When we are not on the water in Croatia, we like to escape Split by heading into the hills behind the city.

Our favorite trail is up from the village of Sitno Gornje to the peak of Mosor. On the way is Planinarski dom Umberto Girometta at 868m above sea level. (A planinarski dom is a hiker’s hut.)

Hiking Club Mosor, Split (HPD Mosor) is responsible for maintaining the refuge – and one local family has been making the trek up there each weekend, with the supply-laden donkey, for the last 35 years, to feed us hungry hikers.

The rooms are basic (open every weekend of the year), but the food is hearty – especially the pasta fazol – bean soup with sausages.

Our Danish friends came with us one weekend – their report can be read here.

Early this morning the Aussie expats and Aussie tourists in Split gathered at Cafe Libar to watch the Aussie Rules Football Grandfinal via satellite from the MCG in Melebourne.

The game between the Geelong Cats and Saint Kilda Saints developed in the one of the greatest finals ever. Most in the cafe were cheering for the underdogs, the Saints, who were trying to win their first flag since 1966 and only their second in the club’s 112-year history. The Cats, the wonder team of the last 5 years, were playing in their 3rd grandfinal in a row.

After 6 lead changes, in front of nearly 100,000 spectators the game looked as though it may end in a draw, with the teams tied 3 minutes before the siren, but the Cats kicked to late goals to win by 12 points – to give them two of the last three AFL flags.

Slobodna Dalmacija, the local newspaper, sent a reporter down to watch this strange sport; he called it Australian rugby in the article below. An over-excited Tony Šarić can be seen on the right, in his Saints jersey.

Today we decided to go to the Irish Pub in Split to watch the rugby union test match between Australia and Italy (Australia won 34-12). There wasn’t a large crowd – just a nice group of 6 Aussies (for Queenslanders) who have just finished a week out on the islands.

One of the group turned out to be one of Australia’s top actors (and one of Julie’s Top 10 Sex Symbols) Ray Meagher. (Julie commented later that it was a bigger thrill for her to meet Ray than to have had Brad Britt brush past her breast in a New York bar 10 years ago!)

If you grew up in Australia in the 80s and 90s, Ray was a part of your nightly life as he has appeared since 1988 as Alf Stewart on Home and Away, one of the longest-running series on Australian television.

We were chuffed to see Split is now starting to attract some glitterati - after all Dubrovnik gets Tom Cruise and John Malkovich, and apparently one of the Princesses of Monaco as well as a Princess from Morocco were on Hvar last weekend.

To show Ray we weren’t just crazy soap opera groupies but were in fact famous ourselves, Julie showed him the picture of us in today’s Slobodna Dalmacija – he definitely seemed very impressed! And even asked to have his picture taken with Julie…

All joking aside – Cheers Ray!

Today the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija (Free Dalmatia), published a story about our plight to get our boat, the Labud, out of Arista Nautica‘s shed.

It was a good article, describing how we want to use the boat to promote ‘real’ Dalmatian tourism.

Unfortunately it doesn’t mention the work I did for Arista Nautica and David Hicks – but that aside it is was very positive.

The fight between the Arista directors Don Marshall and Ivica Viljac is made evident with Don saying the boat will be released shortly, and Ivica contradicting that by saying it will not.

(It should be noted that Arista has decided to hire a Public Relations consultant, Lori Vitaljić from Predikat d.o.o., to help with their image.)

David Hicks, of Arista Nautica and Arista Yachts, was questioned today by Croatian police in Split, regarding threats he made to us (Julie Morgan and Shane Braddock) on May 8th to harm us himself or use Ivica Viljac as a weapon.

David said on the day, “I want to scare you to protect my friends, Tim Jarman and Giles Weston (unregistered foreigners in Croatia at the time) from your promises to report Tim and Giles to immigration authorities for conducting business affairs against you.”

On Friday Julie was attacked by Ivica Viljac!

Addendum – 28 June 2009 – Surprise – we went to use our car on Sunday only to discover it had been vandalized – we wonder who did it?

Whilst away on a trip this week I received a text message on Friday from David Hicks, an owner of Arista Nautica, who has been holding our leut, Labud, for several weeks, advising me I had some mail at my office.

After weeks of trying to approach Arista and deal with this issue respectively, David’s response was to push a letter under the door of our office at 10pm addressed to ‘Mr Badcock‘, a witty play on my name ‘Braddock‘.

In the letter, he and Don Marshall stated that I had 24 hours to remove my boat from their premises. Why the sudden change in heart – maybe their lawyer in Zagreb had advised them that they had already committed a crime by holding our boat hostage in their shed!

Even with such short notice Julie did an amazing job of getting all the required machinery to the yard to begin putting the boat in the water, as well as organizing help for our 2- and 5-year olds.

The Labud was moving smoothly towards freedom when suddenly Ivica Viljac arrived.

As part of Arista‘s initial deal to use the space where they are presently they were obliged to make Ivica an equal director in their firm. (We are going to the police tomorrow to report David Hicks for making threats against us involving Ivica – but that story is for later).

Ivica’s reaction to Julie removing the Labud can be seen in the picture at the top of the post. He was not happy. He ran at Julie screaming! The police were called; he was arrested and found guilty of disturbing the peace and faces a future criminal assault charge.

What seems to have upset Ivica the most, however, was that Don Marshall had not told him what was going to happen on Friday. According to Julie, Tea Odza and Zana Dujmovic (the girls who work in Arista‘s office), said there have been previous arguments in this regard – Don doing things in which Ivica believed he should have a say.

Since I was away (which David Hicks knew – I have a text message to prove it), and since Don and David’s letter pressured us to remove the boat by 3pm Friday, Julie, by herself, worriedly rushed to the yard, though with the belief she had the right to be there. She was completely unaware of the physical danger she was in.

It must be said – even the day after both of them (Don and David) sent text messages saying that everything that occurred was of our OWN doing!

Below is Julie at the police station waiting to act as a witness against Ivica.

But Don and David were not really interested in Julie. Their target appears to be Ivica himself. The next day a story in the local newspaper, Slobodna Dalmacija, explained why.

David and Don have started a new company, Arista Yachts, which is competing with two other companies, Viktor Lenac (RLE) and Adriamar, for the 30-year concession for a large amount of waterside space – they all want to set up a super-yacht yard.

The directors of the new company are Don, David and Geoff Mayhill. Geoff is involved in at least one British company, Ekwienox, with Arthur Hughes, who is owner of Hidden Croatia and Sail Croatia. Luka Grubor, the mouth piece for Arista Yachts in the article below is also a director of Sail Croatia.

But Ivica being on an assault charge should keep him out of the new venture from Arista’s POV – which would obviously upset Don – though he may go back to RLE whence he came.

The foreigners have learned well from the locals how business is done here!

(And where were Don and David during this fiasco – they had fled Croatia, we discovered later, because of serious physical threats made to them by their Croatian business partner in Arista Nautica (and Viljac’s boss) Mirko Rapić – and yet they happily sent Julie into the lion’s den. David’s boat Mystique was hiding on Hvar Island where I happened to bump into them. Someone was taking full advantage of the warm weather to work on his all over tan!)

For those that can’t see the video of Ivica attacking Julie below – click here!

]]> http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/ivica-viljac-thrown-to-the-wolves/feed/ 16 http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/croatia-rubgy-7s-tournament/ http://blog.ourcroatianlife.com/croatia-rubgy-7s-tournament/#comments Mon, 01 Jun 2009 15:34:15 +0000 Braddock Family http://blog.lifejacketadventures.com/?p=1407

This weekend Rugby Club Nada in Split held the Croatian Rugby Sevens tournament. Over 2 days the 10 competing teams – Croatia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Bosnia Herzegovina, Cyprus, Belgium, Serbia – played pool and final games.

In the end the French held the trophy aloft, after beating the Italians in the final. Next were the Germans and Croatians.

Lying in the sun with the kids running around playing football – it was a great atmosphere.

Its a shame that Nada has to struggle each year to keep their pitch. Its the last green space in the center of Split’s old town – and greedy developers are lining-up to get their hands on the space to build apartments!

#1 – Time Out Croatia

We provided numerous pictures to Time Out Croatia for their current magazine issue, in exchange for our contact details being published, and they chose one. But imagine our shock when we opened the new issue to see that they had put our picture (seen above), uncredited as well, right next to a paragraph of text extolling our competitors, Adriatic Kayak Tours.

The saga continues…

#2 – Arista Nautica

The leut, Labud, is finished and ready to be launched. But she still sits in the shed at the Arista Nautica yards in Vranjic.

Why? Because two personal friends of David Hicks (one of the yard’s owners), Tim Jarman and Giles Weston, were doing the wrong thing by us business-wise – so we told them to pull their heads in or we would go to the police. The cowards got worried – as they are unregistered to live in Croatia – and ran to David. He demanded we pay $US20,000 before we can remove our boat from the shed. This was done in the hope we would be scared and leave his friends alone.

We told him to keep the boat and that we will see him and Don Marshall (the other owner) in the criminal and civil courts. There are no contracts between us and I have done in the last 12 months three design projects for David and Don and not asked for a cent.

The saga continues…

#3 – Motovun Elections

Local elections were held across Croatia on May 17. We made the pilgrimage in Motovun to vote. Our friend, Ranko Bon (seen below kissing the obligatory baby (Roklan)), was standing as a candidate for the Green Party in coalition with the Social Democrats. His candidacy was part of a continuing campaign to sustainably improve Motovun (and stop the proposed Jupiter Adria golf development).

The results were not as we had hoped. Firstly, the current mayor and IDS candidate, Slobodan Vugrinec, was returned. Secondly, Ranko didn’t earn a position on the town council.

Across Croatia there was a movement away from the center-right parties (HDZ and IDS) but the center-left party (SDP) didn’t pick up the vote – secondary parties and independents did. So in Motovun it wasn’t all bad news – IDS lost 3 seats (from 9 down to 6), SDP/Greens also lost a seat (from 4 to 3 (Ranko was 4th on their list)) and a new independent party got 4 seats. These Motovun independents, before the election, had voiced their concerns about the golf development – so we have to wait and see.

Mayor Vugrinec has already thrown a tantrum, stating he no longer wants the position if he doesn’t have an absolute majority in the town council!

The saga continues…

( In Split, after earning over 45% of the initial vote, Kerum will be in a run-off this weekend – which he is likely to win – and become our next mayor.)

Sveti Duje (Saint Domnius) is the patron saint and protector of Split (and features on Split’s coat-of-arms). Duje was the first Bishop of Salona – the most important Eastern Adriatic Roman city, the ruins of which are about 10kms from the center of Split.

In 303 Emperor Diocletian banned Christianity as a religion and began to persecute Christians across the Roman Empire. The Governor of Salona arrested Duje and sent him to the amphitheater where he met a gruesome end on April 10, 304.

In 313 Emperor Constantine reversed the previous order and Christians came out of their cellars. Sveti Duje began to be worshiped as a matyr and in the 7th Century his bones were moved to, ironically, Diocletian’s mausoleum in the center of Split’s old town. (The re-named Cathedral of Saint Domnius is the world’s oldest cathedral.)

The feast day for Sveti Duje is May 7 and a large mass is held on the waterfront. Then in the evening the stage transforms into a concert venue – this year the Stereo MCs entertained us – very early 90s.

Since 2001 a small rowing regatta is held in the town’s port. Crews from Oxford and Cambridge arrive to race Split’s best – Split has a strong tradition in rowing with clubs such as Gusar and Mornar earning many World Championship and Olympic medals.

(Another concert has been confirmed for SPlit – on July 7 in Trg Republika the Arctic Monkeys will play.)

Jane Cody, who is holidaying in England at the moment, wrote an article on her blog, Croatia Online, regarding Split’s renown Renaissance author Marko Marulić’s influence on England’s Henry VIII.

Jane does her self an injustice – describing her blog as not an in depth cultural resource on Croatia – her prose and subjects are definitely more professional than ours! Please have a read.

The picture above is of the statue of Marko Marulić in Voćni Trg in Split, by Split’s other famous artistic son, sculptor Ivan Meštrović. We always point it out during our Walking Tour of the old town.

Jane notes that Marulić is buried in Split’s Franciscan Monastery – the church and his tomb are shown above.

The Franciscan Monastery is the site of another of Split’s landmarks – our Modrulj Laundrette – and the church is our landlord.