Croatia bans tourists from arriving with their own food; Czechs are outraged

by Jeffrey White on

We’ve all heard of movie theaters banning food not bought on premises, and certainly it’s a no-brainer that you just can’t buy take-away food somewhere and go sit in a restaurant and eat it.

But this is the first time I’ve heard of a country banning food not purchased in its own borders.

Croatia has taken the unusual step, in Europe at least, of forbidding tourists from bringing their own food when they come to holiday on the coast this summer. The ban seems focused on meat and dairy products, and is response primarily to Czech tourists who, in droves every summer, pack up their family cars with yogurt, margarine, fried meat, beer, you name it and head down to places like Hvar and Dubrovnik. They hardly spend a dime on food during a week or two of holidays.

Naturally, Czechs are up in arms about this.

“800,000 Czech citizens visit Croatia every year. Two-thirds of them – around 500,000 Czechs – spend their vacation in Croatia in apartments with kitchens where they cook. So this new rule very drastically affects most Czech citizens this year. Croatia is the number one destination for Czech people, and about 25 percent of all Czech vacations are spent in Croatia,” Tomio Okamura, spokesman of the Czech Association of Tour Operators and Travel Agents, tells Radio Prague.

Why wouldn’t Czechs just suck it up and maybe go out for a meal or two, or, if they want to cook, buy the food locally? Okamura has his theories: “It’s not only a problem of price, it’s also a problem of taste. Because Czechs like the taste of Czech sausages, Czech yogurt and so on – a lot of them prefer their lovely taste. And of course they want also to save money.”

Maybe Gadling’s resident Czech, Iva, should chime in on this: Will her countrymen cancel their Croatian holiday plans because of this, or will they, in the words of Radio Prague’s great headline, play hide the salami?

Mayhem on London’s Underground as alcohol ban goes into effect

by Jeffrey White on

Labeled “Last Round on the Underground,” an orgy of drinking and merry-making yesterday throughout London’s famed subway network led to the arrest of 17 people and other dust-ups with local authorities.

Yesterday was the last day before a citywide ban on drinking alcohol on the Tube went into effect. At first, thousands of revelers gathered — many in costumes — for parties on the Tube’s many trains. But when police moved in to close things down, so to speak, things turned violent.

Besides the arrests, there were a half dozen assaults on Tube employees and police, the International Herald Tribune reports today, and several trains were so heavily damaged that they had to be taken out of service, sending significant delays rippling through a subway network that had 1 billion passengers in 2007.

Starting today, you cannot drink alcohol anywhere on London’s public transport system. While the move, meant to make the network safer for all travelers, has the backing of various alcohol-awareness groups, some of the people who are most displeased with the new law are not who you’d expect: The transport workers themselves.

Union representatives argue that their workers will be put in danger when forced to confront people breaking the alcohol ban, as is certainly likely to happen.

Africa: How big is huge ?

by Jamie Rhein on

A few years ago, I was asked to be a guest speaker at a conference geared towards teachers. Each session had to do with either Japan, Germany and Africa. So, there you have it. A vast, diverse, complicated continent with the same billing as two countries. I narrowed my topic down to comparing Nigeria and The Gambia.

To really see Africa’s impact all one needs to do is see which of the world’s countries can fit inside it.

The statistics are staggering. Africa’s square miles are hard to wrap ones mind around. The first time I went there, I thought it would be easy to country hop from The Gambia to Kenya. Yeah, right. Going back to the U.S. was easier. What other countries could you add into the 29,843,826 of the countries represented here without going over? Singapore for sure. [via A Welsh View]

Photo of the Day (06/02/08)

by Kent Wien on

5 heads of 3 Euros. Life can hardly get better than that.

Bucket of lamb’s heads shot by Styggiti at the Athens Central Market, Greece. I would call it “Silence of the lambs, Part III.” They look just scary enough (especially the one in the bottom middle) that they could be used in the movie sequel, I think.
***To have your photo considered for the Gadling Photo of the Day, go over to the Gadling Flickr Pool and post it. Make sure it is not copyrighted, otherwise we can’t post it here.***

Bolshoi in Russia: Stumbling between Devoloped and Developing

by Iva Skoch on

Here is a laundry list of my observations based on traveling in Russia and talking to people here. I am stating in advance that this post might offend people (believe me, I’ve already taken a ton of heat for my prior posts, even if some were meant to be tongue-in-cheek). Since the terms “first” and “third” world no longer carry the same meaning they once did (after the “second” world vanished with the disappearance of the Soviet Union,) I will use politically correct terms “developing” and “developed” instead.

I’ll also remind you, dear readers, that this is based on a relatively short trip, focused on Moscow and St. Petersburg, plus some background research into statistics.

I will start by saying that I have never been to a country where you are so frequently thrown from luxury to poverty in a matter of blocks or minutes (sorry, NYC, you’re not #1 in this regard). One minute, you think that you are in one of the most developed countries on the planet. The next minute, you feel…completely the opposite. The gap between the rich and the poor is wide in America, too. But it’s a little different here. There is no visible middle class in Moscow, so you get thrown from “high” to “low” very abruptly.

Top reasons that make Russia look like a developed country:

  • Arts. Museums have amazing collections; orchestras have fantastic musicians.
  • Design. Although related to Arts, but Russia’s young designers (interior, product, etc.) deserve their own category. They do really cutting-edge work here.
  • Prices in big cities (Moscow and St. Petersburg). Moscow is the most expensive city in the world. No really, it is.
  • Nightlife. As described in one of my previous posts, the club scene is dazzling.
  • Education. Very high literacy level (Russia’s 99.4% rate beats America’s). Russians are avid readers. Good schools (although I’ve heard rumors it’s pretty easy to buy a college diploma here).
  • Luxury. Premium cars and fashion brands are seen everywhere. Heck, an enormous Rolex ad sits opposite the Kremlin.
  • Sushi. The sushi wave has hit Russia big time. It’s good and it’s one of the most reasonably-priced things to eat.
  • Good coffee. You can get a good espresso so many places now.
  • Technology. You can pay all your bills through electronic kiosks. How cool is that?
  • Wi-Fi. It is not difficult to connect to free Wi-Fi. Even Red Square has Wi-Fi spots.
  • Personal safety. You do feel safe here.
  • Low birth rates. On par with the rest of the West, Russian women postpone having babies and only have one, maybe two. (Not saying that’s necessary good, but that it mimics the developed world.)
  • Secular society. Although religion (Russian Orthodox), is an important part of the society, it doesn’t enter politics too much. (Same here: this is not a judgment.)

Top reasons that make Russia look like a developing country:

  • Can’t drink tap water in most places.

  • Service is generally quite poor. Certainly not compatible with the cost of things.

  • Plumbing. Showers are smelly (lack of traps) and in many places you can’t throw toilet paper into the bowl, and are told to put it in the bin next to the toilet.

  • Lack of international signage. Reading Cyrillic is a must, in restaurant menus or public transport.

  • Pollution. Air is terrible in Moscow and not great in St. Pete’s. Cars still use leaded gas here. And, that gas is cheap.

  • Russian passport doesn’t exactly “open doors” to many developed countries

  • Human rights abuses. Lack of care for the disabled or physically challenged (as of last year, there was not even a law prohibiting discrimination). Gay parades are prohibited. On-going freedom of press issues. (In the interest of brevity, I will spare you the citations in this post, so please feel free to do your own research.) Foreigners must register, like in many “police states.” Foreign tourists still have to register with the police if they want to stay more than three business days. This is a pain in the butt, but some hotels will do it for you.

  • Poor healthcare. CIA estimates that 1% of Russian are HIV-positive, while Russia “is not counting.” (Official estimates are less than a third of what international bodies estimate, and Russian health officials scoff at international estimates.) Cancer treatment is virtually non-existent for those who can’t afford it, and survival rates are a fraction of those in the West.
  • Low life expectancy. An average Russian man can expect to live 59 years.
  • Smoking. Sixty-plus percent of adult population in Russia smokes. That certainly doesn’t help their low life expectancy. It doesn’t help that cigarettes are cheap. A pack starts at less than a dollar. A pack of Marlboros will set you back less than $2.
  • Opulent displays of wealth, real or fake. The popularity of excessive jewelry and leopard-print clothing cannot go unnoticed.
  • Rudeness and inability to form functioning lines. My pet peeve. I always thought Czechs were rude. It must be an East European thing.
  • High emigration rate. A high percentage of people leaving a country with no intentions to come back…it’s a bad sign.
  • No middle class. It’s either Bentley or a Lada. Or, it could also be a “Volsche“. One billionaire had an old Volga (another Russian car) put on the chassis of a Porsche Cayenne and had the car decorated with Swarowski crystals–and a picture of Stalin— at a cost of $1m. Call me biased, but this is easily as bad as whatever the Tsar had ever done.
  • And, of course, xenophobia. Russia still remains the greatest country ever. (A least that’s what you get by reading the Moscow News.)

From Russia, with love.