Written by: Velimir Cindrić Photos: Grgo Jelavić
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Andro Vlahušić (63), an independent city councillor in Dubrovnik, Croatian politician, and former mayor from 2009 to 2016, is a well-known name and a prominent figure in the local political arena. Some argue that it’s due to his original innovations, while others attribute it to his controversial ideas and attitudes.
Since initiating the Healthy City project as a 28-year-old doctor, Vlahušić has been wholeheartedly involved in all things Dubrovnik. In 1997, he embarked on his political journey as a member of the Dubrovnik-Neretva County Council. Between 2000 and 2001, he served in the Croatian Parliament, and later, from 2001 to 2003, he held the position of Minister of Health of the Republic of Croatia as member of the HSLS coalition party.
Following the end of his term, he returned to Dubrovnik and took on the role of leading the Dubrovnik General Hospital from 2006 to 2009. In 2009, he participated in the first direct elections for the mayor of Dubrovnik. In the second round, he emerged victorious over the former mayor Dubravka Šuica, making him the first directly elected mayor of Dubrovnik. In the subsequent local elections in 2013, he replicated the same outcome.
In 2014, Vlahušić was ousted from the mayor position after the City Council turned down the budget proposal. But in 2015, he reclaimed the position of Dubrovnik’s mayor in a second round of snap elections, only to be removed once more when the City Council gave the budget the thumbs down.
For an impressive 35 years, ever since you were 28, you have been deeply committed to all things concerning Dubrovnik. To what extent has the city changed throughout that time?
In 1988, I launched the project “Dubrovnik – A Healthy City”. I was a fresh doctor, and the project was the second of its kind in Croatia and among the first ten in Europe. Back in the day, it was still Yugoslavia, and a whole different environment, different social structure, and a different country..
The biggest change, of course, occurred in 1991 when the Serbs launched the attack on Dubrovnik. Few believed it was possible, but I had already penned and published articles outlining the precise reasons for this outcome. To be more specific, Dubrovnik’s beauty is truly unrivalled, unlike anything else in the world, which is why it had to be destroyed. That was their end goal.
How much has Dubrovnik changed since you stepped down as mayor in 2016?
Dubrovnik is truly magnificent in and of itself, and the most important thing is to showcase it to the world in the best possible way… Dubrovnik’s main appeal lies in its captivating walled city, which visitors can easily take in at a glance. That’s where its immense and boundless worth is found.
I was aware of this beauty, flaunted it worldwide, tying it to top brands across various industries – from films to cars, and cultivating sister city partnerships. I successfully twinned Dubrovnik with Venice, Rueil-Malmaison, a commune in the western suburbs of Paris and the former seat of Napoleon’s empire, Beyoğlu, a commune and district in the European part of Istanbul, and Sanya, the southernmost city on the island of Hainan, in southern China. These are all our friends and partners that I wanted to measure ourselves against.
Ever since I stepped down as mayor in 2016, Dubrovnik has only twinned with Sorrento and Imotski. That’s the difference I’m talking about…
You often say that your focus is on the people because a city is, first and foremost, a community of people. Given that people are typically the most difficult to work with, how complicated is that?
Without people, a city is but an empty shell. In my opinion, you simply must give people a chance to be themselves. There aren’t that many of us in Dubrovnik. To put it in perspective, the Mamutica building in Zagreb would house a third of Dubrovnik’s population. In other words, if you don’t give people a chance in a city with 40,000 residents, which is 1% of Croatia or 0.1‰ of the European Union, what have you done? Zilch. To sum up – the city is people. My two projects – “The City and People” and “”No Surplus People” – align perfectly with these ideas. Every individual is valuable, and if you give them a chance, you could be astonished at what they can achieve.
I repeat it again and again: it all boils down to whether you will give these people a chance to do something. These very people really hit the mark with bringing “Game of Thrones,” “Star Wars,” and “Robin Hood” to Dubrovnik, but then everything came to a halt. How is that possible? It all comes down to whether or not you give others a chance to shine.
Dubrovnik is often hailed as the world’s most beautiful stage. And one should show it off with pride. One could, for example, bring Angela Merkel who will be delighted with Stradun and Dubrovnik. I did it…
Will you run in the upcoming local elections, given your clear dissatisfaction with the current city government?
I’ll always have a hand in politics, but I’m still unsure about my future role. Deciding whether to run for mayor, city council, or support a group advocating for the kind of Dubrovnik that I also push for is a tough call right now.
Dubrovnik has been regressing over the past six or seven years, both on a national scale and particularly in the European and global context… Simply put, it’s crystal clear to everyone what Dubrovnik could or should be, and how much it has the potential to propel all of Croatia ahead. Unfortunately, that is not happening.
What’s the state’s stance on Dubrovnik in your opinion?
We’ve never had problems with the state or the Government, neither now nor in the past. Last year, tourists in Dubrovnik spent around one billion euros. So, we have contributed a whopping 200 million in VAT in alone to the budget, not to mention the rest.
The deeper Croatia embraces all that Dubrovnik embodies, the more Dubrovnik unveils itself to Croatia. In 2010, we ran a project that brought people from Croatia and the surrounding region for a week-long experience, offering accommodation and dinner at a quality restaurant for 200 euros. The idea was for people to come and discover Dubrovnik.
Many students in Zagreb study the Croatian language and literature, philosophy, history, painting, sculpture… without ever setting foot in Dubrovnik! A huge number of our senior citizens, and Croatians in general, have never visited Dubrovnik.
In a nutshell, Dubrovnik should be brought closer to Croatia and its people. Cheap flights and busses should be available during the winter months, outside of peak season… Yet, no one is tending to that matter.
Shouldn’t it be normal for every Croatian to be able to visit Dubrovnik at least once in their lifetime? Unfortunately, for many, it’s like it’s not even there. When you ask someone why they haven’t been to Dubrovnik, you will most likely hear – oh, it’s way too expensive! This is a sort of a common misconception that needs to be changed.
What are your thoughts on the demographic changes in Dubrovnik?
Dubrovnik did not suffer as much demographically as other Croatian cities; emigration, particularly abroad, was quite low. For us, Zagreb is the most popular emigration destination. People there graduate from university and stay – doctors, lawyers, artists… but in the last 10-15 years, only a small percentage of those who go anyplace actually do, because Dubrovnik provides a more than decent standard of living. Especially if your family is from Dubrovnik. There are around 15,000 Dubrovnik families who own 25,000 apartments. Owning property in Dubrovnik enables the children to stay and live there. At the same time, just 5 to 6% of Dubrovnik’s households are renters…
The current city government is considering cutting back on the number of rental apartments. And I ask – what will people live on then?
Just picture the joy of the people in Slavonia and Lika if they could rent their properties, even at prices 30-40% lower than those in Dubrovnik? Would people emigrate then? They could very well rent out the house or apartment that they inherited from their grandparents, grow fruits and vegetables, and make a decent living out of it.
What I’m saying is that without tourism, Croatia has little hope of keeping people in its communities. And Dubrovnik has succeeded in this. Dubrovnik’s tourism relies heavily on private accommodation. Kudos to the hotels, but they live well anyway…
I strongly support the use of private accommodation at all times, as it enables the local population to stay in their city and tackles the demographic challenge in an inclusive way.
You move in with your family for the summer and rent out your apartment for two months. Endure those sixty days or so, and earn your annual pay.
Isn’t that a major factor in why the old city centre has turned into a museum-like city with prices that are unreasonably high, often not reflecting the quality that Dubrovnik truly deserves?
When it comes to the Old Town, things are pretty straightforward. Back in 1988, when I first started to occupy myself with Dubrovnik, the Old Town had around 1200 apartments, a figure that has stayed the same ever since. There were 600 privately owned apartments and 600 owned by the state at that time. The 600 that were held by the state were of such low quality that everyone was attempting to get away from them. They wanted to move to Gruž, Mokošica, and other suburbs with modern buildings.
Living in the Old Town felt like a journey back to the Middle Ages, where each floor or even sometimes the whole house had to make do with a single toilet down the hallway, and kitchens were shared among multiple apartments.
Out of the 600 state-owned apartments mentioned earlier, approximately 450 have been privatised, while around 150 are still owned by the city and the church. These 450 apartments have been fixed up by people using their own money or loans and are currently being rented.
Would the city be able to renovate these 450 apartments if they still owned them, considering the skyrocketing apartment renovation prices that are several times higher than anywhere in Croatia, ranging from 3 to 4.5 thousand euros per square metre? I sincerely doubt it!
Essentially, up until 2010 when they took ownership, the apartments were being sold en masse by the locals. However, since 2010, very few are eager to sell their apartments in the Old Town. They rent them and make a living off of it.
And what about the issue of it being a museum-like, show-off city?
Why should it be an issue if people live in it? Tourists live in it too. A conference on abandoned cities was held in New York about 10 years ago, and Venice and Dubrovnik were brought up as two shining examples of living cities. Machu Picchu, Ankgor Wat, and Petra – these are abandoned cities.
How can we solve the problem of cruisers, or, more specifically, cruiser passengers? They get off the ship, cram the city, have ice cream and coffee, leave rubbish behind, and then return to the ship to dine and sleep?
Last year, Dubrovnik welcomed 2.4 million visitors despite having only 40,000 residents. That means that there were 60 people for every resident, with 1.2 million staying in the city and the same number visiting as day trippers, split between cruise ship passengers and others.
The main problem until 2009, when I took over Dubrovnik, was the fact that it was unclear what was in it for the city. I jumped on it right away: people swarm into the city and…? What are the benefits for residents and how does it contribute to the budget? By that time, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of tickets to walk the Dubrovnik walls had been sold, and the money went to a private association. Unbelievable!
Did 500,000 people ride the cable car to Srđ, and was there a fee for that? Negative. A great deal of buses full of passengers from cruise ships swarmed Pile, but what did the city get? Not a thing! If millions of people come to Dubrovnik, and the city and its citizens do not benefit from it, that’s not normal. Then we put in place new rules, where visitors had to pay for access to the walls and we kept half of that money. We launched the Dubrovnik Pass, Dubrovnik Card… And so, from 2010 until today, a huge amount of money has been earned. A total of 150 million euros have been paid to citizens so far, with a significant 25 million euro only last year, which amounts to one third of the original city budget.
In 2015, I had cameras installed in the historical centre to monitor the number of people present, and this information is accessible to anyone online at any time. This is a one-of-a-kind example worldwide. Moreover, the measurement’s reliability has a margin of error of 1%.
UNESCO has estimated that the historical centre may hold up to eight thousand people at the same time, which is also confirmed by the security services, police, and firefighters. Day trippers and passengers from cruise ships may enter the city, that is, buy a ticket for a visit, only when the circumstances permit. That’s the standard practice for popular destinations, which prioritise guests staying in accommodations. Visitors arriving on cruise ships are more than welcome as long as they buy a ticket and book a visit in advance.
What kind of tourism do you believe Dubrovnik needs in the future?
A quality one. But when I say quality, many will associate it with luxury tourism, which is wrong. There is a quality lodging for every guest that comes to Dubrovnik. Young people from various places like Peru, the USA, Zagreb, or Osijek, often come and rent rooms in skyscraper apartments. That room costs around thirty euros, which is all they can afford.
In my eyes, every guest holds the same value. After shelling out €2,000 for a two-day stay, a guest from Excelsior might rate their Dubrovnik experience at a 7, while those in the skyscraper would likely give it a solid 10 for exceeding their expectations.
Normal cities welcome visitors without discrimination. We are not just another hotel destination or resort, but a vibrant, living city that thrives on tourism. We are a city where those who want to visit the historical centre during peak season and cause unmanageable crowds must simply pay an entrance fee, while locals, young people, and senior citizens should be able to enjoy a variety of benefits and discounts.
Dubrovnik should prioritise creating a top-notch outdoor film studio and golf course, improving its beaches and increasing the number of Michelin-starred restaurants. It should aim to be a standout destination – a feather in everyone’s cap – that attracts attention and becomes a must-visit location for everyone.
Just how long do you see your life being entwined with the city’s and its people’s?
As long as I live. My grandson, Andrino, is the 16th generation of the Vlahušić family living in Dubrovnik. My family hails from Imotica, a little village near Dubrovnik that was part of the Republic and can be traced back to 1495, according to the Dubrovnik City Archives. My grandson is the 16th generation, my son is the 15th, and I am the 14th.
I hope to live long enough to witness the 17th and 18th generations of the Vlahušić family in Dubrovnik. And in the meantime, I will continue being involved in politics and working for the city’s greater good.
