Matej Gašpar was born during the 1987 Summer Universiade
Thirty years ago yesterday, Zagreb’s Petrova Hospital welcomed the Earth’s five billionth resident, Index.hr reported on July 11.
The event sparked the creation of World Population Day, which seeks to focus attention on the urgency and importance of population issues. It was established by the then-Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme in 1989, which was generated by the Day of Five Billion, July 11, 1987, when Matej Gašpar was born.
The honour went to Zagreb because the 1987 Summer Universiade was taking place there at the time.
Matej was born at 8:35 a.m., his weight was 3,600 g and length 53 cm, and a photo of him and Javier Perez de Cuellar, UN Secretary at the time, quickly travelled around the world.
Numerous visitors and relatives came to visit and congratulate the proud parents, Sanja and Dragutin, and Pliva gave the Gašpars a six-month food and baby cosmetics supply.
Slobodna Evropa caught up with Matej a few years ago, while he was studying Chemistry and snorkelling in his free time.
“It’s nothing special, the only thing that makes my birthday different than somebody else’s is the fact that I get phone calls from journalists. My mum took the phone calls until I turned 18, and from then on, I started answering myself,” Matej said.
Matej Gašpar via Slobodna Evropa
Matej says he’s not into politics and he loves Zagreb and Croatia, but he also says that one of the negative things about living here, for example, is the fact that he wouldn’t be able to afford to live on his own if it weren’t for his parents, whom he lives with currently.
