Snail mail is very much alive in the modern age as a postcard from Croatia takes almost three decades to arrive to… Italy.
Say what you will about the shortcomings of the postal service in just about any country in the world, but even this takes it a bit too far. Just a bit, though.
As Dubrovacki Dnevnik writes on the 6th of April, 2018, just two days ago, an Italian citizen received a postcard sent from Croatia, then Yugoslavia, a mere 29 years ago.
Sergio Schiaroli showed the Italian media the Croatian postcard that was, in fact, stamped with a 1989 year mark. It was sent to the now 96-year-old Nada Schiaroli, Sergio’s mother, on the 20th of August, 1989, from the island of Koločep (Kalamota), one of the inhabited Elaphite islands located close to Dubrovnik. The postcard was written in Croatian and finally arrived to the Italian town of Fano, in the Marche region of the country.
Telegram writes that the postcard in question had finally been making its way across the Adriatic sea to Italy this past week, and Nada was the happy, albeit surprised recipient of the postcard from a friend she had met at a time when the modern means of communication we now take for granted had been far from perfected, albeit a bit later than expected.
According to the Italian media, Nada Schiaroli has Croatian origins herself, so she was very much able to read what her friend wrote. Otherwise, Nada and Mrs. Radula, from whom the postcard was originally sent, met about thirty years ago while spending their summer holidays together on the southern Dalmatian island of Koločep.
Her son, Sergio, is convinced that the Homeland War and the break up and eventual collapse of the former Yugoslavia, as well as the fact that the postcard was sent from a small island, slowed down the postcard’s trip to the mailbox in Fano, which is hardly on the other side of the world from Croatia, let alone the southern Dalmatian region.
“This is a real miracle,” commented Schiaroli for the Italian portal il Resto del Carlino. The local Fano post office also confirmed that the postcard really did arrive just a couple of days ago, and immediately forwarded it to the undoubtedly surprised recipient, Nada.
