Hvar Tourist Director Petar Razovic Interviewed in Europe's Oldest Public Theatre

June 18, 2020 – An interview with Hvar Tourist Board Director Petar Razovic on corona and the future direction of the island’s tourism in one of Dalmatia’s most beautiful buildings – the oldest public theatre in Europe.

I was in Hvar Town last week, helping with the logistics of the test trial of a rapid temperature check service developed by a company in Varazdin – a great tool in the battle against corona, which you can read about here.

I had already contacted Hvar Tourist Board director Petar Razovic, who was helping with the filming, and he agreed to a video interview for TCN about Hvar in the corona era and plans for the future direction of the island.

“Do you have the key to the theatre?” I asked.

Indeed he did, so I suggested we do the interview in the oldest public theatre in Europe. Located on the main square above the tourist board office, the theatre was built in 1612 and reopened after a 20-year renovation last year.

It is a spectacular building, as you can see from this drone footage shortly after its reopening.

Petar gave me the tour of both the theatre and the renovated Arsenal building on the floor below, before sitting down for the interview, which you can see below.

Petar always speaks to me in English, but he felt more comfortable on camera in Croatian, so we agreed to do it that way, with English subtitles (which you can turn on the Subtitles/Closed Captions icon in the bottom right of the video).

“Do you know,” he said after we had finished, “that this is only the second interview to take place in this historic building, after Prime Minister Plenkovic last year?”

To learn more about the island of Hvar, check out the digital tools you need from our Virtual Croatia series.