I guess I should count myself lucky 😮

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Snowy owls are just so cool! 😀

Tallinn (cf14)

A trip to Tallinn, a city right across Helsinki – 80 klicks south, across the Gulf of Finland – is a part of the social programme although you have to reach Tallinn on your own.

Anyway, a trip to Tallinn was part of my course, so I didn’t go to Tallinn as a part of the social programme. The town didn’t impress me all that much (don’t get me wrong, Tallinn is a beautiful town and I’m really glad I’ve had a chance to go there). I would like to visit Tallinn again, but I went to Tallinn only two days before the social programme, so blah.
Mine wasn’t the only course with a trip to Tallinn. A few others have the trip too. One such was the course my country mate attended. They, however, went to Tallinn on a speedboat or whatever. The country mate told me they had almost thrown up several times (80 km on a speedboat!). We, on the other hand, used a ferry, more like a cruise ship with everything but a swimming pool.

We went early in the morning. Our ferry was leaving at 7:30 AM if I remember correctly. We had to come an hour earlier to board the ferry (yeah, it was like a cruise ship even in that aspect). Anyway, we agreed to meet in the lobby of the hostel at 04:45 to reach the harbour in time, but I managed to oversleep. I woke up at 05:15 with a cell phone in my hand, meaning the alarm had gone go off and I just turned it off and ignored it. I dressed up and everything in warp speed, hell I broke the transwarp threshold (I even remembered to take my drug). I had luck with trams because they literally came as soon as I took a step to a stop. In the end, I managed to come to the harbour on time and see the beauty of Tallinn …otherwise I would hardly be writing this shit on my blog 😉

Also, if you’re not an EU citizen and want to travel to Tallinn from Helsinki or to Estonia, in general, from Finland, make sure you have the required papers (EU citizens just need valid ID cards). You can check what you need in your embassy. Since both Finland and Estonia are EU members, you should need nothing special for Estonia. A classmate from the course couldn’t go to Tallinn because his visa, or whatever, expired and he couldn’t leave Finland (well, he probably could have returned to his home country).

We visited Estonian Ministry of Culture and the Museum of Occupations [take not of s because the museum is dedicated to the nazi occupation of Estonia (you can read about it here) and to the Soviet occupation of Estonia (you can read about it here and here), hence the plural].
Now, Estonia is ethnically very diverse. In addition to Estonians, there are many Russians (25 %) (and there are Russian speaking Estonians). Hell, there are even Swedes, Ukranians, Chuvash etc. We attended a lecture about the diversity of Estonia at the Ministry. The lecturer himself was a good example of ethnic diversity of Estonia. His father was a Chuvash and his mother a Russian or something like that. The point is that he was of diverse origin 😀 He speaks Chuvash, Russian, Estonian, English and maybe other lingo(es) too. Now, him speaking Chuvash is interesting. The Chuvash people come from Chuvashia, Russia. Like the rest of the Russian Federation (Chechenia is a notable exception), Chuvashia has been pretty russificated and Chuvash is not spoken much even in Chuvashia anymore yet a native lingo of our lecturer, from outside Chuvashia, was Chuvash.

I apologize for so much text in picture time 😦 but I wanted to share the crap I’ve just written about Estonia. Anyway, here are some pics from Tallinn 😀

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Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, a Russian Orthdox cathedral

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Wee, Balkani grill 😀 I do wonder if they have skinless sausages (ćevapi)… hopefully they taste better than the crap in Helsinki.

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Pics of these two oldtimers were taken in the Museum of Occupations

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If I remember correctly and recognize the guy, this is a statue of Lenin. Lenin’s father was Chuvash.

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Mkay, I don’t remember who this guy was and I don’t recognize.
See that green chamber on the right? That was where people would be sent during the Soviet Era when they’d been “naughty”. Note that the chamber is quite tight. They would keep you in for hours, even a day; but there was no usual time the punishment would last, so people would go crazy not knowing how much longer they would stay. That and you would definitely lose track of time in that thing. I forgot to ask the curator whether people were allowed watches inside 😮 Hell, maybe they would even be given a clock only to see how slowly the time passed…

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There’s a statue of Lenin in the Museum of Occupations (actually, there are more if I remember correctly) and now it’s time to honour old (though younger than Lenin) Boris outside 😀

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Order a takso in Tallinn 😀

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I just had to take this pic. A Brazilian and a German watching soccer together. That is quite unusual since the debacle on FIFA 2014 World Cup 😉

OTHER CRAP (cf15)

It’s time for a few fin(n)ishing touches.

I’m gonna write now about various stuff from my time up north. Most of them are from Helsinki, but some ain’t.

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I don’t drink beer, but I seriously considered buying this crap 😀

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What I would give to share a Coke with the Tarja 😉

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Evo, hoće da i s tukama dijelim Colu! Iako se tuukka i tuka jako razlikuju na finskom 😀 Detaljnije o finskom jeziku, uključujući i dupla slova, možeš pročitati ovđekarce.
Now, I guess I should explain the above gibberish a bit. Tuka means turkey (the bird, not the country) in Croatian. We often used the word to insult people (call them names), especially women because tuka is of female gender. Sometimes we use the male version (tukac) though lately we often use tuka for men too. There are, of course, other animals of male gender reserved for men (e.g. konj – horse) 🙂 Anyway, tuka and tuukka are quite different to Fins. You can read more about the Finnish language, including double lettering, here.

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Pepsi Max is my favourite Pepsi and unfortunately, you can’t buy it in Croatia for years. I bought this bottle in Tallinn. It’s a Polish import [just note that Poland is much farther from Estonia than Finland and they import Pepsi Max from Poland (because Finland is unbelievably expensive)]. Anyway, Pepsi Max is sugarless (iliti ga BEZ CUKRA 😀 ).

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Speaking of drinks, these are Fantas Zero (a sugarless Fanta) from a fridge in a Helsinki store [da, u Konzumu (vrti dolje)]. Now, the only carbonated sugarless drink in Croatia, in addition to mineral water, of course, is cola, so people suffering from sugar disease can only drink cola if they want a decent carbonated drink. Worse, since not all brands offer a sugarless cola, they’re forced to waste money on Pepsi and Coke (Pepsi and Coke are usually more expensive just for being Pepsi and Coke and other brands that do offer sugarless cola usually suck ass). Also, take note of the price (€1.99 for 0.5L Fanta… that’s very expensive for most Europeans).

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Ideš buraz, BALKAN FEVER i to s VLADIMIROM KEKEZOM na bubnjevima, autohtonim Balkancem iz SRBIJE… Tako čovjek lijepo može doć u Helsinki na cajke 😀
Suffice it to say, I’m not overly impressed by this fever. Mostly because I come from the Balkans. It’s just funny how people get excited by what’s foreign to them. Hell, think I’d come to Hawaii Fever if it were organized in my town. Just one thing here: TURBO FOLK IS THE BIGGEST PIECE OF SHIT ON THE PLANET. IT SUCKS ASS AND BALLS. CALLING IT MUSIC IS AN INSULT TO MUSIC (or every other genre if you actually call it music). BE HAPPY YOU DON’T HAVE THAT KIND OF CRAP IN YOUR COUNTRY!!! Actually, people from all over the world should express condolence to people from the Balkans for being forced to listen to that crap (we are bombarded with turbo folk from every corner, so we have to listen to it whether we want to or not).

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Most of student cafeterias were closed by the time I was done with the exam. Luckily the one in the main building was still open. When I came and saw skinless sausages (ćevapi), I immediately filled my plate 😀 but… :$ I don’t care how many Balkan Fevers the chef had been to, he should be sent to Bosnia immediately!

Speaking of eating at student cafeterias in Helsinki. Students here get a card which allows them to eat in cafeterias really cheaply (only students with such a card are allowed to eat in student cafeterias) (the card is colloquially called iksica). You can fill the tray with everything you want and pay almost nothing. Anyway, students in Helsinki have a student discount in the cafeterias, but you have the discount only for one meal. Being used to things in my town, the first time I went to the cafeteria, I filled my tray with everything the cafeteria had to offer and then I brought the tray to the cash register. Suffice it to say, the bill was quite shocking…

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Speaking of skinless sausages, kebab is very popular in Helsinki.

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These are the Finnish doughnuts. They look the same as Croatian doughnuts, but taste like stale Croatian doughnuts (preciznije kao krafne s pretprošlog Fašnika 😉 )

Let’s just sum the little Finnish food I’ve mentioned here up. Fins can make a perfect salmon soup, they steal Croatian doughnuts, which go stale on the trip from Croatia to Finland 😀 and they should spend some time in Bosnia 😀

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People in this pic are dancing Humppa, a traditional Finnish dance. The dance looks just like a country dance to me. I mean, you run in circles hopping around and the “running” is accompanied by banjo or a similar instrument. All you lack are wagons surrounding the dance area 😀
Anyway, I learned where the country dance originates from 😀

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This is how pins of mökkly look at the beginning of the game. Mökkly is a Finnish game where you score points by knocking down the pins. The game is quite tricky because the winner is the player who scores 50 first, but you need to score exactly 50. If you score 51 or more, you’re back to square one. Suffice it to say, a game of mökkly can last for quite some time.
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Since after knocking a pin down, the pin must be brought back up at exactly the same place where it was knocked over to, the pins can be really apart at the end of a game. This is an “after” photo and I’m not sure every pin is in the pic. Check for yourself if you want to know (mölkky has 12 pins, so you can count them.

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I do wonder whether this lady has some connections with Croatia (because of the red and white cheque on her bag) ×D

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So now we know why Fins speak English so good 😉

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Tuomas Holopainen from Nightwish is a huge fan of Disney. Indeed, Finland is full of Donald Duck 😀
Just to make something clear, I’ve hated Mickey Mouse ever since the fucking rat decided to fuck Star Wars up! 😡

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Eto, Paška imaju (i to je jako popularan), imaju i Texa, ali nisam vidio ni Alan Forda ni Zagora (čak ni Garfielda) 😥
Tex Willer is a quite popular comic book in Croatia. Yet I thought he ain’t that popular outside Croatia and Italy (his homecountry 😉 ). Mkay, Finnish translation doesn’t necessarily mean the cowboy is popular, but they wouldn’t waste money translating it if Fins didn’t like Tex at all 😉

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Lollies! This pic was taken in the store on the ship to Tallinn.

Click on the pic to enlarge it. This pic was taken in Eurohostel. Why do I get a feeling Eurohostel doesn’t see many Serbs (Kosovo is labelled with Albanian flag 😉 )

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Don’t come to the restoraunt at 16 AM (I do wonder what time 16 PM is… what, 28:00?!) because it’s closed at that time!
Also, I’m pretty sure they meant 12 AM (00:00/24:00) because 4 PM (16:00) to 12 PM (12:00/noon) are rather strange work hours. And I’m pretty sure the restaurant was closed at 12 PM 😀

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As you know, there are various keyboard layouts for different languages to accommodate the alphabet specific to the language in question [e.g. keys on my keyboard are differently arranged than on yours, that is if you don’t use Croatian layout… or Slovenian or Bosnian (Latin) or Serbian (Latin)… or Montenegrin (Latin) 😀 ]. Indeed, I already blogged about keyboard layouts. Anyway, on most layouts, the numpad is left alone (expect for decimal dot/coma), but on Finnish layout (probably Swedish too since Finnish and Swedish layouts are the same) / and * on the numpad are changed with ÷ and ×. Basically there’s no slash on the numpad on Finnish keyboards and I’m used to typing slash (/) exclusively on the numpad 😀

The license plates on this vehicle are British, hardly something Finnish, but the point is that the steering wheel is on the left and the UK is popular in Europe for being the only country (in addition to Ireland, of course) where drivers drive on the left side of the road and vehicles have steering wheels on the right 😉

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Todorićevo carstvo seže do Finske 😮
Stores (Konzum) of a Croatian tycoon are popular throughout Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia (technically Slovenia too since the mentioned tycoon bought Slovenian store chain Mercator even though the “acquisition” forbid the tycoon from changing the store names in Slovenia, so you can’t see a single Konzum in Slovenia). Anyway, the logo of Konzum is K too. The colours of Konzum are different though (red and green), but still… K markets are very popular in Helsinki. Such an odd coincidence… 😀

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Super Konzum na Glavnom kolodvoru! 😀
So, Konzum has like small neighbourhood stores (like K market in the previous pic) and big stores labelled Super or Maxi Konzum depending on their size. Super Konzums are big like a mall and are more common (at least in Zagreb). Anyway, this is a pic of a K Supermarket.

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A Finnish movie night is a part of the social programme. Now, my disappointment was the lack of popcorn! As you can see, the cinema had a place to put popcorn on, but there was no bloody popcorn!
About the movie: Prior to the beginning of the Summer School, there was a vote on which movie to watch. All the options were Finnish, of course. Unfortunately, I was too late to cast a vote. Now, of all the options (5 if I remember correctly), the chosen movie was the only offered movie I’d never vote for. I thought Well… it is still watchable, it might even turn out good. Anyway, the movie is Concrete Night (Betoniyö) and it’s such a piece of shit. Seriously, do not watch it! If you do, you’re gonna waste 93 minutes of your life! I don’t remember the details because the movie was so bloody stupid. I do remember, however, that like first 80 minutes of the movie are actually an introduction and that the real plot begins at the end of the movie. I, also, remember many senseless and useless scenes (like a guy peeing in a tram). Just don’t watch it, trust me! I mean, you can watch the crap if you don’t believe me, but I assure you’re gonna waste 93 minutes of your life!
Actually, I have a feeling that the people who voted for the movie pulled a prank on us. Few people came to the movie night. I talked to some people at the cinema who didn’t even know there had been a vote. Basically, if just a few people had shown up and many of those had had no idea there had been a vote, where the hell were those who’d actually voted for the movie?! I’m pretty sure they had known the movie was a piece of shit, decided to vote for it and then not to show up, so we, who had no idea what the movie was like, would end up eating shit 😮

A few final words about Finland (cf16)

Finland is the home to many everyday things, like Nokia (which exists in the 23rd Star Trek century 😉 ), Linux (see Linus Torvalds and note that Android for mobile devices is a Linux distribution), Angry Birds and not to mention great Finnish bands (Nightwish, Apocalyptica and Stratovarius to name a few).

Posted on December 28th, 2014 at 10:12 GMT
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Little Bavaria in Croatia

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German state of Bavaria is known for its castles. Travel agencies here often organize travels entitled Castles of Bavaria. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a Castles of Honshu travel 😦 not that I could afford it anyway. Sadly, I haven’t even gone to the castles of Bavaria. Somehow, when I decide to go, the travel gets cancelled 😦

Anyway, Croatia has its share of castles too, especially in northern region of Zagorje. So, if I haven’t been to the castles of Bavaria, at least I’ve been in castles of Zagorje. Only a handful, honestly, but well… So, I’m gonna blog a bit about the castles of Zagorje today.

If you’re a Game of Thrones fan (or A Song of Ice and Fire fan – I’m a bookman meself 😀 ), you might ask yourself why Dalmatia was chosen to film scenes of the show and/or not Zagorje. “Castles” of Zagorje are mostly small manors and big villas (a couple of castles are even made of wood). So most of the castles can’t be big holdfasts and keeps of the Seven Kingdoms 😀 / 😦

Kurija_Skaricevo
Gornje Škarićevo, a wooden castle

There are no walled cities like Dubrovnik (King’s Landing) in Zagorje unless you count Varaždin (cf17) in and no one does.

Content

Use Ctrl+F codes to quickly navigate through the rest of the post:
About Zagorje (cf01)
Generally about the castles (cf02)
Trakošćan (cf03)
Veliki Tabor (cf04)
Bežanec (cf05)
Oršić (cf06)
Golubovec (cf07)
Gredice (Castle Gjalski) (cf08)
Miljana (cf09)
Maruševec (cf10)
Klenovnik (cf11)
Novi Marof (Greben-grad, Castle Erdödy) (cf12)
Lobor (cf13)
Sveti Križ Začretje (cf14)
Mali Tabor (cf15)
Novi dvori (cf16)
Varaždin (cf17)
Popovec (cf18)
Noble families of Zagorje (cf19)
– The Drašković family (cf20)
– The Erdődys (cf21)
– The Rattkays (cf22)
The end (cf23)
Nekoliko razumljivih riječi za kraj (cf24)
– Literatura (cf25)

About Zagorje (cf01)

Zagorje is a region in northern Croatia. There are no strict boundaries of the region. One mostly considers Zagorje the area between the hill of Ivanšćica in the north, the hill of Medvednica in the south; the hill of Kalnik in the east and the river Sutla [Sotla in Slovenian (border with Slovenia)] in the west. Zagorje means like between hills.

Zagorje includes the whole Krapina-Zagorje county, half of Varaždin county (the following municipalities: Bednja, Breznica, Donja Voća, Breznički Hum, Ivanec, Klenovnik, Lepoglava, Ljubešćica, Maruševec, Novi Marof, Varaždinske Toplice and Visok) and a small part of Zagreb county (municipality Jakovlje).

Zagorje has no major cities. The most important towns are Krapina and Zabok. Northernmost region, that of Varaždin county, gravitate towards the city of Varaždin, while the rest gravitates towards the city of Zagreb.

Sometimes, the northern border is extended to the river Drava and the southern to the river Sava. In that case both Zagreb and Varaždin are part of the region. And, indeed, the further south in Croatia you go, the more likely people are going to say that Zagorje is everything north of Zagreb, including the city itself. Nevertheless, people in both Zagreb and Varaždin never consider themselves being in Zagorje. The identities of both towns are strong.

To avoid confusion with a town Zagorje ob Savi (Zagorje on the Sava, just like Frankfurt am Main means Frankfurt on the Main) in Slovenia, the adjective hrvatsko (Croatain) is often added to Zagorje – Hrvatsko zagorje. Anyway, just so you know that if you come across the terms Croatian Zagorje, Hrvatsko zagorje or just Zagorje it’s the same shit. Well, Zagorje might be the Slovenian town – it depends on the context.

The climate of Zagorje is temperate with cool winters and warm summers (Cfb according to Köppen). The region has many thermal and freshwater springs. During the time when Europe was threaten by Turks (a long time), Zagorje was the southernmost place of the Austrian Empire (later Austria-Hungary) safe from Turks. Because of its safeness, it became the centre of political life of Croatia for centuries to come. All of that resulted in nobles wanting to have an estate in Zagorje, whether a big castle like Trakošćan (cf03) or a wooden estate.
As I said, there are a couple of wooden castles present in Zagorje today. However, having in mind that Croatian nobles were rarely as rich as their colleagues in Europe and them just wanting to have a castle in Zagorje, it is safe to assume that the building material of many castles in Zagorje had been wood and most of them were later fortified with stone or another building material.

Map of Zagorje (click on the image to enlarge it)

Castles of Zagorje and population (density and settlement size) of the region (according to census 2011) (click on the image to enlarge it)

Generally about the castles (cf02)

Castles of Zagorje should be the main tourist attraction of the region like the castles around the river Loire in France. Instead most of them are abandoned and devastated. The downfall of castles in Zagorje began as soon as the feudal system in Croatia was abolished. Nobles had to pay peasants which left them with less money to take care of the castles. Castles suffered extensive damage much later in World War II. Immediately after the war, instead of a reparation, ruins were used as a building material. In 1945, with the establishment of communist Yugoslavia, castles were nationalized. The state didn’t take good care of them because they saw the exploitation of masses by nobles in the castles. Even after the end of communism and the independence of Croatia (the nineties), castles haven’t fared much better. They were unjustly privatized because the state just wanted to be rid of the responsibility to take care of them.

Note that despite all the changes in society since the Middle Ages, some things haven’t changed in essence. We may no longer have nobility. Today’s nobles are managers and “businessmen”. A director of a food production company does not feed the cows. A director of a company in charge of maintaining roads does not pave streets. All these jobs are reserved for “little folk”.

Today, unabandoned and not devastated castles are used in many ways (e.g. hospitals, roof for homeless people…). But a few are open to public. Only a castle that is open to public, a castle that has to be preserved as good as possible, can be taken care properly because if you want to show people a castle and its history, you have to take very good care of the castle. Such use of a castle is the only right one. Not only that tourism flourishes that way, but people learn about history as well. Nevertheless, any use for a castle is good because if castle is in use, it must be preserved to a degree [e.g. Golubovec (cf07) which was part of the National Library].

Castles of Zagorje are, without a question, less impressive than their Loirean counterparts. However, most of them have the same historic value. They show that Zagorje was (and still is) part of (Central) European culture. By losing them, Croatia as a whole loses a material trace of its history.

Castles in Zagorje were birthplaces of many Croatian patriots, linguists, artists, scientists and others.

Therefore, castles should be the primary tourist attraction of Zagorje while other attractions (such as traditional customs, wine, licitar hearts etc.) should be just sideattractions. For instance, people don’t go to France for wine, but they do buy it and drink it “along the way” while in France thus boosting French income of tourism.

Trakošćan (cf03)

Trakošćan is the most popular castle open to public in Zagorje with about 70 000 visitors annually.

The castle is located in northern Zagorje in Varaždin county.

The exact date of its creation is unknown. It is first mentioned in the 14th century, meaning the castle itself was probably built in the late 13th century. Since then, the castle has been renovated many times, most notably in the 19th century.
in 1570 the owner of Trakošćan becomes a member of the Drašković family (cf20). They are a noble Croatian family. Many members were very successful. Ivan III Drašković, who was, in addition to being a ban of Croatia, the only Croatian palatine of Hungary; and Janko Drašković, who was a poet and reformist, are among them.

The castle has been open to public since 1953.

A forest park with a lake surrounds the castle.
Today both the castle and the park are popular tourist destinations. In addition to visits, other events, such as weddings, are organized here as well.

Visit the castle’s official website.

Trakoscan
The location of Trakošćan in Zagorje

Trakoscan

IMG_379_2
Castle and the lake

Veliki Tabor (cf04)

With its 30 000 annual visitors, the castle is less popular than Trakošćan (cf03). Nevertheless, Veliki Tabor is the second most popular castle in Zagorje.

The castle dates from mid 15th century. Veliki Tabor was owned by the Rattkay family (cf22)
till the 19th century.

The latest renovation begun in 2005. The renovation is currently in its second phase. The first phase of the renovation was completed in 2011, with the restoration of the central tower and outer façade, reinforcement of walls, and replacement of roof slates.

In additions to the tours of the castle, workshops for children and exhibitions are held.
Annual swordsmanship championship is held in the castles, as well as annual mediaeval events.

The castle Mali Tabor (cf15), with an archaeological site is located nearby, as is Grešna Gorica, a settlement with a developed rural tourism where people can experience a traditional every day life in Zagorje. In addition, there’s a zoo in Grešna Gorica (they don’t have lions, but they’re still a zoo 😉 ).

There are many legends concerning Veliki Tabor. One such is about Veronika Desinić:

During the reign of Count Herman II of Celje, his son Fridrick II, already married, fell in love with young Veronika. Veronika had been lowborn. Therefore, the Count was strongly against the relationship between his son and Veronika. When Fridrick’s wife was found dead stabbed in her back, Fridrik was immediately accused of killing her.

Soon after, Fridrick and Veronika fled to Slovenia where they secretly got married. When the Count heard of that, he ordered the arrest of Fridrick and Veronika. He had his son imprisoned in Celje and accused Veronika of witchcraft because she “put” a spell on his son. The Count organized a trial. However, the judges deemed Veronika innocent, claiming that her only sin was strong love she bared for Fridrick and that love is the biggest human virtue. The Count was so pissed that he ordered his castellan to kill Veronika. His men brought a big container and filled it with water. They drowned Veronika in the water. Then they walled her corpse to the wall of the central tower.

Locals say that they can hear Veronika’s cries during long windy winter nights

Recent findings have uncovered that Count Herman II of Celje had a chapel built in thanks for his base-born grandson being legitimized. The grandson was the child of Fridrick and Veronika, so there’s at least part of the truth in the legend.

Posjetite službenu web stranicu dvorca (Croatian).

Location of Veliki Tabor in Zagorje

Veliki_Tabor
The castle

srednjovjekovne_svecanosti_veliki_tabor (3)
Mediaeval festivities 2013 in Veliki Tabor

Bežanec (cf05)

Bežanec lies near the town of Pregrada.
It is a one-floor four-winged castle.

The castle was built in the 18th century. A major renovation occurred in the 19th century.

Recent history of the castle is vivid. In the mid 20th century, during political instability in Croatia, the castle was robbed. Shortly after, the castle became a home for homeless children (as in institution: the kids didn’t just settle in the castle themselves ×D ). After that the care of the castle was given to local population. The local population further devastated the castle, using the castle as a source of building material to build their estates. Thereafter, the castle became a storage for meat. Finally, after the storage, Bežanec became a legal dump.
However, it was decided to renovate the castle and the renovation begun in 1964. The castle is a luxury hotel today.

Visit the official website of the hotel.

Bezanec
Location of Bežanec in Zagorje

central_croatia_pregrada_hotel_bezanec_castle_001
The castle

Oršić (cf06)

Oršić dates back to the Middle Ages.
The castle itself was built in 1776 by the Oršić family. The family sold the castle in 1924. The local peasant collective has been using the castle since (more in the past, but the collective is still active). Soon after, an elementary school was opened (yeah, little Hogwarts 😀 ). In 1973 the castle has become the Pesants’ Revolt Museum (cro. Muzej seljačkih buna).

In addition to museum visits, presentations, meetings, exhibitions, workshops, mediaeval tourneys (which do not have a historical basis) etc. are organized within the castle walls (or outside the castle 😮 ).

Visit the official website of the museum.

Orsic
Location of Oršić in Zagorje

Mediaeval tourney in Oršić

Bez naslova
The Castle

Golubovec (cf07)

Golubovec is a castle nearby Oršić (cf06).

When I first saw the castle, I thought Hell no, this house can’t be a castle. Actually, I told Mom to drive further. We couldn’t find the castle, so we asked a man we came across. He told us that “the house” was the castle we were looking for.

Anyway, Golubovec is near Oršić (cf06) and a little thing compared to it.

The castle was built in the 18th century. Throughout centuries many noble families fought over the estate.
Recently, the castle was part of the National Library in Zagreb until 1995. Until then the castle was pretty well taken care of. Now, though, the thing is crumbling and full of dust and a home to cockroaches (I saw one and cockroaches do like company 😉 ).

The attic truss is quite impressive though and is under special cultural good protection.

Today the castle is the headquarters of Kajkaviana, a cultural society that values Kajkavian literature.

SAM_3124
The attic truss of the castle

SAM_3108
The castle

Gredice (cf08)

The castle was built in the 18th century.

Its best known owner is Ksaver Šandor Gjalski, a famous Croatian writer. Because of him the castle is often called Castle Gjalski. Gjalski was born in the castle and spent his childhood there. That’s why throughout his life Gredice remained his favourite place.

Gjalski’s real name was Ljubo Babić: Gjalski was only his pseudonym. The pseudonym dates back from before the letter Đ was introduced to Croatian alphabet. The letter replaced the digraph GJ (and DJ). Why Gjalski has remained Gjalski even after the introuduction of Đ, I don’t know. Perhaps Gjalski favoured the spelling himself. I usually spell the pseudonym Đalski because I don’t see the point of spelling reforms if we keep spelling names the old way. I mean, if we spell Gjalski according to the old spelling, we should spell everybody else’s name according to the old spelling. That would be especially weird if a person was born before the spelling reform in the 1830s, which was the first standardization of Croatian spelling. I spelt Gjalski with GJ here because I’m pretty sure that GJ pushes English speakers towards the right pronunciation 😉
Like me, many people just spell the pseudonym Đalski today. Actually, the two spellings are often mixed up by a single author, which only confuses foreigners. People might even incorrectly spell the pseudonym Djalski, or even worse: Dalski. Anyway, just so you know; if you see someone talking about Gjalski, someone else about Đalski or even Djalski and/or Dalski… and Ljubo Babić 😀 they’re all talking about the same guy 😉
If you’re interested in Croatian alphabet more, Wiki has a good article.

There’s a hotel in the castle today. The hotel is a known occasional meeting place of the freemasons (Croatian), so who knows what secrets the castle holds 😉

Visit the official website of the hotel (yes, both spellings – Gjalski/Đalski – are used).

Gredice
Location of Gredice in Zagorje

slika24_v
The castle

Miljana (cf09)

Miljana was built in the end of the 16th century and the begging of the 17th. A significant renovation occurred in the 18th century.
It was a castle of the Rattkays (cf22). After the death of the last Rattkay in 1793, the castle changed many owners, among them a man with family ties with the Oršić family. Around 1890, the family Jäger bought the castle. Miljana remained in their hands till 1980 when a man who had the castle fully renovated bought it. The castle was bought by a local tycoon (his company, actually) in 2010 and since then, his future has been in the air.

The castle was open to public till 2010 and we’ll just have to wait and see what the new owner decides.

Miljana
Location of Miljana in Zagorje

Miljana
The castle

Maruševec (cf10)

Up north we go now.

Maruševec dates from the 16th century.

A beautiful park surrounds the castle… or rather used to surround it since a land reform saw to most part of the park being transformed to meadows and agricultural fields.

In 1969 the Adventist Church took care of the castle in their hands. The castle served as their theological school. A few years ago, they gave the castle back to the state, which then gave it back to the last known owner.
I was told to contact the secretary of the owner, Mrs. Božena, to arrange a visit to the castle or just an exchange of the information. Now, what a BITCH. At least, she answered the bloody calls… at first though she was really impatient and I couldn’t even say what I wanted. Then, the connection would be established when I call her, but after a few beeps it would be broken. Yes, just enough for the bitch to see I was calling, so she could hang up. Well, Mrs. Božena, fuck you; I think I managed pretty good without your bloody help 😛

Marusevec
Location of Maruševec in Zagorje

baner5
The castle

Klenovnik (cf11)

Klenovnik lies between the castles of Trakošćan (cf03) and Maruševec (cf10).

The castle dates back to the 17th century. Klenovnik was another castle of the Drašković family (cf20).

Klenovnik is a hospital for lung diseases and tuberculosis today. The castle’s healing role begun in 1927 when a healing facility was opened in the castle.

Posjetite službenu web stranicu bolnice u Klenovniku (Croatian).

i.klenovnik-varazdinska-zupanija-hrvatska-croatia-dvorac_klenovnik-dvorac_draskovic-20130214
The castle

Novi Marof (cf12)

Okay, okay, this one is a toughy.

The remains of a mediaeval walled city Greben-grad are located in the town of Novi Marof. The town itself is a successor of Greben-grad.

Greben-grad dates back to the 12th century. Like so many walled cities, Greben-grad was up a hill. By the mid 15th century, Greben-grad became a property of the Erdödy family (cf21).

Greben-grad caught fire and by 1710, it is referred to as ruins. After the fire, the Erdödys moved down the hill and built a new castle. They called the castle Novi Marof, but the castle is known as Castle Erdödy.

Like Klenovnik, Castle Erdödy is a hospital today.

There are two more castles in present-day Novi Marof, actually a village near by: Bela I and Bela II. Owners of both of those were also the Erdödys.

Location of the town of Novi Marof in Zagorje

grebengrad_2210
Remains of Greben-grad

2363288553802328_sadasnjost1
Castle Erdödy

Lobor (cf13)

My country mates, especially those in literature, may know the castle from a work of the writer Antun Gustav Matoš (Oko Lobora): A nadesno, prema Ivanšćici, na puškomet pored glavne ceste, velika gospodska kuća u aristokratskoj savršenosti, žuti ponosni dvor pod zavjetrinom brda i u tišini mirnih i intimnih nepomičnih borova. To je Lobor, kuća starih Keglevića.

Lobor lies pretty much in the centre of Zagorje, half way between Zagreb and Varaždin.

Lobor was built in the end of the 16th or the beginning of the 17th century by the Keglević family.
The castle was built in place of mediaeval Lobor-grad

A home for social care was founded in Lobor in 1935. Unfortunately, the castle was stained big time in World War II when it served as a “storage” for Jews.

Since 1954, the castle has served as a nursing home.

Posjetite službenu web stranicu Doma za psihički bolesne odrasle osobe Lobor-grad (Croatian).

Lobor
Location of Lobor in Zagorje

1122.707B76
The castle

Sveti Križ Začretje (cf14)

Yes, the name of the castle is a bitch, that is Začretje is a bitch. Since both English spelling and “phonetic” writing are bitches, I don’t know how accurate I’ll be in saying that it’s pronounced /zuh-chre-tye/, but well…

The name has two parts: Sveti Križ and Začretje.
Sveti Križ (Holy Cross) comes from the name of a nearby church.
There are two stories for Začretje. One says that there was an oak forest around the castle. Such a forest used to be called čret, so people would just say Idemo za čret (We’re going behind the oak forest) whenever they would go to the castle. Over time, that became just Zečretje. The other says that čret means a bog and that the castle was a rest stop behind the bog (again za čret), which eventually became Začretje.
Personally, I favour the first story ’cause there are no bogs in Zagorje and I doubt there were any in thousands of years.

So, the mentioned church dates back from the 12th century.
The castle itself was built much later, in the 18 century.

Like many other castles in Zagorje, this one is two-winged. However, it is the only two-winged castle in Zagorje in the shape of the letter V rather than the letter L.

Close to the castle is an outlet shopping centre today. Seems malls are much more popular these days… so next time when you’re doing your shopping, don’t look surprised if you see a castle nearby 😀

Unfortunately, there’s no official website of the castle for me to share with you, but you can visit the homepage off the mentioned shopping centre.

sv.kriz
Location of Sveti Križ Začretje in Zagorje

Church Sveti Križ

dvorac-sv-kriz-zacretje
The Castle

Mali Tabor (cf15)

Mali means small and veliki means big, so yeah Mali Tabor is a little brother of Veliki Tabor (cf04). Both castles were the property of the Rattkay family (cf22).

The Rattkays weren’t the first owners though. The castle was built in late 15th century. The Rattkays bought the castle some hundred years later.

Mali Tabor is abandoned today. Actually, according to most popular Croatian advertising portal, the castle is on sale (Croatian) 😀

Near the castle, there’s an archaeological site, mainly the ruins of a mediaeval walled-city Vrbovec, but remains, like coins of the Roman Empire, that predate the Middle Ages were found there. The excavations begun in the 19th century.

MaliTabo
Location of Mali Tabor in Zagorje

Vrbovec
Archaeological site near Mali Tabor

Mali_Tabor_2
The castle

Novi dvori (cf16)

There are two castles called Novi dvori, novi meaning new. One of those is in Zagorje while the other is a bit south of Zagorje, close to Zagreb.

So, let’s start with the ones (dvori is plural) in Zagorje:

Less than a mile (more than a kilometre 😉 ) south of Gredice (cf07), near the town of Klanjec [that’s why these are known as Novi dvori klanječki (they’re also known as Novi dvori cesgradski)] lie Novi dvori.

So, the castle was built by another Erdödy (cf21) who was given the land after his victory over the Turks.
The castle is best known for being a home of the author of Croatian national anthem, Antun Mihanović. Mihanović died in the castle in 1861.
Sadly, only ruins of the castle remain today.

The other Novi dvori, are located in Zaprešić (that’s why they’re known as Novi dvori zaprešićki), a satellite town of Zagreb.

This one dates back to the 16th century. In 1851, Count Jelačić (that’s why the castle is sometimes called Novi dvori Jelačićevi), best known for abolishing the feudal system in Croatia in 1848, bought the castle. The Count died in the castle and his tomb is there.

An extensive renovation of the castle took place in the nineties. Today, there’s a private college in the castle. There was a scandal concerning the college in the last local elections.

dvorcinovidvori
Ruins of Novi Dvori in Zagorje (yeah, they hardly look “new”)

novi_dvori_zpr
Novi dvori close to Zagreb

Dvoracposlijezapresic
Novi dvori in Zaprešić

Varaždin (cf17)

Varaždin ain’t in Zagorje. Like I said, citizens of Varaždin have a strong identity with their town.

Nevertheless, I just thought I had to mention the town since the town was an important walled city.

The old walled city is called Stari grad [Old Town, not the Oldtown in the Reach… though, judging by the translation of season 1 of Game of Thrones we had last autumn on a local TV channel, I’m pretty sure Oldtwon in the Rech is translated as Stari grad (…u Dosegu) 😀 ] and dates back to the 12th century. Though the history around what is Varaždin today goes much further. with one of the best preserved, 30 000 years old, Neanderthal remains in the world.

Throughout most of the history, the lords of Varaždin were the Erdödys (cf21).

The town was the centre of a powerful Varaždin County (and it is today, but the county is not the same).

From 1756 to 1776, the town was the capital of Croatia. A fire devastated the town in 1776 and the capital was moved to Zagreb, where it has stayed to this day. Varaždin’s importance has significantly diminished since the town lost its capital city function. Actually, the importance of Varaždin hasn’t diminished so much as the importance of Zagreb has risen.

Visit the official website of the Varaždin.

Varaždin and Varaždin County (the present county) in Croatia (click on the image to enlarge it)

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Varaždin, Stari grad

Popovec (cf18)

The post should end in Zagorje. That is why we’re going south of Varaždin to the heart of Zagorje. Popovec lies just a few klick south of Krapina, the capital of Krapina–Zagorje County.

Popovec got its name ’cause the castle was owned by the head of Krapina parish (pop meaning priest in spoken language). Though it is unknown when the castle was built, its Church ownership dates back to the 16th century.

The castle is the historic archive of Varaždin now despite Varaždin being “far” away.

Posjetite službenu web stranicu Državnog arhiva u Varaždinu (Croatian).

Popovec
Location of Popovec in Zagorje

The castle

NOBLE FAMILIES OF ZAGORJE (cf19)

Castles mean nobles. Zagorje was always of interest to nobles. Before the end, I would like to mention three families I find most important:

The Drašković family (cf20)

The family originates from the region of Lika.
They are best known in Zagorje as owners of Trakošćan (cf03).
They participated in the Zrinski–Frankopan Conspiracy.
Some were bans, one was even a palatine of Hungary (Ivan III Drašković – the only Croatian to hold the position).

The Erdődys (cf21)

The Erdödys had two branches: Croatian and Hungarian.
They came from the town of Ardud (Ardud is called Erdőd in Hungarian) in present-day Romania, but the town was in Hungary back then.
The Croatian branch gave five bans. They held many castles, most importantly that in Varaždin (cf17) and those in Novi Marof (cf12).

The Rattkays (cf22)

They originate from Hungary too.
The spelling of their surname is sometimes croatized to Ratkaj.
Among others, they owned Veliki Tabor (cf04), which they were given because of the valour they showed in a battle against the Turks.

All the mentioned families fought the Turks.

The end (cf23)

I haven’t mentioned all the castles in Zagorje ’cause that would just be too much. I tried to mention the most important ones. Kill me if you think I missed an important one. Besides, many of those I did mention probably aren’t the “real” castle “material”. As I said, I was quite shocked to learn Golubovec (cf07) is a castle.

Nevertheless, like I said in Generally about the castles, castles in Zagorje should be valued. I’d say should be more valued, but since they’re hardly valued at all, expect a few exceptions like Trakošćan (cf03) and Veliki Tabor (cf04), I can’t really say that.

To find out more about castles and manors in Croatia, visit Dvorci.hr. The website includes castles of Varaždin, Krapina-Zagorje, Koprivnica-Križevci and Požega-Slavonia counties, not just Zagorje.
You can, also, visit the official website of the Touirst Board of Krapina-Zagorje County. There you can find out about tourist attractions of Krapina-Zagorje County – castles and more.

NEKOLIKO RAZUMLJIVIH RIJEČI ZA KRAJ (cf24)

Početkom semestra, u davnom nam listopadu ljeta gospodnjeg 2013. dobili smo projekt izraditi plakat o turističkim potencijalima hrvatske županije. Ja izabrah Krapinsko-zagorsku.
To je bio samo okvir, jer svaka hrvatska županija ima puno turističkih potencijala. Moj problem je što ja ne mogu smisliti što pisati čak i kad mi je to pred nosom! Ali, eto padnu mi na pamet dvorci, zbog kojih sam morao malo proširiti prostor istraživanja.

U biti, trebali smo sve staviti na jedan plakat. Tako da je na kraju plakat, koji je trebao poslužiti kao glavni izvor za blog, štur.
Prvo, napravio sam dva plakata (zapravo 3, ali je prvi obična radna verzija). Prvi (odnosno drugi 😀 ) je B1 formata i bogatiji. Međutim, on nije zadovoljavao potrebe za koje je trebalo napraviti plakat. Budući da su karte najvažnije za predmet za koji je trebalo izraditi plakat, one su trebale biti u prvom planu. Tako da sam konačni plakat smanjio na B2 format (B formate papira možete vidjeti i usporediti ovdje), povećao karte (i stavio ih u optički centar gdje je prije bio veliki naslov), dodao još dvije, uklonio puno teksta, a ono što je ostalo modificirao.
Onaj bogatiji plakat (B1 format), možete skinuti ovdje; a onaj bolje vizualno prikazan (B2 format), možete skinuti ovdje. Ono što ne možete vidjeti, slobodno zumirajte.

Plakati nisu predviđeni za tisak, ali ako imate printer koji može printati tako velike formate, slobodno printajte. Papir se ne može zumirati, pa je važno održati formate papira. I zapamtite, čuvajmo šume 🙂

Za kraj bih samo ponovo naveo neke od web stranica:
Službenu stranicu Trakošćana;
Službenu stranicu Velikog Tabora;
Službenu stranicu Muzeja seljačkih buna u Oršiću;
Službenu stranicu hotela u Bežancu;
Službenu stranicu hotela Dvorac Đalski u Gredicama.
Također, posjetite službenu web stranicu turističke zajednice Krapinsko-zagorske županije.
O aferi vezanoj za Nove dvore (cf16) zaprešićke, pročitajte ovdje.
Za podatke o informacije o dvorcima Zagrebačke, Požeško-slavonske, Varaždinske, Koprivničko-križevačke i Krapinsko-zagorske županije, posjetite Dvorce.hr.

Literatura (cf25)

Uz gore navedene linkove, više o dvorcima Zagorja možete saznati u sljedećoj literaturi:
Mladen Obad Šćitaroci: Dvorci i perivoji Hrvatskog zagorja, III. izdanje, Školska knjiga, Zagreb, 2005.;
Vladimir Marković: Barokni dvorci Hrvatskog Zagorja, II. izdanje, Nacionalna i sveučilišna biblioteka, Zagreb, 1995. (odlično štivo za arhitekte 😉 );
Članak iz časopisa Hrvatsko zagorje, Mirna Flögel-Mršić (2007.): Dvorci Hrvatskog zagorja – uzor domoljublja i rasadište kulture, broj 1-2, godina XXIII.
Također, na Geografiji.hr pročitajte članak Dvorci u turističkoj ponudi Hrvatskog zagorja Dubravke Spevec iz 2006. godine.

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Beauty of Northern Italy

BEWARE

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Since my homeland is a favourite vacation spot to many Europeans, I feel obliged to warn tourists, as well as my own kin, not to go to a certain “restaurant” or whatever the thing is.

The place is called Bistro Manjan (Croatian). Seems they rent suites too. I can’t vouch for the quality of their suites, but their “food”…

Now, about its location. The thing is located in Krasno. Krasno is a village, and by itself nothing special though there are a couple of churches to see in Krasno. However, the village is like a hub to the national park Northern Velebit, Kuterevo Bear Sanctuary, the town of Senj (I blogged about Senj last year, Nehaj Fortress to be precise) and other places of interest. Therefore, Krasno, and thus its restaurant(s), is often visited.

Anyway, we should have realized where we had come as soon as we had been given a stained table cover (yes, the stain does kinda say “STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM THEIR SUITES TOO”). Well, we were too busy playing cards when the waitress put it 😀 and since the stain was rather small, we thought “What the hell, everyone can miss a thing or two”.
We ordered French fries, skinless sausages (ćevapi) and burgers. The fries weren’t fried at all. If I had burned the next day and couldn’t go to the beach because of that, I think I would’ve returned and burned the place down! Especially since, I ate the things during a heat wave. Now, the meat.. hard like metal, no oil nor fat on it (a burger fell on Mom’s shirt and left no stain…). The sausages were just enlarged (though they were quite small for skinless sausages) crap of my guinea pig.
The only reason we didn’t throw the crap to the staff was because we had been too hungry.

In short, if you ever find yourself in Krasno, STAY AWAY FROM THE SHITHOLE CALLED MANJAN [THAT’S M A N J A N (the sign goes Bistro M a nj a n)].

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You have been warned…

U kratko, ako ste u Krasnom, NE IDITE U BISTRO MANJAN NI POD KOJU CIJENU!!!

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Ljubljana

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Ljubljana is one of those places virtually on my doorstep that I’ve never been to… before last Saturday that is 😀
The distance between my home town and Ljubljana is mere 135 km, give or take a klick 😉
Despite such a small distance, a bus connecting the two cities goes only twice a week. There are, on the other hand, several trains a day that go from Zagreb to Ljubljana (and the other way around).

So, on the Saturday morning (i.e. 6:50 AM) we (Mom and I) went to the main train station and arrived to Ljubljana at 9 o’clock. We went around the city, made a pause at the Slovenian Parliament to play some cards (da, Belu) and met with Mom’s old classmate at 1 o’clock.

The original plan was just to take train back to Zagreb at 6 PM. However, Mom and her classmate hadn’t seen each other in 30 years, so we stayed over night and returned the following morning.

A word or two about Ljubljana

Ljubljana is the capital of Slovenia.

The city is at the crossroad of Slavic, Germanic and Italic peoples. That can easily be seen today in the city name – Ljubljana [Slovenian (Slavic)], Leibach [German(ic)] and Lubiana [Italian (Italic)].

Speaking of the names of the city, it is very unclear how they came to be. By looking at “Ljubljana”, I’d say it has something to do with the word ljubljena (beloved).

The symbol of the city is a dragon.
The coat of arms at the beginning of the post is the coat of arms of Ljubljana and it depicts the dragon.
Just like the origin of the name, the origin of the dragon is unclear.
It is interesting, though, that colours of the city flag are the same as those of the flag of Wales. The colours and the dragon really intrigue me since the only thing Slovenes and Welsh have in common is that they’re white Indoeuropeans… even though Slovenes are Slavic and Welsh Celtic with the distance between Wales and Ljubljana is roughly 4500 km.

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I’m no historian, so don’t ask me for a history lesson. All I can tell you is that the city has been the cultural centre of Slovenes for centuries and that it dates back to the Roman Empire.

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Slovenian Parliment

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Ljubljana city hall

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The University of Ljubljana (main building)

Notice how an EU flag is present in all three pictures? EU flags are used very often in Slovenia even though they don’t have to be used that often [the European Union is just a (strong) union of (sovereign) countries].
While I understand the flag by the Parliament, I don’t see a reason why a city hall, let alone a university should have EU flags.
Well, why do I have a feeling the same crap is going to happen in Croatia in a few months (we became an EU member on 1st July 2013)?

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Hanging shoes – definitely the best shoemaker sign

Ljubljanica

Ljubljanica is the river that flows through Ljubljana.

Tourist rides on the river are available, but they are very short.

“Ljubljanica” means a small Ljubljana.

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Just additional info:
A tram storage in Zagreb shares the name with the river [if you have been or are going to be in Zagreb; if you see (Spremište) Ljubljanica – if Spremište is written on the vehicle, it means it’s going to the storage (cro. spremište – storage) and if it ain’t written, the vehicle’s final stop is the storage, but it’s not going to be stored – on a bus or a tram, it means the thing is going there

People are never happy

I know that in the eyes of an average African, European complaining about stuff like lack of money must be a real laugh (or cry 😮 ).

Anyway, people are never happy and always complain. It’s pretty much the same story throughout Europe.

I took the following pics pretty much to show my countrymen that Slovenes, who are often looked to as having things straighten in their country, complain too and just like people in Croatia:

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Fences everywhere, freedom nowhere! (Ograde svuda, sloboda nigdje!)

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Nobody represents us! (Nitko nas ne predstavlja!)

There’s more similar crap throughout the city, but I didn’t come to the city to take pictures of writings on the wall.

Funicular

A funicular takes people up to the Ljubljana Castle.

Zagreb also has a funicular so I want to draw a few parallels:

Ljubljana funicular route is longer than that of Zagreb. It is still short, but longer than 20 m like in Zagreb and the cart drives non-stop, meaning you don’t waste time waiting for the thing, the time you could have used a hundred times over to climb and return on foot, and you actually save your feet from a relatively long climb.

Ironically, Ljubljana funicular has single railing and only one while Zagreb has dual railing and two carts.

What both funiculars have in common is that they are too expensive – not worth the price. Therefore, they’re purely a tourist attraction.

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Ljubljana Castle

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Ljubljana Castle is a mediaeval castle. The castle’s purpose was defence against Turks and a peasant revolt.
Later the purposes of the castled varied from being a military infirmary to a prison

The castle overlooks Ljubljana and city panorama seen from the castle is beautiful.

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Up in the castle, there is a gallery (or was at the time of my visit) of a Slovenian photographer with his pics from India (yeah, I’m still talking about Ljubljana, and not Delhi 😀 ).

You’ve probably heard of swastika already (if you haven’t, go kill yourself right away). But what do you know about the symbol? You probably see the symbol negatively because nazi use it for their symbol. If you don’t know the crap I’m going to write about now and still don’t see swastika in negative context (i.e. if you only know that it is the symbol of nazism), please go kill yourself right away. Swastika was used in many ancient cultures. Before Hitler, it symbolized only good things, most notably the Sun, which it symbolizes to this day in Hinduism, where it is used to this day. The swastikas are encircled in the picture (two that I see, I might’ve missed a few ×D ) (click on the image to enlarge it).

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Te not is proof that this pic wasn’t taken in Sydney 😉

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Bank of Slovenia. I know the image is very b… Well, it sucks ass 😀 I just hope you see that the bank is on the backs of the people…

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Spuži KVADRATNIK! (Sponge Bob Squarepants though I really wonder where Bob has gone 😮 )

A memorial to Yugoslav socialism (near the Parliament) (click on the image to enlarge it); the text says:
We have written in the constitution:
That Slovenian people are, in their fight for freedom and socialist revolution, unquestionably tied to the other nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia with whom they won over fascism and internal collaboration. Slovenian people did for the first time in a thousand years form their own state that was based on their sovereignty, power, worker’s self-management and a place in Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a country of willingly united nations and nationalities.

The reason I posted this memorial is because Slovenes claim territories from before Yugoslavia, which they consider was the first country they had a sovereign state, in Croatia-Slovenia border disputes.

Current borders of ex-Yugoslav countries are those of Yugoslav republics, the border between Slovenia and Croatia included.

A sad malo domaćeg 😀

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Mozaik knjiga 😀

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Kamo se ide kad se dođe u Ljubljanu? Na sarajevske ćevape (popraćene Sarajevskim pivom), naravno 😀
P.S. Susedi Štef i Špijunček, ak, kojim slučajem, čitate ovaj post, kakvo god vi mišljenje imali o ćevapima u Ljubljani, ovi su baš dobri 😛

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Gore sam već rokuno sliku Banke Slovenije, e pa tu je svima omiljena Ljubljanska banka 😀

Ne znam zašto, ali Ljubljanska banka me vuče na svima nam najdražeg gradonačelnika 😉
Navečer smo išli u grad. Vozila nas je frendica od stare. Kud god da smo se htjeli sparkirati nismo mogli jer su ulazi na parkirališta bili blokirani. Meni i staroj je bilo normalno da u centru grada ne možeš naći (besplatan) parking. Naša “vozačica” se na to grohotom nasmijala rekavši da to u Ljubljani nije tako.
Što se onda dogodilo u subotu navečer u Ljubljani? Moja teorija je da je naš najdraži gradonačelnik bio u posjetu svom ljubljanskom kolegi, kojem je, inače, najdraži gradonačelnik uzor (kaže Wikipedia) i rekao mu: Kak ljudima možeš dat da se besplatno parkiraju?! Pa di si to videl?! Na to je ljubljanski gradonačelnik pozatvarao sva parkirališta u Ljubljani dok ne nabavi uređaje za naplatu parkinga 😀

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Znači, Alan Ford na običnom kiosku i to hrvatsko izdanje… E sad, ako još jednom čujem i/ili viddim nekog nevjernika iz Hrvatske koji nije čuo za Alan Forda, isti će jebat ježa! I to u leđa! A da stvar bude još gora, neće jebat kopnenog ježa, nego morskog! To mu obećava neustrašivi Nel!

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Frendica od stare mi je dala deset številki Alan Forda (25-35) na slovenščini 😀
Znači, osim navedenog, dobio sam još:

Poskočnu zgodbu,
Superhika,
Superhika kak udara znova,
Pometačev konec,
Cirkus,
Božički prihajajo,
Dan čarovnic,
Morskog ropara,
Dvanajst umetnikov
😀 😀 😀

Da, znam da je baš hrvatski prijevod Alan Forda nenadjebiv. Bolji čak i od originala (barem tako kažu za Brixyjev, a tu sigurno ima nečeg kad je strip puno popularniji u zemljama bivše Juge nego u matičnoj Italiji). Kad je u Srbiji, početkom Rat(ov)a, počela izlaziti srpska verzija, ljudi su masovno vraćali strip na kioske jer “to nije to” – prijevodm na srpski, Alan Ford je izgubio svoj “duh”. Kako god bilo, Alan Ford na slovenščini je, AF frikovima poput mene, super za vežbanje slovenščine 😀
Što se samih prijevoda tiče, Džamić u svojoj knjizi Cvjećarnica u kući cveća, nijednom riječju nije spomenuo slovenski prijevod iako je uvod knjige posvećen upravo uspješnosti hrvatskog prijevoda i tome kako nijedan drugi prijevod nije zaživio.

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Field trip – academic year 2012/2013

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Yeah, I blogged about last year’s trip.

I’m gonna combine English and Croatian, like the last time.

This year we went to Istria. Although we did have a good time, the trip could have and should have been a lot better. The trip lasted four days instead of the usual five days. To people from Zagreb, a four day trip to Istria is like a picnic.
We were only in Croatian part of Istria and despite having more than enough time, we didn’t go to, in my opinion, many places. Those places include Savudrija, at the Croatia-Slovenia border. Not to mention that we could have crossed the border. Okay, I guess Slovenian border control would fuck us in the ass, since Croatia is becoming a EU member on 1st July, so they’re going to use their power while they can. I even brought my binoculars to look at Piran over the border, but noooooo. There was a group or two that went even to Trieste… Furthermore, we only passed by Motovun (yeah, movie fans might have heard of Motovun film festival), didn’t go to Umag etc.

Little bit about Istria

Istria is a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea currently divided between three countries: Italy (Trieste), Slovenia (Koper and Piran) and Croatia. Most of the peninsula is in Croatia where most of Istria forms one county. Notable extension is Opatija which is pretty much part of Rijeka and administrating a town from one county that is merged with a city from another would be screwed.

The peninsula is named after Histri, an ancient Illyrian tribe that inhabited it. There are a lot of remains from before the classical age (we were on one such remains – Monkodonja).

Ethnically, Istria is quite diverse. Although the ethnicity pretty much follows borders between countries, different ethnicities are present all around the peninsula. There is a large Slovenian community in Trieste and Italians have a big community in Croatian Istria. Italians generally left a big imprint in coastal Croatia. Many coastal towns have dual Croatian-Italian name despite the number of Italians in a particular settlement (e.g. Umag/Umago, Poreč/Parenzo, Pula/Pola, Rijeka/Fiume, Senj/Segna, Zadar/Zara, Split/Spalato etc.). While Italians constitute only about 5 % of county’s population, they have a strong community in the county, so Italian is a coöfficial language and most signs in the county are bilingual (Italian-Croatian).
The bilingualism is real bilingualism in this case because Italian and Croatian differ a lot (i.e. there’s no way in hell a person speaking Italian and a person speaking Croatian can understand each other without the knowledge of the other lingo although the local dialect has been influenced by Italian a lot). Unlike the crap about introducing Serbo-Croatian bilingualism where Serbs constitute a large minority. Serbian and Croatian are totally mutually intelligible and we (Croatians, Serbs, Bosniaks etc.) can understand each other perfectly. Okay reading Serbian Cyrillic might be a little troublesome to a Croatian, but other than that… Introducing bilingualism there is pure political game, especially since people in those areas speak pretty much the same, whether Croatian or Serbian, except, of course, those who accentuate the difference.
Another interesting ethnicity in Istria are Istroromanians. They mostly speak Croatian now, but there are still a few speakers of Istroromanian. A professor kept talking about them in the bus and I was so excited about meeting them, but he ended the speech with We’re not going to see them... He did say that they’re lingo is the most endangered one in Europe, but I think there are a few Sami lingoes that have no more speakers than Istroromanian…

Now that I said something about Istrian ethnicities, I can continue with its history. Well, I won’t say much anyway 😛 After Histri, the peninsula was colonized by Romans (the arena in Pula is one of the few preserved Roman arenas). Istria was the first stop of Croatians upon the great migration of Slavs. Specifically, the river Raša (although pronounced the same as Russia, the river has nothing to do with Russia). The river served as political border for many centuries while today there is a planned town extending to both sides of the river. Although that was certainly not intentional when the town was being built, the town of Raša is now a symbol of Istria as a whole.
Ironically, Istria wasn’t part of Croatia until Italian capitulation in WWII in 1943.

After Italian capitulation, Istria had to wait till 1954. Until then it was uncertain whether the peninsula would be returned to Italy or given to Yugoslavia as a spoil of war. The city that was kept in suspense the most was Trieste, but since we didn’t even go to Trieste, screw Trieste 😀 Let’s just leave the city for another time.
In the end, it was decided that Italy would keep the area with Italian majority while Yugoslavia would be given the area with Slav majority (by the way, Yugoslavia is spelled Jugoslavija in Slavic lingoes – jug means “south“, -slav- is for Slavs and -ija is the ending used often in the end of country names –> literally meaning Land of South Slavs). Then, there was just the matter of dividing Istria between Slovenia and Croatia. Again, ethnicity was the main factor. After the division of Istria, many Italians left Yugoslav Istria. The deal was finalized in 1975. Since, ethnicity was the main criterium in the division of Istria, even if Trieste did go to Yugoslavia, the city would’ve been incorporated into Slovenia, not Croatia. Especially, since Slovenia got the area south of the city.
Because Tito sealed Istria’s fate in Croatia, he is stilled loved in Istria (you really can’t go to a town without a Tito square) despite the opposite situation in the rest of Croatia.

Upon the breakup of Yugoslavia, Slovenia kept the part of Istria they’d had in Yugoslavia. Likewise, Croatia kept the part we’d had.
We still have a border issue between Slovenia in Piran Bay (we often call the Pirate Bay, Piran Bay 😀 ) though.

The symbol of (Croatian) Istria is goat. Our guide in Poreč told us the symbol is goat because a goat is Istrian’s first love and you always remember your first love 😉

Before continuing, here’s a map of Istria:
Istria
We went to Rijeka, Rabac, Raša, Pazin, Grožnjan, Rovinj, the Brijuni Islands, Poreč and Pula

Ah, cola flavoured Fanta, my favourite drink on the trip 😀

This is the first time I hadn’t brought a backup book with me on a trip and the first time I read the one which I had brought 😡
Zato sam, dok sam čekao trajekt za Brijune, na kiosku kupio dva Alan Forda 😀

Do you know how the ceiling in old castles and stuff is low? They say that’s the case because people were shorter in the past. Well, based on the bus we travelled with, I’ve come to a different conclusion. Tolkien seriously misunderstood hobbits when he said they rarely lived in castles. I’m pretty sure old castles are their doing and that they secretly make buses now. Most of the time, they get the human hight correctly, but every now and then they screw up. I rode such a screw-up. The ceiling was so low that even I bumped my head a few times and I’m short. Many people had to literally crawl to move around the bus.
Either that or the bus was a prototype of a Jeffies tube. Take your pick.

Rijeka

Rijeka is the largest port of Croatia and the third largest Croatian city. Like many Croatian settlements, its origins go to the classical age.

During Austria-Hungary (Austria–Hungary was a dual monarchy, where Austria and Hungary had equal power despite the monarchy being constituted of many other lands), Rijeka served as (main) Hungarian port [both Austria and Hungary are landlocked (to this day, an expression He doesn’t care that Hungary is landlocked is used in Croatia to say that someone has no care in the world), so they had to use Croatian coast instead, which they just declared as being “Austrian” or “Hungarian”]. Therefore, Hungary invested a lot in Rijeka.

Things go interesting after WWI when, after lots of debating, the city got split into two parts. The part north of the river Rječina was incorporated into Italy. The part retained the name “Rijeka” (officially Free State of Fiume, later Italian Province of Fiume, Fiume is the Italian name for Rijeka to this day). And the part south of the river was incorporated into the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. That part was named Sušak. That part of the city is still called Sušak.
One would assume that the Italian part was more prosperous since Yugoslavia was a shit hole. However that was not the case because Rijeka was just one of the many Italian ports, so it wasn’t important to them. Sušak, was, on the other hand, a very important port for Yugoslavia, so the kingdom invested a lot in the port.

Now, a bit about Rječina. Rječina is the river Rijeka was named after. Rječina means “an enormous river” (while rijeka itself means “river”). When hearing that “an enormous river” flows through Rijeka, one would assume that Rijeka lies on the Nile or the Amazon. In fact, Rječina is quite small.

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The River Rječina

Rijeka is settled in between hills. That creates orographic effect meaning Rijeka is as rainy as London ×D Yes, it rained cats and dogs while we were in town…
Zapravo, u Rijeci stalno pada kiša zato što je Šegota u svoj udžbenik napisao da u Rijeci pada puno kiše i sad se svi ravnaju po tom, uključujući i vrijeme 😡

Being settled in between hills is also a big problem for the city to expand. Although the city extends a lot to the nearby hills today and it is pretty much merged with Opatija (which we didn’t go to…), hills are still an obstacle. They resulted in high buildings. Such urban structure, actually, impairs the old city structure, but it is necessary. Note, though, that a “high” building, in Croatian eyes, is 10+ stories. If a building has 20 stories in Croatia, we say that it’s enormous.

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Panorama of Rijeka

Read more about Rijeka and Rječina on Diana’s Escapes.

Pazin

Pazin is a town pretty much in the centre of Istria County. Because of that it is the capital of the county even though Pula is the centre of population and activities. Actually, vehicles in the whole county have PU on their licence plates. This is the only case in the country that letters of the county capital are not used at all on licence plates.
Speaking of the centre of Istria, there is a settlement nearby Pazin called Sveti Petar u Šumi (literally St. Peter in Forest). The saying says that Sveti Petar u Šumi is the centre of the world because, the village is geographically in the centre of Istria, Istria is geographically in the centre of Europe and Europe is the centre of the world.

Since the town is settled in a sort of depression, the temperatures are usually lower than in the rest of Istria (not counting the mountains Ćićarija and Učka, of course.
Speaking of temperatures, it was cold throughout Central Europe when we were on the field trip. Kinda like May last year. There was even snowfall on the peaks of Učka (probably Ćićarija too), but did we go there? Nooooo. I had to settle with this picture of the snowy Učka peak…

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Snow on Učka

Speaking of cold weather. Everything seems to be fucked up. I played a bit with Yahoo! Weather today. Said it was 23°C in Tromso, Norway; 25° in Kiruna, Sweden and 26° in Rovaniemi, Finland while it was only 12° here (Zagreb, Croatia). Tromso, Kiruna and Rovaniemi are in Sampi. Just Google Earth Sampi and Croatia (or Central Europe in general since it’s currently cold throughout Central Europe).
Vrijeme se urotilo protiv Šegote 😀

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Malo su pobrkali Magnusa i Bunkera, ali važno je sudjelovati 😉

Pula

Like I said, Pula is the most populace town in Istria (okay, Trieste is more, but I’m talking about Croatian Istria here) and the centre of all activities.

The town is most known for one of the few still preserved Roman arenas. The arena is twice less in size than the Colosseum in Rome.

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The arena of Pula

Like Rijeka served as the most important port of Hungary in Austria-Hungary, Pula was the most important port of Austria. The town served mainly as a military port.

The flag of Pula is similar to a Swedish flag that saw too much Sun 😀

Brijuni Islands

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A seagull on top of the ferry that took us to the islands.

Brijuni are a group of small islands. They are one of eight Croatian national parks.

They have served as a resort of Croatian,and Yugoslav presidents before, including Tito.
Actually the national park is all about Tito and Koch (the guy who got rid of malaria that was killing everybody on the islands).

The park officially has a safari, but that’s no safari. The animals are those given to Tito by foreign dignitaries and their offspring. Okay, species are exotic (like zebra), but they’re all in cages and you tour the park in a tourist train (referred to later simply as chu-chu). It’s just a wannabe safari zoo.

Seagulls really pissed me off. They kept chilling in cages of other animals while I was in the chu-chu and couldn’t take any pics. When I went out, the bastards just flew away, this is the best pic I got:

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The other legacy of Tito is “his” museum. The museum has two parts. One is full of various pictures of the guy. The other of the stuffed animals Tito “got”.

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U, sunce ti kalajisano! Izet Fazlinović bi dao cijeli svoj crni štek za ovakvu sliku s drugom Maršalom ×D

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Nije ni čudo da je lik bio strah i trepet divlje Juge kad je furao ovakvog ljubimca…

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Yaser Arafat and Tito. Look what Arafat is looking at…

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DI SI GAZDA?!
Tito i Castro na cugici 😉

Now about the other part – stuffed animals. The guide told us that the museum has animals, that Tito had got, stuffed after they died. Well, unless lions are half a metre long… Furthermore, some winter animals (e.g. white hares), that would find even the winter in Brijuni too hot, are in the museum

Nevertheless, I just had to take this pic:

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Fuck, yeah! 😀

Poreč

Although we were stationed in Poreč the whole time, we, at least officially, visited the town on the last day.
Although Istria is Croatian-Italian bilingual, the hotel we stayed in had only channels in Croatian, English and German. Indeed, the hotel was full of Jerries (and English). Judging by the licence plates on the cars parked outside the hotel, they were mostly Bavarians, Baden-Württembergians and Austrians. The only lingoes that could be heard in hotel were German, English and Croatian (in that order). I only heard a couple speaking Italian the last day.

The guide told us that the town (with the population of 17 500 at best) has more than 30 roundabouts. Indeed, we saw quite a few roundabouts, but since he, also, said that the high concentration of aerosols (yes, pollutants) in the air, makes the town more attractive; I come to doubt his wisdom…
He, also, told us that Poreč is the only town with Roman cardo (north to south) and decumanus (east to west) streets that still carry the names Cardo and Decumanus.

The most popular sight of the town is Euphrasian Basilica listed UNESCO world heritage.

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Entrance to the Euphrasian Basilica

Baredine Cave

Baredine Cave is a geomorphological monument of nature. The climb in the cave (actually fall ×D ) proved to be too much for me. I only reached the first touring station. Animals that inhabit the cave include an interesting endemic species – olms. They inhabit deeper levels of the cave, so I didn’t take the pic myself:

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An olm

Rovinj

Before talking about Rovinj, I’d just like to mention Monkodonja, remains of a Bronze Age town.

Here are some pics:
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Well, I can’t say much about Rovinj since professors just said We’ll meet at the bus in 5:00 PM. Please be punctual. I don’t wanna say who was late, as usual. All I’m going to say is that students were punctual, like we were told 😉

Well, maybe a pic:

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That’s it, from Rovinj we headed home.
Continue reading →

Wapusk National Park

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NOTE: By looking at the blog homepage, I realized that you might get an impression that this post isn’t in English.
Only the first section is is in Croatian, an intro that you can skip. Just like every other nonEnglish text, Croatian text here is of local relevance.

Nekoliko uvodnih riječi o ovom postu

Za jedan kolegij na fucksu sam napravio prezentaciju o kanadskom nacionalnom parku Wapusk. Njena izrada me malo zaintrigirala za Wapusk. Park mi se doima šajni. Zbog toga hoću da malo problogišem o njemu na svetskom jeziku. Možda zaintrigiram nekog tko si može priuštiti posjet nacionalnom parku. Tekst koji slijedi je više-manje prijevod same prezentacije. Prezentaciju možete skinuti ovdje.

Što se tiče površine, za usporedbu veličine parka sam uzeo Crnu Goru napisavši da je park približno veličine teritorija Crne Gore. Crna Gora je ipak veća od nacionalnog parka. Tu državu sam uzeo da bih nekako našim ljudima predočio koliko je zapravo park velik. Površina najvećeg hrvatskog nacionalnog parka (Plitvica) je nešto manja od 300 km². Kada tu veličinu usporedimo s preko 11 000 km² Wapuska, jasno nam je koliko je Wapusk zapravo velik.

Možda je logično zapitati se zašto ne blogišem o hrvatskom nacionalnom parku. Činjenica je da Hrvatska obiluje prirodnim ljepotama, pogotovo ako u obzir uzmemo relativno mali teritorij Hrvatske i, iskreno, vjerojatno bih blogao o hrvatskom nacionalnom parku da sam imao prezentaciju o njemu. Ako ništa drugo, da nam promoviram zemlju 😀 Međutim, još jedna činjenica je da ono što je dostupno, bez obzira kako lijepo bilo, čovjeku nije tako zanimljivo. Sumnjam da netko tko često posjećuje Wapusk (iako takvih ima malo jer je nacionalni park poprilično nedostupan i samim stanovnicima Manitobe, kanadske provincije u kojoj se park nalazi) ima dojam da je Wapusk nešto posebno. Continue reading →

Meiji Restoration

Field trip – academic year 2011/2012

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Every year, we (the students) at the end of May and/or the beginning of June have a field trip.
I’m gonna write a post about the last one, which was two weeks ago. Last year was better {Slavonia–Tuzla–Belgrade–Pécs [we were stationed in Vinkovci (da, dođi u Vinkovce 😀 )]}. I should’ve written a post about the last year trip, but blah. In my defence I didn’t have a blog back then ×D
Anyway, this year we went to eastern Croatia and Vojvodina. Yeah, that’s similar to the last year’s, but the only other choice was Istria and Istria is quite more accessible to me since it is in my homeland. Besides, we only passed through Vojvodina on our way to Belgrade last year; we didn’t even stop at a rest stop. I did want to go to Strasbourg(A)-Freiburg(B)-Basel(C)-Zürich(D)-Lichtenstein(E) though, but the trip wasn’t for 3rd year students 😦

The post is gonna be written my way which you might find funny, boring, stupid or however you find it – don’t care. I’ll add some comments and I’ll write local stuff (or what I find local 😀 ) in Croatian. I don’t expect everybody to understand what I meant even if it’s in English. Hell, sometimes even I don’t understand my sick sense of humour 😀 Basically, if you find something offensive, screw you, I didn’t mean anything bad 😀
Read just parts of the post you think you’d like.

Okay, moving on *Achmed style (skip to to 2:46)* (I’ll be using this phrase a lot 😀 )

Intro

Okay, lemme first tell you a few general things of the regions I visited:

Eastern Croatia and Vojvodina are very similar, including culturally. The trip really showed me how much. Anyway, the cultural similarity is attributed to the common history – both regions where once in Austria-Hungary. The most common spoken language is pretty much the same. Officially the spoken languages are Croatian, Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak etc. However, it is really hard to say because people can say anything is their mother tongue to a person doing a census (I think we even have a few Klingons ×D ). Multiethnicity is a characteristic of Vojvodina – Serbs are dominant with 65 %, followed by Hungarians with 14 %, followed by Croatians with 4 % etc. Because of its multiethnicty, Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia. Pretty much the same ethnic groups are present in eastern Croatia, but Croatians are by far predominant (there are a few Hungarian villages in Croatian Baranya though) and, thus, eastern Croatia is not an autonomous province of Croatia (i.e. the region is divided into counties like the rest of the country).

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

The advantage of this year field trip, over the last year, is that we were told in advance which area we’ll have presentations of, so we could really be careful when guides and professors talked about the area. Furthermore, we could take notes right away. Last year, we were divided into groups of two and each group had to write an essay of an area we’d visited. First of all, that’s simply stupid ’cause there’s no way in hell you can hear every bloody thing about every bloody thing. In addition, we were given the topics after the trip and could only try to remember what we’d heard. Even more stupid was that we had to back every thing we wrote about with references (what’s the point of the stuff we learn on a field trip then?!), so even if we managed to remember something, we couldn’t just write it down.
The last year trip had been better in every other way. I have to criticize the professors now. Three guys (well, Two guys and a girl ×D actually) were our professors and there was a guest from the University of Mostar. The main professor was a pain in the ass. Okay, he did commend me, for keeping up despite my health, and the student helping me, for showing empathy. Lik je izvalio i neke fore (npr. otkad je za pišanje reko Ovdje ćemo riješiti tekuća pitanja, pišanje nam je rješavanje tekućih pitanja 😀 ). But to be objective, he was a pain in the ass. First of all, he just wouldn’t shut up. He kept talking and talking. When he’d finally finish, others took his place. We were told some interesting stuff but, please, give us a brake (luckily I brought my dictaphone and just recorded every little shit). He kept talking that we must “preserve the dignity of the faculty”, but he made some really cheap and low shots. For example, he kept calling a fellow student from Drniš “colleague from Drniš”. He emphasized the guy’s hometown in a way as if people from Drniš were some inferior beings. Such discrimination really “preserves the dignity of the faculty”… Even if discrimination was acceptable, what the hell did he based it on?! It’s not like only criminals and other low lives inhabit the town. Well, the Bosnian professor was quick in joining the “fun”. She even went further, to abbreviating “Colleague from Drniš” into “Drniš”. We quckly abbreviated her ass to “Mostar“. Then, he wouldn’t let us listen to music in that little time of silence in the bus. He went on saying that “everyone’s taste in music is different and that we can’t impose”. Well, I wonder why the hell did God create earphones then. Finally, he kept hurrying everybody up every time. Gosh, he must be the only professor on the planet that cuts lectures. Not to mention that we could’ve saved some real time by going with the bus to places we could instead of waking for miles (well, maybe not for miles, but for kilometres 😀 ). Mislim da je lik komentirao i Starčevićev spomenik u negativnom kontekstu…

Što da još kažem prije nego što počnem pisati baš o zbivanjima (događanjima i dešavanjima) na terenu?
Za put sam si kupio Cedevita voćni mix bombone – čista prevara. Mislio sam da je svaki bombon od više voća, ali ne. Lijepo je 1/3 od limuna, 1/3 od borovnice i 1/3 od narandže. Sad, meni su od limuna bili bljak – znači, trećina kutije pada u vodu (kad bi ljude ponudio, ko za vraga bi uzeli sve osim limuna i time još smanjili ono što bi ja pojeo 😡 ). Zaključak, kad kupuješ Cedevita bombone, bolje uzmi samo jedan okus, za koji znaš da će ti se svidjet, nego voćni mix.
Cijelim putem smo vidjeli hrpetinu životinja – od kondora, sokola, nojeva i kokoši preko srdela do bizona, antilopa, geparda i kojota (preskoči na 2:28; da, malo mi je teže izmišljat životinje kad u istočnoj Hrvatskoj i Vojvodini ima više-manje svega što živi u srednjoj Europi i to u velikom broju).

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

Now the stuff about the trip really starts

Here’s what happened *Monk style*:

We were off from Zagreb at 7 AM on May 28th. At least, we should’ve been off at 7 AM, but we were delayed. Inače, nismo, kao normalni svijet, krenuli s Autobusnog kolodvora, nego s Boćarskog doma. Još nam je bilo rečeno da nas bus čeka zapadnom dijelu parkinga, a čekao nas je na istočnom (inače, mi smo studenti geografije…). Anyway, the first stop were some greenhouses (i.e. growing vegetables in greenhouses family business). Among the guides was the father. The weather was partially cloudy and the guy wore sunglasses and kept shielding his eyes from the little sun with a newspaper. He kept apologizing that he has problems with the eyesight and generally has crappy health. But, then he told us You mustn’t smoke in a greenhouse or you’ll ruin the vegetables. That’s a problem for me because I’m a passionate smoker. OK, you keep complaining about your health, but you keep smoking (with passion)…

The above image is a picture of the town of Daruvar.

Anyway, Daruvar is a town with significant Czech minority. Everything I saw in the town is bilingual. They even have a gymnasium (similar to a British grammar school) programme in Czech in Daruvar. The town is the centre of Czechs in Croatia.

The Alliance of Czechs in Croatia

Czechs say that there are fewer and fewer Czech speakers in Croatia, but I’ve heard like eight year old (tops) kids speaking Czech to each other and their supervisor. Basically, the drop of Czech speakers is probably because of the general depopulation of Croatia. We had no problem communicating with Czechs because they are all fluent Croatian speakers (except the guy visiting them from Czech Republic).

Inače, zanimljivo je da se češki u Hrvatskoj ne razlikuje previše od češkog u Češkoj. Istina je da su neke riječi pokupili iz hrvatskog, ali općenito se Česi iz Češke i Česi iz Hrvatske super razumiju. To baš ne mogu reć za Hrvate u Hrvatskoj i Gradišćanske Hrvate…

Još je zanimljivo da su Daruvarske toplice baš u Daruvaru, a nisu izdvojeno naselje kao ostale toplice u Hrvatskoj

Druga slika je za Bandića. Pa, jebem mu mater, ako Daruvar može imat ovako uređene biciklističke i pješačke staze, bogme može i Zagreb.

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

The next stop worth bloging about is Slavonski Brod. Slavonski Brod is an important town on the Croatian side of the river Sava. The town dates back from the Antic period, but gained significant importance (like every other town in eastern Croatia and Vojvodina) when Austria-Hungary built a military base against Turks. It’s interesting that Slavonski Brod is the town that was most heavily bombed in WWII in the whole exYugoslavia (it was bombed like Dresden, Germany). Well, Zadar was very heavily bombed too, but we were told Slavonski Brod beat Zadar.
Another thing about Slavonski Brod is that right across the river is Bosnian town Bosanski Brod. Bosanski and Slavonski Brod are pretty much the same town and the border only represents a problem to both towns. Well, I guess the problem is that Bosanski Brod is not in FB&H (the Croatian-Bosniak entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina).

Panorama of Slavonski Brod. Bosanski Brod can be seen in the far background.

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

In the evening, we arrived to Županja. We visited a workshop with traditional (handmade) products. Tamo nam je među vodičima bila žena koja ima manje zuba od Broja Jedan. Then we went to a museum about the habitation in and around Županja from Pleistocene to modern days.

Ovaj puši ko Turčin 😀

Anyway, after the dinner (11 PM at best, maybe even 12 AM) we were separated into two hotels. The hotel I stayed in was OK except the bathroom couldn’t be locked (dunno, it’s like all the hotels we stayed in have a serious religious issue of no bathroom locking 😡 ) Oh yeah, in addition, a door of the shower cabin fell off when I was opening the doors (yeah, luckily, after I was done showering). That’s the end of day 1.

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

We should’ve continued the trip at 8:30, but guess what… We continued at 7:30.

Anyway, we visited the museum of forest (hrvatski/Croatian). The museum was about… guess what – this is a toughy… FOREST!

Kitties!

After the museum we headed to lakes (rather swamps) Virovi (hrvatski/Croatian) which are similar to Kopački rit (I’ll talk about Rit later), but are not a nature park. They have a much lower protection level (značajni krajobraz). Mostar nam je lijepo objasnila da je značajni krajoraz stupanj zaštite prirode (u Hrvatskoj) i da je to jako važno i da to ni u snu ne smijemo zaboraviti. A u pičku materinu, di je bila kad sam pisao geoekologiju?! Možda bi dobio bod više…

So, after Virovi we headed to Serbian border where we were held long and didn’t make it to Sremska Mitrovica and Ruma. Instead we headed directly to Fruška gora.
Kad smo već kod Srijemske Mitrovice. Profesor nam je lijepo objasnio kako bi Srijemsku Mitrovicu trebali zvati Sremska Mitrovica jer je to “izvorni naziv”… Pa, ne bih se baš složio s tom tvrdnjom. Prvo, to je općenito pravilo pri nazivlju (npr. Yellowstone, a ne Žutikamen), ali se u nekim slučajevima ne primjenjuje (npr. nije Wien, nego je Beč). Još nešto, Hrvati u Srijemskoj Mitrovici žive od pamtivijeka (udio nije velik, ali Hrvati nastanjuju Srijemsku Mitrovicu oduvijek). Znači, nije istina da Srijemska Mitrovica nije jedan od izvornih naziva. Na kraju krajeva, grad je dobio ime po regiji koju Srbi zovu Srem, a Hrvati Srijem.

VOJVODINA

Before writing about Fruška gora and other places we visited in Vojvodina, I should write some more info about Vojvodina I didn’t write in the intro.

As I said Vojvodina is an autonomous province of Serbia, governed by the government of Vojvodina. Throughout history different states wanted to control Vojvodina (people of Vojvodina should be honoured they’re so popular 😀 ). First it were Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. At that time Vojvodina was part of Austria-Hungary. Austria-Hungary wanted to populate Vojvodina, so the region can give Turks strong resistance. When populating it, they didn’t much care about person’s nationality, they just made the region attractive by investing in it. Over time, the region became home to many different ethnic groups out of which Serbs became dominant because many Serbs had fled central and southern Serbia from Turks, plus those Serbs already in Vojvodina. Actually, the government of Austria-Hungary wanted to create as much ethnic diversity in Vojvodina as possible. Thus, they created subethnical identities [e.g. they created Bunjevci, Šokci (poznati Šokac je ban Jelačić) and the rest of Croatians out of Croatians] which they hoped would eventually become ethnic identities. Because the region was a part of Hungary within Austria-Hungary, the second most populous ethnic group are Hungarians. Anyway, after the breakup of Austria-Hungary, and the retreat of Turks to present-day Turkey, states wanting to control Vojvodina have been Serbia, Hungary, Croatia and Romania. Seems that Serbia gave the best option to Vojvodina. Even though Serbs are not predominant, they make more than half of Vojvodina’s population, but nevertheless they granted autonomy to Vojvodina [the autonomy of Vojvodina dates back to SFRY when it was one of the two autonomous provinces (autonomous provinces of SFRY had second-level political power, right after republics)].
Official reports say that nonSerbian population is often discriminated. While we were in Department of Geography in Novi Sad, a student asked whether there is separatism in Vojvodina. A professor said that there is, like everywhere else, but only 10-15 %. OK, that’s not a high percentage, but it’s not that small either (I think separatist make less than 5 % of Istria‘s population).
In my time in Vojvodina, I didn’t noticed the discrimination, but I can’t really deny nor confirm the reports simply because I was in Vojvodina for less than two days and in that time I saw pretty much what tourists see. When I remember last year bus incidents in Novi Sad, I start to wonder. However, I hope those incidents were caused by a few hooligans.

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

Languages

Due to its autonomy several languages have official status in Vojvodina, including Serbian, Hungarian and Croatian (some TV programmes are Croatian). Out of those Serbian and Hungarian are dominant (there are even some TV channels and programmes in Hungarian; and high school education is available in Serbian, Hungarian and Croatian). Most signs throughout Vojvodina are bilingual, many are even trilingual (though the necessity of trilinguality is quite questionable since the third language is Croatian and Serbian and Croatian are very alike). Still, there are some monolingual signs (Serbian only – even in Hungarian dominated areas).
OK, first lemme say a word or two about Serbian. When talking about official languages we can say Serbian and Croatian, but when we’re talking about spoken language we can say Serbocroatian because both Serbs and Croatians in Vojvodina speak the same. The dominant form in Vojvodina is Serbian ekavian, but people mix Serbian and Croatian words and forms in every day speach (region, regija – sve je to Vojvođanima isti kurac 😀 ) and other yat forms (or how Wikipedia says, yat reflexes) can be heard. The only real difference is that Croatian uses Latin script only (I’ll get to scripts later).
OK, now Hungarian. Hungarian is the second most spoken language in Vojvodina (14 % of population) and unlike Croatian, it totally differs from Serbian. Hungarian is not even an Indo-European language.

Scripts (Cyrillic and Latin)

Serbian is a (or the; I think it’s unique in this matter) language that uses both Latin and Cyrillic script equally (the use of each script pretty much depends on speaker’s mood). Throughout Serbia, both scripts are equally used.
Hungarian and Croatian, on the other hand, use only Latin script (the main difference between Serbian and Croatian). It only makes sense that Latin script is used more in Vojvodina than the rest of Serbia (e.g. I haven’t seen a single bus route on a bus written in Cyrillic in Vojvodina while both Latin and Cyrillic route names are distributed equally on Belgrade vehicles).

Here are the examples of the two scripts

Serbian Cyrllic: Ово је пример српске ћирилице.
Serbian Latin: Ovo je primer srpske latinice.
English: This is an example of Serbian Cyrillic/Latin.

Trilingual signs are most often in Serbian Cyrillic, Hungarian and Croatian though the “Croatian” part is sometimes just transcribed Cyrillic script. If you ask me having both Croatian and Serbian is just a waste of space on signs since the languages are alike. I think only Latin script should be used since it’s used in both Serbian and Croatian. The space saved by using just one script should either be used for another official language (like Hungarian when Hungarian is not included) or simply for bigger size of the letters so the text is more easily read.

Trilingual sign in Vojvodina

Hrvacki i srpcki u Vojvodini

Šta sam ono hteo? Oo, malo više o hrvatskom i srpskom u Vojvodini. *Bilov stil (preskoči na 3:49)* Znači, kao što rekoh službeni jezici su srpski, mađarski, hrvatski… Ipak govorni jezik Hrvata i Srba se ne razlikuje (osim kod ljudi koji baš naglašavaju razliku).

Evo, da ne bi bilo da izmišljam – piše ekotrustička karta (a ne mapa)

Neki jednojezični natpisi su samo na latinici, a neki samo na ćirilici dok u slučaju trojezičnih natpisa (srpski, mađarski i hrvatski) je najčešći slučaj prevođenja srpske ćirilice na hrvatski. Prijevodi su nerijetko netočni. Dat ću jedan primjer:

Na uličnom natpisu piše:
*некаква* цеста
*nekakav* put
Nemam baš sliku slučaja jer sam natpis slikao iz busa u pokretu, pa je slika ispala nečitljiva. U biti, koliko ja znam riječi “cesta” i “put” imaju isto značenje na hrvatskom i na srpskom i nisu sinonimi (npr. šumski put i nije baš cesta…)

Kao što sam već rekao u tekstu na engleskom, mislim da je prevođenje srpskog na hrvatski (i obrnuto) glupo kako za natpise, tako i općenito (o hrvatskosrpskoj jezičnoj polemici sam napisao post Nova “agresija” na hrvatski jezik). Također, mislim da bi natpisi u Vovjvodini trebali biti na srpskoj (ipak je Vojvodina u Srbiji) latinici zato što i hrvatski i srpski koriste (isto) latinično pismo (što se mene tiče naziv ulice može biti Ulica tačke na čovekovoj lobanji ili Ulica prljave kašike, samo neka bude napisano na latinici). U svakom slučaju, korištenje natpisa na oba pisma jednostavno nije ekonomično. Još jedna stvar, kao što rekoh uz školovanje na srpskom, moguće je školovanje i na mađarskom i hrvatskom. Realno gledajući, školovanje na hrvatskom je samo (nepotrebno) trošenje državnog proračuna jer su srpski i hrvatski užasno slični jezici. Štoviše, profesori, osim jezičara (profesora hrvatskog i srpskog jezika), uglavnom drže nastavu na više-manje govornom jeziku, a govorni jezik Hrvata i Srba u Vojvodini je isti. Ja sam za uvođenje hrvatskog jezika kao predmeta u vojvođanske škole (po mogućnosti i zamjeni za srpski kad su Hrvati u pitanju), ali rađenje posebnog nastavnog programa na hrvatskom je jednostavno neučinkovito.

Još mrvicu o pismima. Primjetio sam da Srbi često pišu DJ za Đ i kada mogu pisati Đ. Ono, latinični tekst pa Đ i DJ kako im paše što je iroično budući da je slovo Đ u abecedu uveo srpski jezičar Daničić. Vjerojatno je tako zbog ekavice, pa su im dj konflikti rijetki (npr. podjeljen).

Bunjevci i Šokci

Bunjevci i Šokci su subetnici Hrvata (Šokaca ima i u Slavoniji). Podjela je nastala još u Austrobugarskoj da bi stanovništvo Vojvodine bilo što heterogenije. Za vrijeme Juge je bilo dopušteno izjašnjavanje kao Bunjevac i Šokac, ali bi u popisu i Šokci i Bunjevci bili uvršteni u Hrvate. Tek su popisom 1991. Hrvati podjeljeni u tri “naroda” – Bunjevce, Šokce i Hrvate. A čija je to blistava ideja bila? Koga drugog nego Miloševićeva (iznenađenje…).

Stožer Hrvatsko-bunjevačko-šokačke stranke u Subotici (zanimljivo, nalazi se u Zagrebačkoj ulici). Na onoj tabli ispod piše Tražimo ista prava kao Srbi u Hrvatskoj (jebi ga, bila je na suprotnoj strani busa, a samo smo busem prošli pokraj stožera, pa je još slika dobro ispala). U biti, pitanje za vojvođanske “Hrvate, Bunjevce i Šokce” – Koji kurac niste ujedinjeni kao Srbi u Hrvatskoj?! Tu, jebo te, ne možete bit jedan narod, a tražite “zajednička” prava.

E još nešto prije nego krenem dalje. Vojvodina, vjerojatno i ostatak Srbije, je jako jeftina (jebo te, litra Pepsi 4 kn, pa u Hrvatskoj su pollitarke skoro duplo skuplje; mi trčimo u kioske po ledeni čaj i sok od litre za 5 kuna računajući na pravu uštedu…). Ono, neću tvrdit za cijelu Srbiju jer ne znam. Lani u Beogradu baš nismo imali vremena za šoping. Ovaj put smo nakrcali bus s pijačom i grickalicama da bus nije mogao brzo vozit ni da je htio i šverc preko granice 😀

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

Where was I? Ah, that’s right Fruška gora. Fruška gora is a hill with the highest peak of 539 m next to Novi Sad. It is interesting to see different classifications of mountains – in the Himalayas a mountain is only that hill with a peak reaching 7000 m; we’ve been told that a mountain is a hill with a peak reaching 1000 m [probably ’cause Medvednica‘s – a mountain just north of Zagreb (actually the city extends to some southern parts of the mountain) – highest peak reaches 1035 m, so we can brag that our capital has a mountain] while people in Vojvodina say that mountain is a hill with a peak reaching 500 m, making Fruška gora a mountain (note that the word gora means hill). Anyway, we were in the national park. The hill is definitely beautiful, but in my opinion doesn’t deserve the status of national park (jebo te, to je ko da mi Sljeme proglasimo nacionalnim parkom). Yeah, the hill should have a high level of nature protection, but not that of a national park.

A forest on Fruška gora

Upon going to Fruška gora, we passed by a great place to take a pic of a cityscape of Novi Sad. The guide said We are approaching a spot where traffic is slow because everyone stops here to take a picture of the beautiful cityscape, clearly pointing we should stop too, but nooooooooooooo, our bus driver just had to keep driving like a maniac. I mean, he didn’t have to let us exit the bus, but he could have stopped and let us take pics through the window.
One more thing. Serbs have a serious issue about the plate tectonics. The guide told us You are Croatian students, so I can talk to you about the plate tectonics freely.

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

Novi Sad (iliti ga New Now)

Novi Sad is the capital and the largest city of Vojvodina [actually the only city in Vojvodina that’s grown – Vojvodina is facing serious depopulation (gori su od nas – izgubili su 115 000 stanovnika u 10 godina)]. Ethnicly, although all ethnic groups of Vojvodina live in the city, Serbs are predominant with 76 % of the city population. Among the places in Vojvodina we visited, Novi Sad was the only settlement with virtually only monolingual (Serbian) signs. I only saw Hungarian and Croatian in the (catholic) cathedral [unlike Serbs who are Orthodox, Hungarians and especially Croatians (yes, including Bunjevci and Šokci) are catholic].
Novi Sad is the birth place of Jelačić (Petrovaradin actually, but that’s part of present-day Novi Sad; the bus passed by the house he was born in). Serbs honour Jelačić pretty much like Croatians, so any theiories that Jelačić statue on Zagreb main square was removed after WWII because of Serbs are a bunch of baloney. Karl Marx didn’t like Jelačić and thus the communists decided his place is not on the main square of the second largest Yugoslav republic’s capital.
Another thing about Novi Sad – women in Novi Sad are hot 😀 a fellow student commented Bloody hell, my neck hurts of turning after the girls.

Novi Sad cathedral

On Tuesday we only went to the city museum (including the Petrovaradin fortress).
When climbing to the museum up a hill, we walked for two klicks. When we reached the museum, we saw a bus offloading Japanese tourists. So, either Serbs really like Japanese yens or we could’ve gone that two klicks by the bus. Similarly, we returned to the bus walking those two klicks back. I might add that “we were in a hurry” when ever we were seeing something…
The fortress was built, no wait, you’ll never guess this… by Austria-Hungary as a defence against Turks. Tons of money were invested in its construction. The construction began in 1692 and ended in 1780. It was and still is a masterpiece, but by the time it was finished, the technique of making war had changed and the fortress became pretty much useless.

The pic was actually taken at 4:05 PM. The hour hand is bigger than the minute hand, so people could see what hour of the day it was from a distance.

Yeah, carrying umbrella on a sunny day – crazy Europeans, crazy Asians

After the fortress, we headed to a hotel. The hotel was fine expect one thing – elevators were fucked up.
After the dinner we went outside a bit. Some went to nightlife. Well, we continued the next day.

Poznato? Svi busevi (koji nisu skroz reklamno prefarbani) su ovakve boje što je slično zagrebačkim busevima; zapravo identično starije ofarbanim.

Znači nije samo Zagreb grad s “aktualnim” reklama (govorim o onoj reklami za univerzijadu 1987. pokraj tramvajske stanice Mašićeva). Što se samih Jugića, Stojadina ( 😀 ), Fičeka i sl. tiče, iako su na hrvatskim ulicama praktički izumrli, u Srbiji su česti (dobro, Fičeke baš i nisam vidio).

Not like in London, but red payphone 😀

1.25 L bottle of Coke – one of a kind (actually stores in Vojvodina are full of them). Kad sam se već dotaknuo dućana, ova Cola je kupljena u jednom novosadskom dućanu. Zaboravio sam točno ime dućana, ali Konzum, Konzum – od Konzum akcija i “trajno niskih cena” do K plus proizvoda. I, kao što rekoh, jeftini su u mačku piterinu.

This is some seriously good shit 😀

Vojvođanska banka, znak pravih vrednosti 😀

Ma vuci guzicu u Rodić i kupi MB pivo – domaće, naše (preskoči na 3:29) 😀

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

The next day we went to the Department of Geography in Novi Sad, yeah our Vojvodina colleagues 😀 Yeah, most of faculties and their departments of the University of Novi Sad are located within one campus. Gosh, Zagreb must be the only university on the planet that has faculties and their departments dispersed through out the city…

The University of Novi Sad campus

We attended a couple of presentations there. When we entered the classroom we found a (packed) condom on a seat in a back row – free condoms!!! 😀
Let’s just say that the presentations were so interesting (actually they were ’cause I listened to the first one and to the second while I was not busy taking pics of the sleeping beauties) that we had a lot of sleeping beauties (pretty much like on the lectures in the bus). I have a lot of pics of the beauties, but I won’t post them here ’cause you never know who might wander(lust 😀 ) here even though the chances of someone who actually cares wandering are practically non-existent.

Sad znamo otkud Štercu onako lijep naslovni slajd na geografskom ponedjeljku – časopis Turizam novosadskog Odsjeka za geografiju, turizam i hotelijerstvo. Za sada nemam bolju sliku časopisa, ali valjda ću ju kad-tad nabavit; do tad će poslužit ova koja se vidi na prezentaciji.

Pod klupom smo našli (čitljiv) šalabahter na ćirilici pisan rukom. E, to je umijeće! Ja ne mogu našvrljat niš čitljivo ni na latinici, a ćitilica je nešto kompliciranija (usporedi samo Ž i Ж, I i И…).

Još malo aktualnosti…

After the presentations we went sightseeing. Vodič mi je dignuo tlak – za Domovinski rat je rekao građansko-agresorski rat. Da se ponovim – Ulaskom Hrvatske (i BiH) u UN, 22.5.1992., SVE TVRDNJE da je Domovinski rat bio građanski rat, padaju u vodu. Jasno? Jasno. (više o tom u odjeljku Građanski rat?! ovog posta)
Well, Novi Sad is a typical Central European town.
One thing though, we have Gypsy beggers too. Yeah, they’re famous of using children for begging (and making them actually do the begging), but I haven’t been in a single city before where Gypsy kids just come to sightseeing tourist groups with a guide talking about the city in the city centre and start asking for money (yeah, we don’t look rich nor are we rich).
Anyway, after a small tour of the centre, we were let to wander around. We decided to get some food. A guy selling sunglasses (behind the law), recommended us a place. I ordered skinless sausages (ćevapi) and French fries. The sausages were acceptable, but the fries sucked ass. Furthermore, the toilet was worse than Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. The place is called Banjalučki ćevap I think. If you go to Novi Sad, stay away from that shithole!!!
Inače, u pečenjari su nas zamijenili za Slovence. Oke, budući da smo svi bili iz sjeverne Hrvatske, 100 % smo kajkali, pogotovo kolega Međimurec 😀 i možda smo tu i tamo neš rekli na ekavici, ali smo većinom govorili na jekavici (kad smo došli u pečenjaru, pitali smo Ima li slobodnih mjesta?). E, ko nađe, jekavskog Slovenca, dam mu pet odma. U kratko, kad čuješ jekavsko kajkanje, sigurno je riječ o Hrvatu.

Viđu ti Meštrovića u centru Novog Sada 😀

Not Dungeons and Dragons, but a dragon 😀 – a statue of Jovan Jovanović Zmaj (BCS zmaj – dragon)

Mobile bed! 😀

So it was time to leave Novi Sad. Upon exiting the city, cops pulled us over. Why? Because the chauffeur didn’t wear a sit belt. A cop was like Sit belts must be worn in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Germany; everywhere. Indeed, what kind of a bus driver (or “professional” how our professor kept calling him) forgets to put a sit belt on?! A fellow student yelled Tell them (the cops) to hurry up; we’re in a hurry...

Ovi murjaci očito ne jedu ni burek ni krafne, nego Poli nareske 😉

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

So, first we were of to lake Ludas. It was unbelievably hot there and bloody mosquitoes were everywhere. We maybe saw two inches of the lake. The programme was not fun at all [and I don’t mean a (bulgy eyed) woman named Atol (skip to 3:13)].

Next stop was lake Palić (yeah, near Ludas). We had a lot of free time there and I can honestly say that was the best part of the trip 😀

Yeah, we stole kids their playground 😀

While in the park we came to a conclusion we couldn’t survive with camera that could take only 30 pics and couldn’t record stuff. I realized then my camera eats batteries for dinner while recording.

Kada sve drugo propadne i ovakva pronatalitetna populacijska politika je dobrodošla. Neka mi netko samo objasni kako umjetne oplodnje narušavaju mogućnnost imanja dijeteta…

Nedostajali su samo sol i zraku i povici Prokleti purger! da bude kao prava šetnja kroz Rivu 😀

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

After lake Palić, we headed to the hotel (hotels actually) in the town of Palić (Palić is predominantly Hungarian – 54 %). We had a dinner there accompanied by traditional music (luckily, no turbo-folk 😀 ) which is pretty much the same as in eastern Croatia – many common songs are sung on both sides of the border.
Before the dinner, we were toured around the place. That’s the first time in my life I thanked God for DST. If there was no DST, it would’ve been too dark to take any pics.

Many people partied till late at night. I on the other hand was woken by digestion problems at 1 AM. I couldn’t fall back asleep because of two reasons: people were partying loudly and, more importantly, my room mate kept bloody snoring. He had snored (like hell) the previous two nights too, but I guess I had been too tired to be bothered by it and I hadn’t had any digestion problems. I must say that I really wonder how loudly he’s going to snore in 10-20 years if he snores like a hundred year old now, when he’s only 22. Anyway, I was just about to fall asleep when a bloody rooster started “announcing the morning” (at 4:30 AM). Then, I wanted to strangle DST again. If there was no DST, the bloody bird would hail to the morning an hour before when I was busy at the toilet. Damn, I really wished I had a fire arm with me back then and that I was able to use it. Why the hell don’t they give the rooster a clock and tell him Listen, rooster, no yelling till 10 AM – people are trying to sleep. I finally managed to fall a sleep an hour before my cell phone alarm went off. In addition, I kept bumping my head on the ceiling because of the bloody roof shape. Oh yeah, expect the regular no lock on bathroom doors, the bathroom in this place didn’t even have ventilation, which is not a smart thing after I leave the toilet 😉

Ovo u Srbiji dobiješ nakon svakog noćenja. E kad bi u Hrvatskoj bilo tako lako doć do prebivališta…

Brošura koju smo dobili u restoranu u kojem smo večerali – MICE! 😀

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

The next day, we went to Subotica. Subotica is the second largest city in Vojvodina with the population of around 100 000 citizens. At certain time in the 19th century (I forgot the exact year), Subotica was the largest Croatian city (i.e. more Croatians lived in Subotica than in Zagreb). Several Croatian political parties of Vojvodina are headquartered in Subotica. Today, the city is dominated by Hungarians with 35% followed by Serbs with 28% followed by Croatians with 21%… The dominant religion is Catholicism since most Hungarians and probably all Croatians (i.e. 35% + 21% = 56%) are catholic. The dominated spoken language is Serbocroatian though because of Serbs who speak Serbian and Croatians who speak Croatian (i.e. 28% + 21% = 49 %). Maybe that’s why I haven’t seen a single Hungarian monolingual sign in the city (expect religious stuff) while I saw a lot of monolingual Serbian…

Svako ima pravo na svoje mišljenje, ali za mene je Subotica grad vikendica (vikend-kuća) u kojima ljudi borave samo subotom 😀 Sa mnom se očito ne slaže New Now novinarka kada Suboticu nije prevela u Littlesaturday…

Subotica cathedral

Subotica synagogue, one of a few religious objects which the communist government actually invested into

The best barbed wire alternative ever 😀

Sad mi je jasno otkud korjene vuče zagrebački EKO TAXI. Priča se po kvartu da u Ljubljanu stiže Mladi Eko Taxi 😉
Kad smo već kod taksija, u Novom Sadu (čini mi se, može bit u Subotici ili Somboru) sam vidio City Taxi. Kaj City Taxi ne vozi i u Samoboru?

Subotica ima vlasitog Batmana i ekipu. Lako njima – sigurno sigurno spavaju 😀

Evo, ovo sam slikao samo da pokažem da je Budimpešta bliža Subotici nego Zagreb.

Next stop was Sombor (not Samobor ×D ). Unlike Subotica, Sombor is predominately Serbian (64%). We didn’t really sightsee the town, Sombor was the last city in Vojvodina we visited, so it was time to replenish supplies we were going to smuggle (snacks and drinks bought earlier didn’t survive long) across the border 😀 Just before we went off, a thoughtless woman wanted to tell us the future.

Hrvatski dom u Somboru

Najvažniji suvenir u Vojvodini sam kupio – srpski Alan Ford – Slepačka pesma 😀

Nedavni izbori u Srbiji

Prije nego što se vratim u domovinu, htio bih pokazati nedavnu srpsku predizbornu kampanju da pokažem da su političari, hmm… političari.

Što volim ovakve prozirne porukice… Doduše, Bandiću baš i nisu pomogle.

Ovom liku se nije svidio Čombetov Glasajte za nas, pa se odlučio za Izetov Glasat ćete za nas! Jasno? Jasno. 😀

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

So, from Sombor we headed back to our homeland, more precisely Baranya. Baranya is a region shared by Hungary (northern Baranya) and Croatia (southern Baranya). Logically, there are lot of Hungarians living in Croatian part of Baranya. We passed through some Hungarian villages. But, unlike in Vojvodina, there’s no larger Hungarian settlement in Croatian Baranya.

A ship in international waters (on Danube which serves as the border between Croatia and Serbia) 😀

I don’t wanna comment what “music” we listened to in the bus on our way through Baranya. It is interesting, though, how “imposing music” didn’t apply back then…

This is a monument to the fallen heroes of the Red Army who defended Baranya. I posted the pic ’cause any kind of communist monuments so well taken care of are really rare in Croatia.

A local wine brewery from 1697. Inače, Belje ima još poznatih proizvoda (npr. ABC sir).

Screw Scotland 😉

Anyway, after exploring Baranya, we went to a hotel in Osijek. The hotel was good. Probably the best one we’ve been too, expect for two things – terrible food and rooms were next to a train station, which I realized after I chose the bed by the window. Three guys got a sweet bigger than my apartment, but me and my room mate got a normal sized room, which was a submarine cabin compared to the sweet.

Another sleepless night (speaking of sleepless, which one do you find better Sleepless in Peckham or Sleepless in Bel-Air?). I was woken in the middle of the night (yeah, a kick ass song, right 😀 ) by mild stomach-ache. Went to the toilet, farted my ass off and went back to bed. But, expect for the bloody snoring, every now and then, I was shaken by a passing train 😡

Inače, trebao sam otić na koncert TBFa. Održan je blizu hotela, a ulaz je bio besplatan

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

In the morning we went to Kopački rit. Kopački rit is a swampy (I said that Virovi are similar) nature park with tons of bird, fish and mosquito species along with other animals. Out of all the mosquito species inhabiting Rit, only four are blood suckers and out of those four, only female suck blood (yeah, women suck blood 😀 ). Nevertheless, it’s the blood suckers that are a pain in the ass. When going to Kopački rit, be sure to come properly anti-mosquito equipped.

When we arrived, I was offered to be taken the following 2 km path by the bus, but blah. If I walked the previous stuff, I could take this walk for sure. Besides, I would feel like an idiot all alone in the bus while others were walking.

U Ritu su nam govorili neš otkud potječe ime Kopački rit, ali mene niko ne može razuvjerit da ime potječe iz guzice. Još kada uzmemo u obzir riječ “kopački”, dolazimo do zaključka da je ime smislila neka perverznjačina…

Prvo, kakvo bolesno đubre je uopće moglo postaviti mine u Kopački rit?! Drugo, od rata je prošlo 12 godina, a jedan od najljepših hrvatskih parkova prirode još nije razminiran…

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

From Rit, we headed back to Osijek to sightsee the city. It was a waste of time if you ask me ’cause we only moved around Osijek fortress, which was built to repel Turks (no way…).

The one and only pic I didn’t actually take ’cause we could only take pics of trams from the bus and none I took looked like a tram ×D Anyway, I just wanted to mention that Osijek is the only Croatian city, other than Zagreb that still has a tram system. Trams are generally a popular form of public transport in Europe. Unlike, in Zagreb, where trams are very common, trams in Osijek are more of a tourist attraction, like the tram system in Trondheim, Norway (as a comparison, Osijek has only 2 tram routes while Zagreb has 15).

Okay, moving on *Achmed style*

Our final stop was Stara Kapela where we had a traditional lunch accompanied by traditional music, like in Palić. The lunch was good, especially the soup. I must say I was pretty disappointed when I found out that the lambs being fried outside were not for us.
A little info about Stara Kapela. Stara Kapela is a village entirely for rural tourism. It has the population of only 15. They can host a bus full of people for now which means they often have more guests than permanent residents. One of those 15 people is a 90 year old woman. When she dies, the population will drop by 10 %. Anyway, they keep bragging that they’ve had visitors from all over the world from the US and Europe to Australia. The host in charge is so cheerful that I think he’s been trying out his drinks too many times.

This payphone actually serves a purpose because there’s no cellphone signal in the village. Hosts keep bragging abut that as it were an advantage… I mean, if I don’t want to be reached on cell, I’ll turn the thing off. I won’t go to a place with no signal where I can’t be reached even if I want to be reached…

Na boci piše ‘Ko se ove flaše lati, nek’ ga zdravlje i sreća prati! Ko zna šta je u toj boci i da li donosi sreću (o zdravlju ne bih) ×D

Well, that’s it. After Stara Kapela, we headed back home.
Lemme finish this post by a question our professor so often asked – Any questions?

Na kamionu piše KITA LOGISTICS

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