Welcome to website of Dejan Mladenovic

Croatia – Dubrovnik, Koprivnica, Zagreb, Pula

Croatia is a Central European and Mediterranean country with a long maritime border with Italy in the Adriatic Sea and an amazing 5,835 km of coastline, 4,057 km of which belongs to islands, cliffs and reefs. There are 1,185 islands in the Adriatic, but only about 50 are populated.
I have visited my country of birth on several occasions but I would like to single out two particular visits. First is when I have been on excursion to Dubrovnik while I was in high school and second is when I have been on a business trip to Koprivnica and visited excellent Podravka Company, renowned by “Vegeta” spices and many other food products.
Dubrovnik
I remember when I was a kid wherever I have traveled abroad most of my hosts knew my country, former Yugoslavia, by two things: one is Tito, who was president of Yugoslavia for a many years, and the other is Dubrovnik and hosts would describe their visits to this world famous town with such spark of life vivid memories and I have understood them completely because Dubrovnik is certainly very unique place in the world and no wonder that is know as "Jewel of the Adriatic".

While staying in Dubrovnik in 1929, George Bernard Shaw said: "If you want to see heaven on earth, come to Dubrovnik".
Dubrovnik is situated in Southern Dalmatia, the most beautiful part of the Adriatic coast and is the city of a unique political and cultural history (the Dubrovnik Republic called Ragusa), of world-famous cultural heritage and beauty is one of the most attractive and famous cities of the Mediterranean. The Old Town's main street is called Stradun or Placa. It is a, approximately 300 meter long, pedestrian zone connecting two opposite town gates: the Ploce Gate in the east and the Pile Gate in the west, following the line of the channel that once divided the town into two parts. The street came into being in the 12th century, was paved in 1468 and reconstructed after the earthquake of 1667. The houses on each side, though preserving an ancient ground plan, also date from the 17th century, their elevation and style being uniform. Walk through Stradun, through narrow streets and small squares, monumental ramparts and fortresses, provides enough opportunities to experience the millennial beauty of its shell–shaped urban core, centuries of building, stone–cutting, carving and engraving, the history of the Duke's Palace, libraries, etc.
The City Walls are among the finest and most complete in Europe. They protected the freedom of Dubrovnik Republic for centuries and surround the entire Old City with their 1940 meters of length and up to 25 meters of height. The whole City Wall complex was built from the 8th until the 16th century, consisting of an inner and outer section. The town is defended by two more separate fortresses, at Revelin on the eastern side and Lovrijenac on the southwest side. The moat ran around the outside section of the City Walls.
Koprivnica
A town on the left bank of the small river of the same name in the region of Podravina. Koprivnica got the status of a free royal town in 1356. Economy is based on farming, livestock breeding, food (Podravka), pharmaceutical (Belupo), textile, wood and timber, paper, leather, metal–processing and building material (brickwork) industries.