What do we talk about, when we talk about Croatia? (Part 1)
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What do we talk about, when we talk about Croatia? (Part 1)

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When I was a student, I attended a summer school that was held in German city of Karlsruhe. It was organized by one of the students' associations and its aim was to study German for two weeks, travel around the region and get to know new people from other parts of Europe.

I was 23 back then, and since I haven't traveled that much by then, that was the first time for me to meet, for example, a person from Estonia or Azerbaijan, both countries being remotely situated and small.

After the placement exam, all of the attendees were placed into two groups – the ones who were absolute beginners and those of us who had some knowledge of the language. On the first day in the classroom, everyone had to say something about him/herself and the teacher wrote names of all the countries we were from. We were asked to say what associations cross our minds when we hear, for example, The Netherlands, Ukraine or, you got it, Croatia.

Most of the people knew that Croatia has clear sea, beautiful islands and that it's well known as a touristic destination. I'm not sure if anyone really made a link between Croatia and devastating war that the country went through in the early 1990's. After all, most of the students were barely even born when the conflict in the former Yugoslavia began, so the bombing of Dubrovnik or siege of Vukovar were the things they didn't see on TV screens.

But there's more to Croatia than just the sunny islands and enormous amounts of tourists heading to Hvar, Split or Dubrovnik in the summertime. Or Zrće for that matter (where you'll probably find the biggest amount of drunk and drugged European youngsters per square km who are looking for cheap booze being under the influence of some very suspicious air refresher).

These are the ten things that make Croatia distant from its Balkan, Central European and Mediterranean neighbors:

1. I really don't care if you call Croatia a Balkan country (although some folks in Croatia could easily be triggered by that label), but the truth is that geographically parts of it are on the Balkan peninsula. Big parts of it were invaded by the Ottomans so it definitely has some Balkan influences. But, throughout the history it has also been heavily influenced and invaded by Italy, Austria and Hungary, which is seen in its cuisine, architecture, language and customs. It's at least very debatable if it is a Balkan country par excellence, but if you consider it as one, it's for sure the most westernized Balkan country out of all of them.

2. Unlike other former communist countries, Croatia didn't gain its independence without human victims. Even after 25 years since the end of the Homeland War (hrv. Domovinski rat) it is still somewhat a sensitive topic to talk about for some people and, although Croatia cooperated with the International Court for Ex-Yugoslavia in Den Haag, which found some of its generals guilty for war crimes, there is a relatively big percentage of population that sees the war in a black-white manner - Croats being the victims, and Serbs being the villains. It's definitely much more complicated than that, but I'd rather not go too deep into the topic.

3. Although many Westerners mock us for having a language that is *the same* as Serbian, Montenegrin and Bosnian, the thing is that Croatia has it's own language policy and none of the other three languages has three dialects that make the basis of Croatian language. Those dialects are so different that literally, a person from Međimurje (Croatia's northernmost region) wouldn't understand someone from the island of Hvar if he or she would speak in dialect, and vice versa. After all, for a Croatian who has started schooling after 1990, it might be a small problem to get around Belgrade since all the street names are written in cyrillics, the official script of the Serbian language. Of course, one doesn't need a translator when speaking with people from other countries, but, whether we like it or not, all of these languages will develop in different directions in the future.

4. We like our coffee culture. We like our coffee so much that we are able to spend a sunny Saturday morning chit-chatting with our friends over one cup of coffee. Cigarettes are in decline lately. As someone who lives in Zagreb for almost two decades I see two groups of people – those who spend their Saturdays in the city center drinking coffee and those who prefer avoid crowds in the city centre and go hiking to Sljeme, mountain north of Zagreb.

5. One thing that is very common among most of us is that no matter which region they come from, people tend to be quite defeatistic. They don't believe that the change is possible and are able to complain about the state and politicians, they look under the eye everyone who has more then them, and expect others to solve problems that had piled up in the country instead of being the change they want to see in the world. Lately, it's slightly changing, with younger generations being more educated and creative than the older ones, but it still remains a problem.

(Part 2: Coming soon)

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