7 less known miracles of Croatia

With the hundreds of natural and cultural gods which can be found on the UNESCO heritage of the world list, there is a list of immaterial cultural heritage of human society. That’s how seven Croatian traditions found themselves in the same arc whit tango and many other signs of customs, knowledge and abilities of different communities. In that way, Croatia became a country with the largest number of protected cultural phenomena in Europe.

1.    St. Vlaho festivity – The legend is taking us to the year of 971. Venetian fleet came to Dubrovnik’s seawater with 112 ships. Since they announced that they are just passing through towards Greece, Dubrovnik welcomed them with great honor.  In the church of St. Stjepan, devout father was praying the whole nigh long. At once, the church was full of soldiers led by the greybeard old man with the stick in his hand. It turned out to be St. Vlaho, martyr, with heaven’s soldiers, whom defended Dubrovnik for the rest of the night.
In the morning, Venetians left, soldiers too, but the legend stayed till nowadays. Festivity of St. Vlaho celebrates this legend; it starts by releasing a white pigeon free and picking up a traditional flag at Orlando’s pillion in the centre of Dubrovnik’s old town. Festivity starts at  3. February and lasts for few days with a few intriguing rituals to attend: religious ceremony and procession, flags deflections, raffle where the one who picks numbers gets aimed with oranges, and wild life in bars till morning hours.

2.    Lace from Hvar, Pag and Lepoglava – The art of lace making goes from the 1400. year and tradition is preserved still. Lepoglava has a school of lace where one can learn how to make something beautiful like these pieces made from cotton and linen thread on wooden cradle and frame. Pag is famous, among other thing, of it’s lace, made by the Benedictine nuns by needle. From the 15th century Pag’s lace was exported in Venice and Vienna. The most interesting is probably lace from Hvar, since it is 1000 years old tradition. Those laces are made from agaves; leaves of agaves are picked and the thin threads are drawn out. They are processed along to crate a lace of extreme beauty.

3.    "Zvoncari" from Kastav – Zvoncar means the bellmen and it refers to a folk custom in the region around Rijeka in Croatia. The custom comes from pagan past and the primary task of Zvoncar is to scare away evil spirits of winter and to stir up new spring-time cycle. During the Carnival in February, Zvončari march from village to village throughout the region, following the same centuries-old route, making an extraordinary amount of noise, fueled in part by the wine provided by the locals en route. They have a colorful outfits with sheepskin throw, "balta" or "bačuka" - a stylized mace and one or more big brass bells around the waist. Mace is from the legend that Zvoncari scared away invading Tatars or Turks. However, with their appearance and outstanding noise, they are pretty impressive and exhilarates  of Rijeka Carnival.

4.    Hvar’s procession “By cross” -  It is astonishing scene; night procession in six Hvar’s parishes. Every house has a candle in front and every ship a fishing light on. The traces of processions in each parish do not interfere. The man carries the cross is barefoot, only in his socks, and if those split up, he is considered unworthy. Procession occurs night before the East  and it goes from the year of 1510. when, according to legend, a cross in the local church, bleed.

5.    Spring procession “Ljelja” – the tradition has lost it’s origins along the way; some think that it is Slavic tradition, some assign it to Turkish occupation. “Ljelja” could be a wife of Perun, God from Slavic mythology, but it symbolizes a woman. The procession takes place in Gorjani, small colorful village near Osijek in Slavonia. It occurs at Pentecost, the 50th day upon the East.

6.    Traditional manufacturing of wooden toys for kids in Croatian inland – tradition of kid’s toys manufacturing in Zagorje, Croatian inland is not commercial. They inherited the art from their grandfathers, from father to son, and they do it mostly for fun, and fun they are!

7.    Singing and playing of Istrian scale - The Istrian scale is a distinct six-tone musical scale played in the regions of Istria and Kvarner in Croatia. It is used in folk music. The specificity of this scale is dual interpretation. Unfortunately, it is vanishing under the influence of global music, like many traditional fortunes do.

Enjoy it while they are still here in Croatia!