Croatia: A Unique Greeting Of New Year

 

Fuzine is a beautiful town in Gorski Kotar, Croatia, located 730m above sea-level where the mountains meet the sea, up and inland of northern coast towards Rijeka. Picturesque mountains surround Fuzine, and so do the centuries-old evergreen forests and the beauty of its Bajer and Lepenica lakes.
Summer refreshment can be found fishing or sailing on the lakes. Attractive hiking, cycling and mountaineering routes are marked; you can go horseback riding and ride in carriages or tour the landscape on a tourist train. “Summer in Fuzine” is a traditional event, and the Old Year Send-Off/Greeting of the New Year, which takes place in the open every 31st December at noon exactly, is also famous and attracts an increasing number of visitors from all over the world.

 

Well actually, I think the people of Fuzine have found the perfect way to celebrate the New Year because, there, the celebrations include everyone: the old, the young, the children, the pets… What better way to greet the New Year than to be with everyone you love and live with as well as voisitors and revellers from elsewhere. This year Fuzine has ushered in the New Year exactly at Noon on New Year’s Eve for the 17th time. Each year more and more people come from outside Fuzine to take part in this unique community event; some 15 thousand guests/tourists came to Fuzine this year to witness this unique and most jolly event and that is a very high number given that the population of Fuzine and its surrounding villages is only about 1600. But what beautifully spirited 1600 it is! The New Year’s party on the town’s streets and square, of course, goes on till several hours after midnight New Year’s Day but by then the children have well participated in it and so have family pets. This year’s New Year’s party in Fuzine offered the purchase of yellow balloons for charitable fundraising purposes and on which New Year’s messages and resolutions were then written. Following are some photographs from Fuzine’s New Year’s party at Noon on New Year’s Eve 2015. Enjoy while clicking on images to enlarge. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb);B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)