As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the oldest record store in this area is closing, and one of the cult locations in central Zagreb is quietly going down in history. This is the story of the former Jugoton, today’s Croatia Records – a much loved Zagreb music store which opened its doors back in 1964, seventeen years after the founding of the first record company Jugoton in the former Yugoslavia.
For more than half a century, this Zagreb music store has been and remains the first address for everyone who wanted to buy a new record and listen to it at home. It was a place where finally everyone could see their idols up close. It was opened at a time when Croatia already had its first big music star – Ivo Robic, whose first concert album “Jubilee Concert” was released on vinyl in 1965 – and the nearby hotel Dubrovnik began to take shape as we know it today, reports Jutarnji list.
Jugoton carefully expanded its distribution network, so after Zagreb, the Belgrade and Rijeka music stores opened their doors (in 1969), and since 1972, all major Yugoslav cities had such stores. Records and cassettes produced in Zagreb’s Dubrava have since quickly reached young people who could immediately see, experience and buy them, without waiting for their relatives in America or Italy to send the goods over.
For almost fifty-seven years, this Zagreb music store in Bogoviceva was the first and direct connection to discophiles and those who became passionate record collectors with the first record they bought, and the store quickly became a gathering place for the musicians themselves.
”Oh but of course! I used to be there with Gabi Novak and Zdenko Kovacicek,” recalls Tereza Kesovija, who, as has been since learned from Croatia Records, was the very first star to sign an album for her fans at a promotion in Bogoviceva. Kesovija has stated that she will be sad to see this Zagreb music store go as the end of an era draws close.
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