CROWN - Croatian World Network

Croatia - Funny Commercials for the World Cup 2006

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oESUiEx5Hc Australac

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM2VGZHm0B0 Japanac

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvF_cvF2tE8 Brazilac

Hotel Therapia - www.therapia.hr

Hotel “Nadvojvoda Josip” was built in the most attractive part of Crikvenica in 1895, changing its name in 1899 to Hotel Therapia since a hydropathic institute was established inside it, equipped with the latest physiotherapy at that time. Today Therapia has a modern wellness centre with a hundred year long history unlike any other hotel.

Precisely 100 years after being built according to the design project by the
Austro-Hungarian monarchy’s court architects Fellner and Holmer, Hotel Therapia was completely refurbished in 2005, when it also received all the conveniences and comforts of the 21 century. At the same time, its elegant architecture, created using a moderate blend of ripe secession and historical classicism has been preserved.
Hotel Therapia is a place where the magnificence of the past and the comforts of modern times fuse in harmony.
After its reconstruction, the exterior retained its century old glow tinted with nostalgia, while the inside has been refined and equipped with everything expected in a modern hotel – top quality comfort, advance technologies and offer to make a holiday satisfying and enjoyable.
During the thirties of last century, when Europe was discovering the splendours of life, jazz, sport, dancing and tourism, Hotel Therapia was part of the chain of luxury hotels together with Georg V in Paris and Bayerische Hof in Munich. Today, in the modern meaning of the word, it offers the descendants of the first European tourists a romantic holiday with a taste of the past in a town recognised by the pioneers of contemporary Europe as an ideal place for rest and recovery, noting the beneficial effects of the sea, sun and warm sand on human health. Its name also stems from those times, one which is today a monument to the birth of a new lifestyle.
Hotel Therapia has the values of ancient gold and the magic of first love.

Hotel Therpia
Contact and location
Brace Buchoffer 12, 51260 Crikvenica, Croatia

tel: +385(0)51 785-063, fax: +385(0)51 785-072

e-mail: therapia@jadran-crikvenica.hr ,
therapia@adria-crikvenica.hr , therapia@booking.hr

Group Therapy: A Nation is Born

By Courtney Angela Brkic

Not so long ago, when Croatia was part of Yugoslavia, soccer was an
expression of ethnicity, of political orientation, of self. Many feel
that a 1990 match between Zagreb's Dinamo and Belgrade's Red Star marked
the beginning of Croatia's war for independence. At the beginning of the
match, fans from both sides clashed in the stands and on the field. The
Serb-dominated police beat Croatian fans while allowing Serb fans to run
amok, and the events caused the already bubbling frustrations with
Yugoslavia to boil over. Even the players were not immune. Upon
witnessing a policeman beating a fallen Dinamo fan, midfielder Zvonimir
Boban karate-kicked him, becoming a hero of the growing independence
movement.

The war that followed was long and brutal. More than ten thousand people
were killed, and one thousand are still missing today. Not surprisingly,
tourists stopped visiting the Croatian coast, and the region became
associated with suffering. For a country so rich in potential, so
enthusiastic about what it could achieve now that it was on its own,
being classified simply as a war zone or a former Yugoslav republic was
a blow.

Croatia's independence was recognized in 1992, but the 1998 World Cup
brought another form of recognition. Elation had already begun to sweep
the country when Croatia beat powerhouse Germany in the quarterfinals.
"Is it really possible?" people seemed to be asking one another, unable
to contain their optimism. In Zagreb, large-screen televisions were set
up on the city squares so people could watch the Croatia-Netherlands
third-place match in raucous groups. It was a Saturday, and I watched in
my apartment with friends, drifting out to the balcony to listen to the
excited conversations and shouts coming from the cafés below. The sound
of cheers filled the air when Croatia scored. It was like the city was
one gigantic living room, everyone's eyes on a single television set.
Traffic all but stopped, and the street below was empty. When the game
finished with Croatia the winner, people flooded the streets. They
filled the main square, and that night, all night, we heard happy,
drunken voices singing.

Coming nearly three years after the war ended, it was an emotional
moment in a young country's history. On television, reporters
interviewed grown men who could not stop weeping. The country had not
seen such unified celebration since its declaration of independence. Now
no one could deny Croatia its place on the map.

(Courtney Angela Brkic is the author of Stillness: And Other Stories and
The Stone Fields: An Epitaph for the Living.)

Adapted from The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup, edited by Matt
Weiland and Sean Wilsey. HarperCollins, 2006. Printed with permission.

http://www7.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0606/feature1/index.html#croatia

Leo Modrcin otvorio samostalnu medjunarodnu izlozbu

Contact: www.ured.org

240 Central Park South Suite 2-O
New York, New York 10019
Phone : 212 397 2707
Fax : 212 246 6852

e-mail: info@ured.org

Uz izlozbu Krunoslava Medjimoreca u galeriji AZ u Zagrebu

PRED LITOM

K litu - pozdravljaju se Istrani na rastanku, zeleci jedan drugom da se vide i dogodine. A mi se eto pred litom nalazimo s izlozbom Krunoslava Medjimorca koji je u toj iscekujucoj atmosferi ljeta koje ce nas nahraniti novom snagom za ostatak godine priredio jedan mali kolaz svojih ciklusa akvarela i crteza.

Istodobno sa zagrebackom izlozbom Krunoslav Medjimorec izlaze uljne slike u Milanu u sklopu manifestacije "Il duomo incontra l'arte" (Katedrala u susret umjetnosti) u uglednoj galeriji Ars Italica. Onaj koji poznaje kiparstvo Krunoslava Medjimorca, velikog zaljubljenika u kamen i njegovu finu meku obradu, poput Frane Krsinica, tesko ce razumijeti vezu izmedju fine organske forme kipa i koloristicke i crtacke burovitosti, koja prati njegovo slikarstvo. Pa ipak, ta je veza ocita u snaznom emotivnom naboju kojim umjetnik omeksava kamen, u krokijima i akvarelu u kojem s jednakim senzibilitetom hvata osnovne crte lica zena i djevojaka (ciklus Lice zene), razvedenu ili skromnu liniju akta, (Ciklus Aktova), kao sto hvata titraje kristalno cistog zraka u istarskom krajoliku, ili pak vrucinu ljetnog dana, zujanje i mirisanje zemlje, disanje zivota. Ta tesko uhvativa slika, ne dozvoljava slikaru da se zatvori u cvrsto odredjene oblike, vec upravo suprotno: boje bljeskavo izmicu, slika bjezi i pretapa se, pulsira, meka je i topla, mirisava, znojna. Nije cudo da su upravo konji i putene zene umjetnikov najzahvalniji motiv, jer njima izaziva kod gledatelja upravo zeljene asocijacije na miris, toplinu, dahtanje, na neobuzdanu ljepotu, na svijet koji je istodobno najkonkretniji i najneuhvatljiviji, svijet osjecaja, disanja punim plucima, i sirokog pogleda.
Ova je izlozba, koja tematski zahvaca, dakle, nekoliko ciklusa (medju kojima i Ciklus Krajolika duse) tehnicki vezana na krokije i akvarele svojevrsni je autorov dnevnik: on biljezi stanje osjecaja, ostavljajuci otvorenim njihov konacni izgled, komponirajuci krajolike Istre, kao krajolike duse, pustajuci vidljivo da se prozimaju oci i srce, vid i ljubav. Nebitno, dakle, u kojem mediju stvara, Krunoslav Medjimorec istrazuje vlastitu i stvaralacku bit, istrazuje univerzalnu i osobnu razinu ljubavi, hvata ishodiste osobne intuicije u umjetnicke mreze univerzalnog razumijevanja.

Branka HLEVNJAK

P R O D A J A BAROKNOG LJETNIKOVCA
OBITELJI LANTANA NA OTOKU UGLJANU

Postovani gosp. Nenad,

Pisemo vam u nadi da ce te biti spremni uvaziti nas prijedlog.
Mi smo agencija za trgovinu nekretninama locirana u Zadru, vlasnica i
direktorica je Jadranka Matesic koja je do prije par godina zivjela u
Australiji i Americi te se odlucila na povratak u domovinu gdje je
pokrenula sada vec dobro uhodan prije spomenuti posao.
Predmet ovog pisma je da vas pokusamo potaknuti da nam poklonite dio
vaseg medijskog prostora - WEB portala. Naime, dobili smo u ekskluzivnu ponudu prodaju jednog barkonog ljetnjikovca na otoku Ugljanu - nasa zelja i stav nase agencije je da se nekretnina proda Hrvatu!
Objekt je spomenik kulturne bastine i ne bi zeljeli da zavrsi u rukama
stranaca, sto ce ovdje biti najvjerojatnije slucaj ukoliko ne uspijemo
zainteresirati nekog od hrvatskih poslovnih ljudi diljem domovine i
dijaspore. Nadamo se da cete nas preporuciti vasim prijateljima i
mogucim interesantima. Vise informacija mozete pronaci na nasem WEB-u kao i fotografije objekta te njegovu povijest http://www.adriamare.hr.
U privitku vam saljem oglas i kratku pricu o nekretnini, te clanak od
kolega novinara iz Narodnog Lista.

Lijep pozdrav,
Domagoj Grancaric
domagoj.grancaric@zd.htnet.hr
Adria Mare Nekretnine - www.adriamare.hr

Oglas prodaje ljetnikovca - http://www.croatia.org/crown/oldphotos/Lantana_oglas.doc
Povijest Baroknog Ljetnikovca Obitelji Lantana - http://www.croatia.org/crown/oldphotos/Lantana_povijest.doc

Mr. Sc. Jadranka MateÅ¡i
Vlasnik, Adria Mare Nekretnine
++385 91 27 07 561

Grateful Dead's last keyboardist, Vince Welnick, dies at 55

Vince Welnick and Nenad Bach at Vince's house

Op-ed

I knew Vince for a long time, almost 20 years, before he joined Grateful Dead. Great player and a friend. He played on my last album 'Thousand Years of Peace' on couple of tunes. Great musical sense and easy to work with. I enjoyed every moment with Vince, whether we recorded, talked about Croatia, Bosendorfer (my choice of Piano, as well as Vince's) or horses. We'll miss you.

Nenad

Carolyn Jones, Chronicle Staff Writer

Saturday, June 3, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO - Vince Welnick, a keyboardist who possessed a fluid and precise style and played with the Tubes, Todd Rundgren and the Grateful Dead, died Friday in Sonoma County at the age of 51.

The cause appears to be suicide, Sonoma County sheriff's department said.

Mr. Welnick, whom friends called a gentle and sensitive man, was classically trained and spent hours practicing each day. Although he was a member of the Dead for just five years until the band folded after the death of guitarist Jerry Garcia, he left an indelible mark on his bandmates.

"He was a good soul, a very sweet guy," said band spokesman Dennis McNally. "He was also an exceptionally competent keyboardist."

In a statement posted on its Web site, the band said, "His service to and love for the Grateful Dead were heartfelt and essential. He had a loving soul and a joy in music that we were lucky to share. Our Grateful Dead prayer for the repose of his spirit: May the four winds blow him safely home."

Mr. Welnick was born in Phoenix, Ariz., where he started playing piano as a kid. He and friends put together a garage band called the Beans, which became the Tubes when they moved to San Francisco in 1969.

"Thank God for rock and roll, because it was a place for all us skinny artistic kids to go when it was 115 degrees outside and we didn't fit in anywhere else," said Michael Cotten, a member of the Tubes who designed many of the band's album covers and elaborate stage shows.

The Tubes toured constantly, and their rowdy antics and energetic shows -- which integrated rock music, video technology and outlandish costumes and sets -- earned them a devoted following. The band recorded more than a dozen albums and scored hits with "White Punks on Dope" in 1975 and "Talk to Ya Later" in 1981.

"It was an amazing time. We played everywhere, and I don't think Vince ever missed a show," said Tubes vocalist Fee Waybill. "But even with all the success, we were still a hippie band from San Francisco. We all lived together, traveled on the same bus, shared everything."

Throughout his time with the Tubes, Mr. Welnick also played with Todd Rundgren.

Mr. Welnick auditioned for the Dead in 1990 after keyboardist Brent Mydland died of a drug overdose. He was among a handful of musicians who sought the job, and he immediately impressed the band.

"He just magically appeared and he had the attributes they were looking for," McNally said.

Mr. Welnick cherished his years with the Dead and thoroughly appreciated both the tradition and hoopla of Deadhead lore and of the band, McNally said.

His soulful, high harmony vocals and classical training were a good fit for the band, and his "moment to shine" came whenever the band played The Who classic, "Teenage Wasteland," which begins with an instantly recognizable and utterly unique keyboard passage, McNally said.

It "opens with one of the most amazing riffs in rock and roll," he said. "Vince was great at that."

Mr. Welnick was devoted to his craft and spent hours a day practicing for most of his life, friends said. He was especially proud of his Boesendorfer piano, which is the piano equivalent to a Stradivarius violin.

"His fingers just flew on that thing," Cotten said.

Mr. Welnick was close to Garcia, and when the guitarist died of a heart attack in 1995, Mr. Welnick fell into a deep depression.

"He was extremely shattered by Jerry's death and was very frank about it," McNally said.

Still, Mr. Welnick continued to perform and write. He formed the band Missing Man Formation and performed with Ratdog, a band featuring Dead guitarist Bob Weir and bassist Rob Wasserman.

One of the highpoints of his post-Dead career came in April 2005 when the Tubes had an impromptu reunion at the Rio Theater in Santa Cruz.

Five of the original members were playing, and Waybill invited other alumni. They all wound up onstage, playing together.

"It was amazing, like walking on air," said Cotten, who's working on a Tubes documentary.

"The place was packed. People went nuts," said Waybill. "It was a great, great night. Vince was always up for things like that. He was really excited about playing with the Tubes again."

And so it was that Mr. Welnick's death came as such a shock.

"A few of us were just talking about Vince today and about the incredible music he brought us," Cotten said. "What they call chops, that's what Vince had. That's what we want to remember."

Mr. Welnick's death is the latest in a string of recent tragedies for the Dead. Three other members of the band's extended family have died since May 17 -- crew member Lawrence "Ram Rod" Shurtliff, drummer Hamza El-Din and road manager Jonathan Riester.

He also is the fourth of the band's five keyboardists to die, following Ron "Pigpen" McKernan, Keith Godchaux and Mydland.

"It's not a happy history," McNally said. "Each one of these guys had a fragility, which isn't that uncommon for musicians."

Mr. Welnick is survived by his wife, Lori Welnick.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/06/03/MNG45J861V4.DTL

Grateful Dead keyboard player Vince Welnick dies
By Sara Wykes
Mercury News
Vince Welnick, 55, who played keyboards with the Grateful Dead for five years before the death of band founder Jerry Garcia, died Friday.

Sonoma County sheriffs said he was taken, injured, from his home in rural Forestville near Santa Rosa, to a local hospital.

He died there, police said.

An unofficial spokesman at the Welnick home said, ``It looks like he took his own life.'' But that is not known for sure, he said. ``The family is very grieved, and trying to figure it all out.''

Welnick arrived in San Francisco in 1971 from his hometown of Phoenix, Ariz., already a keyboardist with a group called the Beans. The Beans became the Tubes and in 1983 their song ``She's a Beauty'' was a hit.

Welnick played with Todd Rundgren after the Tubes broke up, and in 1990, was invited to try out for the Dead.

Welnick told an interviewer with the Vermont Review that the tryout was exciting. Before he played, the band sent him tapes and CDs, but he didn't have a CD player. He practiced in the hayloft of his barn and then waited for two weeks before he heard he was in.

``That fact that I screamed a lot as a child paid off and got me into the Grateful Dead,'' he told the paper. At his first concert with the band, a sound man jumped on his piano seat to test his microphone and broke the seat into 100 hundred pieces, Welnick said.

``I was somewhat paralyzed playing at first. I remember . . . thinking to myself: `Come on fingers, let's get unstuck. Let's get loose here.' Then I heard this ripple in the audience and there was a kid who yelled, `Welcome Brother Vince!' and there were stickers that said, `Yo Vinnie' stuck to the side of my keyboard. The crowd was very forgiving.''

He told the interviewer that he'd never seen the likes of such music, friendship and spirit and did not know if he ever would again.

As a member of the Dead, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He was scheduled to play the House of Blues in Chicago later this month, according to a Web site devoted to his career.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/breaking_news/14732260.htm

Open Society Institute in Croatia Closes Shop

Tomislav Domes

02 June 2006

The Open Society Institute Croatia announced, in a public release of Wednesday that it concluded its 14-year work in Croatia on May 31.

OSI Croatia was established in 1992, as support to the democratic development of Croatian Society. After the initial phase during which it concentrated on providing humanitarian assistance to the country at war, the Institute donated more than 55 million US Dollars as support for numerous initiative in the fields of education, media, art, culture, public health, law and economy, and greatly contributed to emergence and development of civil society in Croatia.

During the 1990s, OSI Croatia often worked in an environment that was not very inclined towards it, and contributed actively to the criticism of dominant political and social models, presenting an alternative to the authoritarian and nationalist beliefs and actions, thus helping the political changes and institutional reform.

After 14 years of systemic support to the democratization, in the context of Croatiaâ™s progress towards the EU integration, the people at the Institute are convinced that the civil society in Croatia reached the level of self-sustainability, necessary to function in accordance with European democratic standards.

We would like to use this opportunity to express our gratitude to all our collaborators, members of the Managing Board and programme boards, as well as the employees of the OSI Croatia, the state, cultural and scientific institutions, the media, as well as numerous partners and users of our programmes for their activism, enthusiasm and dedicated work on democratization and development of Croatian societyâ, said OSI in a public statement.

http://see.oneworld.net/article/view/134055/1/

Croatia: Rijeka Gateway Project to Increase Int'l Cargo Traffic

13:47 - 02 June 2006 - Modernisation, overhaul and restructuring of Rijeka port within Rijeka Gateway project is gradually changing the look of Rijeka port and coastline, as the project aims to transform this port into one of the main ports not only in Croatia, but also in the central and eastern Europe, it was shown during a videoconference on revitalisation of European ports organised by the World Bank and organisation Global Development Learning Network (GDLN), 'CT' reports.

Rijeka Gateway project was initiated in July 2003 by Croatian government in cooperation with the World Bank, while this project should be completed by autumn 2009.
As it was said, this project also aims to increase competitiveness of Croatian economy by improving international cargo and passenger traffic in Rijeka, to modernise traffic connections between the port and road network and to revitalise and privatise port's business operations.

So far, a total of 20 contracts were signed within Rijeka Gateway project worth over USD 60 million, said Rijeka Port official Snjezana Papes.

Port works are conducted by companies from Japan, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Canada and Croatia.

This project also includes construction of a new maritime passenger terminal, 300 metres of the coastline, etc.

The total value of the project Rijeka Gateway amounts to USD 266 million, out of which USD 156,5 million were secured as a loan from the World Bank.

Source: Croatia Today.

http://www.reporter.gr/fulltext_eng.cfm?id=60602134725

Croatia: CB Closes Down Operations

14:28 - 02 June 2006 - Croatia baterije (CB) d.d. is one of the leading European producers of pocket flashlights with annual production of about one million pieces, will close down operations as the factory is no longer profitable, said management, 'CT' reports.

In Croatia, this Zagreb-based company currently holds a 70% of pocket flashlights market, while 94 percent of production is exported, mainly to European countries.
However, after expanding in the past couple of years to non-European markets, such are Egypt and India, and after expanding palette of products to military flashlights, CB management estimated that production in this factory is no longer profitable, which means that the plant would be probably closed by the end of the year.

As explained by Croatia baterije Management President Drazen Ivanesic, because of the huge competition from China and overall price decrease in this sphere of production, each production below 2 million flashlights per year is not profitable.

As the company closed facility for production of batteries, the company would be closed for good in the year when it was supposed to celebrate its 100th anniversary.

Aside from flashlights, CB is also manufacturing car batteries and light bulbs.

Croatia baterije was established as a workshop in 1907 in Zagreb by Ivan Paspa, the head of the light department in Vienna Royal Theatre, and later head of Zagreb National Theatre.

This workshop became a factory in 1918, and was mainly producing batteries and repairing electric engines.

In 1935, CB won a Grand Prix award a the exhibition of electrical equipment in Brussels, and another one at the exhibition in Paris the following year.

The most famous brand ever to be produced by this factory was a flat 4.5V battery dubbed "Croatia". But, as the market changed, so did the company Croatia baterije, which later focused on services, reducing production at the same time.

According to Ivanesic, production in 2005 made only for 7,5 percent of revenues of Croatia baterije out of the total of Kn 106,5 million revenues.

Today, the company operates within the group Orbico, which primarily deals with distribution of food and consumer products.

This also means that CB is also generating the bulk of revenues by distributing consumer products in Croatia, mainly in the sphere of batteries, by selling products manufactured by Germany's Varta.

CB Management President Ivanesic also said that the company is currently preparing plans for redundancies.

Majority owner of CB is Branko Roglic, who holds a 78,12-percent stake, while according to Zagreb Stock Exchange, Croatian Privatisation Fund holds 15,27 percent.

Even though the company almost tripled revenues in 2005 compared to 2004, the head of Croatia baterije Drazen Ivanesic explains that this was mainly contributed by expanding distribution to sanitary products and cosmetics manufactured by SC Johnson Wax, and not because of primary activities.

Even though Ivanesic did not wish to comment on the future plans regarding production facility to be closed, he confirmed that the company also owns a 57-hectare lot in Ivanic Grad, where a central warehouse spanning over 15.000 square metres would be constructed.

Source: Croatia Today.

http://www.reporter.gr/fulltext_eng.cfm?id=60602142838