Croatia Local Custom Tips by polardabar

Ćevapi Heaven

The country of Croatia has taken part in the 54th International Exhibition of Innovations, Research & New Technologies in Brussels with 31 invention. The most important invention [and I'm sure all the TSC members will agree] is the revolutionary tchevuppy-making machine! It's a revolution in the production of ćevapi, since it enables forming ćevapi in five rows at the same time, so that more than 200 kg of meat can be processed in an hour! Klaudijo Šturman from Rovinj, who invented the heavenly machine, is hoping for a success in all south European countries, where ćevapi are one of the main meat delicacies... Even in Istria [where fish & mushroom is the main dish] have a culture of making ćevapi. So we can only hope that it does spread around Europe [and wider]... ;)

Hrvatski - the language in Croatia

The official language in Croatia is Croatian & it belongs to the southern Slavic group of Indo-European languages. It is written in the Latin script & it has some specific sounds & letters, e.g. č, ć, đ, ž & š. People ususally say it reminds them of Russian with all those shushy sounds, but it's not that similar. It is extremely rich [morphology, lexic, swearwords aso.], but it is said to be extremely hard to learn [according to a pole even one of the hardest languages in the world to learn!],. Of course, I can't be the judge of that, but sometimes it's just impossible to explain people why a specific work should be in a specific form. There are some courses & books, but without someone to help you out, I suppose it'd be quite hard to learn it. If you want to know something more though, visit this page or ask me - I'll try to help you out [at least with the most important words like pivo, bok & banana, hehe...]. ;)

0.00 ‰ - Viva Croatia! ;o)

By the new law of the Republic of Croatia, the official alcohol level in the blood has come down to 0.00 ‰! The law does tolerate a tiny percentage of 0.1 ‰ though, 'coz it is easily mistakable. That doesn't help much, I know, but if you drink anything, you really shouldn't drive! One glass of wine, beer or simply two fresh peaches can cost you your license for three months! There were numerous & serious debates about that here in Croatia & people finally understood that it doesn't make much sense. When you compare this law to Ireland's or Czech, it's hilarious. It's still valid, but the government says they'll return the limit to 0,5 ‰. Nobody knows when, but be careful in any case...