Croatia: A Crossroads of Precious Cultures, Part 3 of 3

Today, we’ll continue to explore the country’s customs in regard to festivities, sports, crafts, agricultural products, and famous residents. Each spring on Whitsunday, the Procession of Queens is performed by young girls from the village of Gorjani in the Slavonia region of northeastern Croatia. Whitsunday is the 7th Sunday after Easter and it commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ’s disciples. Since the year 972 AD the Festivity of Saint Blaise, the patron saint of Dubrovnik, has been celebrated on February 3rd in Dubrovnik City. Football, or soccer, is Croatia’s favorite sport.

The national football team is in the top ten in the FIFA World rankings as of 2020 and has many fans around the world. Other sports Croatian people enjoy are tennis, alpine skiing, swimming, table tennis, and chess. The artistic Croatian people express their inner beauty and talent through various folk handicrafts, which include the making of beautiful traditional costumes, lace, and wooden toys.

Croatia’s main agricultural products include wheat, corn, barley, sugar beets, sunflowers, rapeseed, alfalfa, clover, potatoes, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, peppers, apples, plums, mandarins, grapes, and other crops. In particular, Croatian olive oil is among the world's best. In addition, Croatian culture is vegan friendly, with over 160,000 members of the population being vegetarians or vegans, and many traditional vegan dishes are widely available in restaurants.

The beautiful land of Croatia is also the birthplace of some world-famous inventors and inventions. The parachute was invented and constructed by Fausto Veranzio from Sibenik, Croatia, and he was also the first man to perform tests with parachute jumps. Today countless people use pens in everyday life, but few know that the pen is named after its naturalized Croatian inventor Slavoljub Eduard Penkala.