If at all possible, try and avoid going to the city centre in Zagreb with your car today and tomorrow.
Two weeks ago Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović invited Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić to visit Zagreb, to discuss very tense (and increasingly so) relationship between the neighbouring countries with a very problematic past. He accepted, and today, on February 12th he arrived to Zagreb around 10 am, at the Franjo Tuđman Airport, and was rushed to Pantovčak to meet his host, President Grabar-Kitarović.
As it usually happens when high-risk visits to Croatian capital happen (and this is probably as high-risk as it gets in Croatia), severe disruption of normal life for citizens ensues. First and foremost, the traffic in Zagreb will be a massive victim of security measures, as traffic on any streets where President Vučić will be driven on these two days will be completely closed off for other cars and even public transport. Today, it’s planned that he will meet with the President at Pantovčak, later on with the Prime Minister Plenković over lunch at Markov trg, and during the day he is expected to go to downtown Zagreb for Croatian-Serbian Economy Forum, and his last official visit for the day is expected to be with Cardinal Bozanić. The information on his nightly plans are not, obviously, shared with the public, and neither are the detailed plans for tomorrow, but expect another one of the major traffic blockages en route to the Franjo Tuđman airport, and be prepared to wait in long traffic queues which are bound to happen in Zagreb.
And, in addition to traffic chaos, what we are seeing today are several protests against the welcome Croatian President has extended to a person who is not seen as a positive change in Serbian politics. Because of those protests being announced, today it was decided that Markov Trg, the square in Zagreb’s Upper town, where both the Parliament and the Government are located (as is the wonderful St. Mark’s Church) will be closed off for public. It is severely fenced and no-one is allowed to go there. So, the main protest of veterans and widows, who still want answers and an apology from Serbian politicians for what has happened during their occupation of parts of Croatia during the Homeland war, is held on the Ban Jelačić square. During the protest, Vučić’s speech from July 1995 was repeated, in which he proclaimed that he wanted Serbian army to kill 100 Muslims for each Serbian person killed, which is the sentiment he repeated in Srebrenica, amid the largest post-WWII massacre in Europe. The protestors want to hear him give an apology, discuss those still missing after the war, and want to see talk of reparation for the damage done in Croatia – and all of those are, of course, not topics which will be discussed these days.
