Many visitors to Croatia, especially cruise ship passengers, see the popular tourist spots on the Adriatic coast and never venture into the interior of the country. The Adriatic coast is admittedly beautiful, but the country is quite diverse and has so much more to offer.
Leaving Sarajevo behind, we headed towards the northeastern corner of Croatia. The distance from Sarajevo, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, to Karanac, in Croatia, was only about 300 kilometers (186 miles) but since the journey would involve border crossings, we expected to spend the major portion of the day on our bus. And because we were traveling on the last day of a long holiday weekend, Kruno expected the roads to be more crowded than usual with people returning home.
Our route through the mountainous landscape took us through several tunnels. In fact, the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia was a slow process because of this terrain. Gradually, as the mountains got lower, farm settlements appeared – clusters of red roofed houses beside small farm plots nestled at the base of the green hills. This is a region of small family farms and most of the houses are big enough to accommodate multi-generational families.
As we rode along, Kruno distracted us from the rainy weather by telling us more about Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of the biggest problems the country faces is government corruption. For example, in order to get a job as a teacher, doctor, or nurse, it’s often necessary to bribe government employees. In addition, the corruption makes it hard for B&H to attract foreign investment that it desperately needs in order to develop its economy.
And I was surprised to learn that school segregation exists in Bosnia. The Dayton Agreement, which ended the Bosnian War, created a permanent separation of education along ethnic lines. The first segregated schools were established in 1995 in Mostar. Although not all schools in B&H are segregated today, there are still at least fifty segregated schools in the country. The curriculum and textbooks differ according to the ethnicity of the students, meaning that different versions of the country’s history are being taught.
According to Kruno, there is a generational disconnect when it comes to the issue of segregated schools. Many members the older generation, who are still dealing with emotional fallout of the war, think the segregated schools are a good idea. On the other hand, the majority of the younger generation are in favor of abolishing segregated schools. Regardless of their ethnic background, they simply want to spend time with other young people.
That might be cause for cautious optimism. However, it doesn’t seem likely that ethnic distrust in Bosnia will disappear any time soon. The country is already split into two distinct administrative regions based on ethnicity/religion: the larger region is a federation of Muslims and Croats, usually referred to as Bosnia and Herzegovina; and then there’s the smaller autonomous Republic of Srpska, with its predominantly Serbian population, which we would be driving through on our way to Croatia. On top of all that, some Croat nationalists within B&H want to carve out an autonomous Croat region within the country. It’s a lot to keep track of.
Shortly before noon, we officially left the federation part of B&H and entered the Republic of Srpska. By this time, the mountains were much lower and rounder. I noticed right away that the road signs were written first in Cyrillic and then in the Latin alphabet.
Shortly before noon, we stopped for lunch in the town of Doboj, which at one time was on the border between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. The morning rain had tapered off into a heavy mist. After the meal of cabbage salad, meatballs, mashed potatoes, apple cake with white chocolate sauce, and a glass of pinot noir to wash everything down, I was ready for a nap on the bus.
When I awoke an hour or so later, I saw that we were stuck in a seemingly endless line of cars and trucks heading to the border station, about two miles up the road. It was obvious that we were going to be there for a while. To help pass the time as our bus inched its way forward, Kruno shared some information about Croatia.
Croatia’s history is similar to that of its Balkan neighbors. It starts with the Illyrian tribe who lived on the coast. Then came the Romans, followed by the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire. The Slavic Croat tribe arrived from the north in the 6th and 7th centuries. The 8th century saw the creation of the Kingdom of Croatia, which later, in the 12th century, formed a union with the Kingdom of Hungary. Ottoman attacks on Croatian territory began in the mid-1400s and the Croatians eventually turned to the Austrian Hapsburgs for protection. After World War 1, Croatia became part of the newly formed Yugoslavia. It declared its independence in 1991.
Today, Croatia is a parliamentary democracy, with two main political parties and several smaller parties. It has been a member of the European Union since 2013, which allows Croatians to move freely to other EU countries. About half a million people have left the country to live in other European nations, primarily Ireland. There are also large numbers of Croatians who have moved to Brazil. At the same time, Croatia imports a lot of foreign workers, especially from Nepal and the Philippines.
There is widespread government corruption, although not as bad as in Bosnia and Serbia. The VAT (value added tax on all goods) is 25%. The average monthly salary in Croatia is 1300 Euros ($1500). Government taxes of 40 to 60 percent are withheld from workers’ wages. The retirement age for men is 65; it’s lower for women. Retirees get a government pension based on their salary with the average pension around 600 Euros a month, which is barely enough to survive on. In Kruno’s words, “The attitude is, once you retire, your life is over.” For this reason, many retirees work at part-time jobs.
Like many Western countries, Croatia faces the problem of not having enough workers to pay the pensions of the retirees. To remedy the situation, the government is attempting to boost the birth rate with some family-friendly policies. The government pays for IVF treatments and provides certain benefits to parents. Childcare, starting at age one, is subsidized for working parents. There is one year of paid maternity or paternity leave (which can start prior to birth), with a guaranteed return to the job. To encourage larger families, the government mandates three years of maternity leave at full pay for a third child.
Healthcare is supposed to be free, but since it’s hard for the country to finance it, Croatians who want “free” healthcare have to pay an additional tax. Those who choose not to pay the tax must pay 30 percent of their healthcare costs. It’s not surprising that there are long waits for public health services. Some people who can afford to pay for their treatment go to private clinics. And some people who can’t afford to pay simply go to emergency rooms whenever they need healthcare, resulting in very long waits in emergency rooms. It sounds similar to what uninsured people do in the United States. By the way, doctors earn about 2500 Euros a month, which is about $34,000 a year, so they often supplement their salary by working in a private clinic.
With regard to education, children start school around age six and English instruction begins in the first grade. For the first few years of elementary school, students stay with the same teacher from one year to the next. Education is compulsory for 8 or 9 years. After that, children can choose to attend a high school, a trade school, or a technical school. High schools offer a wide-ranging curriculum that prepares students to enter universities. There are both public and private universities. Public universities are superior and they offer free tuition to the top five to ten percent of high school students. Other high school students who wish to attend public universities have to pay a nominal tuition of about 2,000 to 3,000 Euros per year. Sixty percent of the younger generation have university degrees but they can’t get professional jobs. On the other hand, there is a shortage of trade workers.
And I got all of that information while waiting to get through the Bosnian border station and the border station on the Croatian side so you can imagine how long it took. At least the intermittent rain had finally stopped. And as we crossed over the Sava River, I noticed that the landscape had changed as well. It was flat in every direction I looked.
Kruno told us that we were now in the Pannonian Plain, a vast alluvial plain that stretches across northern Croatia, Hungary, Romania, and Austria. Its black soil is rich in minerals, making it excellent farmland. This part of Croatia is called Slavonia, not to be confused with Slovenia (another Balkan country) or Slovakia (a Central European country). Confused? The literal meaning of Slavonia is “Slavic land.” It was considered the breadbasket of Yugoslavia.
Slavonia is known for breeding Lipizzaner horses. These impressive looking white horses were favorites of the Hapsburg monarchs. If you’ve been to Vienna, you may have seen the Lipizzaner stables at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna.
When we reached the small city (population 20,000) of Ðakovo late in the afternoon, we made an unplanned stop to allow our bus driver to take a mandatory rest break. Actually, we were all happy to get out of the bus and stretch our legs. Kruno led us to the main square to visit the magnificent Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul (0032), which was built in the late 1800s under the direction of the bishop and politician Josip Strossmayer, a somewhat polarizing figure in Croatian history.
Not only is this the second largest cathedral in all of Croatia. It’s also the first Roman Catholic cathedral you encounter when you travel to Croatia from the Orthodox world to the east. The late 1800s was a time of rising nationalism, and the cathedral’s grandeur was intended to send a message of Catholic strength and pride to Croatia’s Orthodox neighbors.
I’m glad I had an opportunity to view the beautiful interior of the cathedral.
I’m also glad I had a chance to get a cone of hazelnut gelato to assuage my hunger. The gelato has been both excellent and easy to find throughout the Balkans, and it’s quite reasonably priced as well.
On our way out of Ðakovo, we noticed a stork perched on the roof of one of the houses. This is quite a common sight in Slavonia. The storks arrive in the spring and leave for Africa in the fall.
We arrived at our destination, the farming village of Karanac (accent on 2nd syllable; c pronounced ts), around 6pm. It’s in the extreme northeastern corner of Croatia, about 8 miles from the border with Hungary to the north. Road signs in this area are in Croatian and Hungarian. Part of the area’s charm is the fact that it gets so few tourists.
Karanac is typical of the small villages in the Baranja region of Slavonia, which is known for producing white wine. Over the past hundred years or so, the population of villages such as Karanac has gradually fallen as more and more people move to the cities. The trend continues today with young people moving out and the elderly remaining. Nowadays, many young people born and raised in Karanac are choosing to relocate about twenty miles away to Osijek, Croatia’s fourth largest city.
We were able to get an inside view of the traditional rural lifestyle during our stay on the Sklepić farm. Our hosts, Denis and his wife Goca (“c” is pronounced “ts”), operate a working farm where they grow fruit and vegetables. They also welcome paying guests to stay in simple but charmingly decorated rooms. They’ve been doing this for over twenty years.
Denis and Goca are committed to small-scale sustainable organic production. Their 14-acre property is narrow but it goes back 400 meters (1300 feet) – which would be about a quarter of a mile. They also have additional acreage in a few nearby locations. The seeds they use are from last year’s crops, and whenever possible, they use heirloom seeds that are over one hundred years old. They sell their produce out of their home directly to local customers, most of whom live in the city of Osijek.
Immediately after we arrived, Goca got us involved in making fresh cheese. The ingredients were simple – milk from a neighbor’s Holstein cows and a little bit of rennet, which they purchase. I was content to observe and let other members of the group take an active role because I had participated in a similar activity on a few previous OAT trips. We made two round cheeses. One was left plain and we stirred chopped garlic and dill into the other. Goca assured us that after sitting out overnight, they’d be ready for breakfast the next morning. This type of cheese will last a week in the refrigerator. And in case you’re interested in making cheese yourself, I was told that 5 liters of milk will produce one kilogram of cheese.
Once we finished preparing the cheese, we broke into smaller groups and walked down the street to meet the neighboring families who had invited us to their homes for dinner.
My hosts were a delightful young couple and their two children. After a couple of hours of casual conversation and a meal of sausages, potatoes, ajvar (the red pepper spread), cheese, salad, and plum cake, we walked back along the quiet darkened street to the Sklepić farm.
I easily fell asleep in the profound quiet of the countryside. The next morning, I was greeted by the wakeup calls of roosters, the twittering of birds, and the cooing of mourning doves. Since we didn’t have to rush off to any activities, I walked to the breakfast room, poured myself a mug of coffee, and took a leisurely walk around the farm.
The neighbor who lived next door was getting an early start.
I admired the way Goca had decorated indoors and out of doors with all kinds of discarded household items. The family practices recycling taken to an extreme; nothing gets thrown away.
It was also Goca who had done the stenciling that decorated the walls, the furniture, and even parts of the façade of the house.
She’s clearly a woman of many talents.
The soaps she made looked good enough to eat!
While I was taking it easy, some of my fellow travelers were already helping Denis by chopping ingredients for our lunch. He was preparing a goulash (a type of stew) that required lengthy cooking in a terra cotta pot over an open fire.
Our breakfast was served in the cozy dining room. Of course, it included the cheeses we had made yesterday. Goca had decorated them with paprika that she made from dried red peppers. In addition to the cheese, there was traditional fried bread, homemade jams, fried eggs, smoked meats, and pickled vegetables.
Right after breakfast, we had a stenciling workshop with Goca and her son, Stephen. Roller stenciling is the traditional way of painting walls. It was quite popular 80-90 years ago before being replaced by wall paper. It has recently seen a revival. Designs were carved into the rubber rollers, which are no longer being produced. Over the years, Goca has amassed a collection of over 200 patterned rollers. She is a self-taught artist who has been recognized by the Croatian government for her expertise in this handicraft. The two of them demonstrated the technique before giving us small boards to practice on.
In addition, while the goulash was cooking, we had time for a morning walk to the village center of Karanac where we found a post office, a restaurant, an elementary school, a mini-market, a winery, and three churches: Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant (Calvinist). Along the way, Kruno pointed out the typical shotgun style houses, some of which are over 100 years old. This architectural style was popular because taxes were based on the width of the building that faced the street. I noticed several houses that were for sale or were abandoned. If you’re looking for a fixer-upper in a quiet location but only two hours from Budapest and five hours from Vienna, you should consider Karanac.
When we returned from our walk, lunch was ready. The chicken goulash with homemade noodles was delicious.
Then it was time to say farewell to the Sklepić family. Kruno was certainly right when he said our stay in Karanac, although less than 24 hours, would give us a chance to recharge. I was now looking forward to continuing on to Zagreb, the capital of Croatia.
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