2010

[Editor's note: we do not attest to the accuracy or completeness of the notes that accompany these stamps which are written by the postal authorities or independent sources..] 

• Date of issue: March 8, 2010
• Value: 3 kn
• Author: Sabina Rešić, painter and designer, Zagreb
• Size: 96,50 x 79,50 (35,50 x 29,82) mm
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint + Varnish
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity: 45000 blokova/souvenir sheets

• Date of issue: March 8, 2010
• Value: 3 kn
• Author: Sabina Rešić, painter and designer, Zagreb
• Size: 96,50 x 79,50 (35,50 x 29,82) mm
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint + Varnish
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity: 45000 blokova/souvenir sheets
• Motif: Croatian peony sorts

The family of peony (Paeoniaceae) is composed of only one genus of about thirty herbaceous and about ten woody tree peonies spread mostly in hilly and mountainous areas in temperate zones of the north hemisphere. The Latin name of the genus, Paeonia, is derived from the name of Paeon, a mythical physician highly respected among Greek Gods. The Paeon’s teacher Asclepius, the God of medicine and pharmacy, became jealous of his pupil and intended to kill him. For that reason Zeus hid the young physician turning him into a curative plant with nicely smelling flowers – which, after him, was named Paionia (Peony). For thousands of years the symbolics of peony has been present in mythologies and legends of many peoples of Europe, Asia and North America: the peony is especially respected and admired in China and Mongolia. Croatian Flora includes three species and several subspecies of peony - all of them strictly protected by the law. Wild Peony (Paeonia mascula (L.) Miller), known among people as the «male» peony, is a Tertiary relic (the remainder of pristine Flora before Ice Age) a very rare plant also in Croatia, protected by the law even since 1958. It is a perennial plant, 80 cm high, with tuberous, thickened roots. Numerous, not branchy stalks are upright and bare, overgrown by leaves to the top, on which only one flower develops. The leaves are threefold, composed of integral, shiny, green leaflets. The flowers, up to 10 cm in diameter, have many yellow stamens surrounded by five petals, in colours from pink to purple. The number of petals can sometimes spontaneously increase and all the cultivars have “full” flowers (the so called flore pleno, fl.pl.) with numerous petals. The Wild Peony blossoms in April and May in sunny habitats of bright and warm woods and shrubberies, at higher altitudes. As curative plant the wild peony is in some areas used in veterinary and human medical care and is a very popular decorative plant. Rare in Croatia is Common Peony (P. officinalis L.), known also as the «female» peony, because of its fragile structure. It reaches up to 60 cm, has leaves composed of leaflets split in three parts and dark red flowers with five petals. It grows in bright woods and on grassland, usually on limestones from France to Albania. In spite of its toxicity the common peony has been used in folk medicine for more than 2000 years as an effective remedy against convulsions, and today is mostly used in homeophatic remedies. It has been grown for centuries primarily for its curative properties but also for its beauty: one of the oldest cultivars in our gardens is Rubra Plena, a very nice plant with full, red flowers with numerous petals. Like other sorts of peony, also our sorts can be found in cultivation throughout the world, appreciated as exceptionally beautiful and long-lived decorative plants: if their root is not disturbed and the temperature does not drop below -15 oC, the peony in cultivation lives up to 50 years and develops into a quite impressive bush. Several hundreds of cultivars (sorts) of different peony species are known, which are in horticulture divided according to their flower shape (simple, double, or multiple petals) and their size (small, medium, large). Many species and cultivars – apart from magnificent flowers, are also favoured with pleasant smell, coloured leaves or prominent fruit, which makes them an irreplaceable part of flower beds of herbaceous perennials in temperate zones of all continents.

Sanja Kovačić

• Date of issue: March 16, 2010
• Value: 1 kn
• Author: Sabina Rešić, painter and designer, Zagreb
• Size: 42,60 x 35,50
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint + Embossed Print
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity: 150000
• Motif: Wild Strawberry (Fragaria vesca L., Family Rosaceae)

English: Woodland Strawberry
German:. Wald-Erdbeere
French:. Fraisier des bois
Italian: Fragola di bosco

Woodland strawberry is s low perennial herb growing in temperate zones of north hemisphere. From the underground root there grow flowering stems, runners (stolons) and toothed trifoliate leaves. Flowers on long pedicles have 5 white petals with numerous pistils and stamens. Apart from a real calyx with five sepals, the flower of woodland strawberry has also an outer calyx with five smal leaves, that protrude on the fruit or are turned backwards. The fruit of woodland strawberry, with an exceptionelly characteristic smell and taste, is often wrongly considered broad bean. Actually, the strawberry is a typical example of aggregate fruit, with the structure built of fleshy receptacle with numerous separate fruits – small nuts. The scientific term for the strawberry genus is derived from latin fragare = to smell, as the strawberry fruit was called in ancient times (fragum). Woodland strawberries were cultivated in Persian gardens already at the beginning of the 15th century, and traded along the Silk Route; nowadays these small fruits are mostly being collected in nature. The archeological findings confirm that people used woodland strawberries as food and medication already in early Stone Age, and today they are being used also in homeopathic medicine, cosmetic industry and horticulture. The woodland strawberry has completely been suppressed from cultivation by the Garden Strawberry (Fragaria x ananassa), raised in France in the middle of the 18th century, by interbreeding of the North American Virginia Strawberry (F. virginiana) and South American Chilean Strawberry (F. chiloensis). Today about 400 sorts of garden stroberries are known, that differ in size, smell and taste of their fruits, and some even in colour (white, orange and yellow sorts). Nevertheless, woodland strawberries are still appreciated as more tasteful, better smelling and more nutritious than garden strawberries. Various strawberry processing procedures have turned strawberries into one of the most favourite fruits in the world: let us only mention cakes and compotes, icecreams, marmelades and jams, fruit juices, cyrups and wine! It is far less known that the strawberry leaves are very rich in vitamin C and are a good substitute for black tea to which fragrant, dried fruits can be added. Artificially produced strawberry aroma is used for colouring food and various cosmetic products.

• Date of issue: March 16, 2010
• Value: 4 kn
• Author: Sabina Rešić, painter and designer, Zagreb
• Size: 42,60 x 35,50
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint + Embossed Print
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity: 150000
• Motif:  Grapevine (Vitis vinifera L., Family Vitaceae)

English: Grapevine
German: Winerebe
French: Vigne
Italian: Vite

Grapevine, together with wheat and olive, is among the oldest cultivated plants of the ancient world and still the most spread fruit on our planet. The wild subspecies of grapevine (subsp. sylvestris) is a creeping plant that can reach up to 15 m height, coils around its supporting rod thanks to its long and short offshoots with tendrils. The leaves are on long stems and lobate in shape. Tiny flowers are divided in male and female blossoms, gathered in peak clusters. The domesticated subspecies of grapevine (subsp. vinifera or sativa) has hermaphrodite flowers, whereof the female ones give fruit – soft berries with several seeds each. There are almost 20.000 described sorts of grapevine, which differ in their ripening time, resistance to climate factors, diseases and parasites, but first of all in their fruits that can be used in wine production and that are of different colour, size, shape, taste and smell of their clusters. The sorts of grape vine can be divided by the colour of their berries in white and red, and further in rose and black, i.e. red, and according to its smell to aromatic and non-aromatic. Depending on the sort, the grapes ripen from July to October, and sometimes the harvest is postponed till the icy grape-harvest at the beginning of the year. The grapevine has been cultivated in the Mediterranean since ancient times and the oldest wine cellar, built 7000 years ago, was also found there. Croatia has exceptionally favourite climate conditions for raising various sorts of grapes (Croatia comprises all five zones of grapevine cultivation); the grapevine is also depicted on Croatian two-lipa coin. The first grapevine trees in today’s continental Croatia were planted by Romans (in Srijem area), and at the coast (on islands) by Greeks. From about 130 sorts of autochtonous grapevines cultivars in Croatia, the best known is the Vitis Vinifera L. (plavac mali crni) - a crossbreed of "dobričić” from the Island of Šolta and „crljenak” or zinfandel from Kaštela, which is used in production of excellent wines (Dingač and Postup) from protected geographical regions (protected denomination of origin) – like e.g. areas on the peninsula of Pelješac. Apart from the production of wine, the grapevine has also other culinary uses (raisins, vinegar, stuffed grapevine leaves), and uses as medication.

• Date of issue: March 16, 2010
• Value: 4 kn
• Author: Sabina Rešić, painter and designer, Zagreb
• Size: 42,60 x 35,50
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint + Embossed Print
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity: 150000
• Motif: Gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa L., Family Grossulariaceae)

English: Gooseberry
German: Stachelbeere
French:. Groseillier a maquereaux
Italian: Uva spina

Gooseberry (syn. R. grossularia) is 1 - 3 m high, broad bush belonging to the genus of Ribes. Some botanists are of the opinion that the gooseberries significantly differ from ribes (currant) and that they belong to separate genus, Grossularia, after which - earlier in history, the entire plant family has been named. Thin, hairy gooseberry offsets are spirally overgrown by sharp, greyish spines, which are not present in ribes, while the hairy leaves are small and lobate. The bell-shaped greenish flowers, are hanging singly, in pairs or by three. The fruit is more or less hairy berry of a diameter 1 - 3 cm, white, red, green or yellow in colour, depending on the sort (at least 200). The yellow berries are considered to be the most tasteful as food, and the wine made from them has the taste similar to champagne. The red berries are as a rule the sourest but also the richest in vitamin C. Gooseberry is native to Europe and West Asia. In South Europe gooseberry grows in moist and cold habitats in schrubberies and woods at the foot of hills; it is relatively unknown sort, rare in cultivation. Gooseberry is also a pretty demanding plant to cultivate, since it can not stand strong sun and summer lack of moisture, too high or too low temperatures, and is subject to a series of parasites and diseases. Thus, also in Croatia it is cultivated individually and primarily as a decoration in home gardens or in hedges around vegetable gardens, together with raspberries and currants. However, in Middle and especially in North Europe and Russia (where it was grown as early as in the 11th century), gooseberry was highly appreciated fruit, cultivated en masse. It is mostly used in culinary, for preparation of various desserts, especially cakes, and gelatine food (containing high percentage of pectin) and sauces. The gooseberry fruits - because of their high percentage of water, are subject to quick spoilage, and cannot be stored fresh for a long period of time: therefore they are most often processed into marmalades, jams, juices or wine. In cosmetic industry gooseberry is added to face masks, and is considered also to be a curing plant - in the form of refreshing tonic for the “spring body cleaning”.

Sanja Kovačić

• Date of issue: March 26, 2010
• Value: 0.92 €

• Date of issue: March 29, 2010
• Value: 7,1 kn
• Author: Tatjana Strinavić, designer, Zagreb
• Size: 48,28 x 29,82 mm
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity: 100000
• Motifs: a steam locomotive of SüdB 18 series and a steam locomotive of MÁV 326/JŽ 125 series

The 150th anniversary of the Croatian railroads will be celebrated in 2010. Two steam locomotives from the SüdB 18 and MÁV 326/JŽ 125 series have been chosen for that very occasion as the motives of the commemorative postage stamps from the "Steam locomotive" series.

The aforementioned locomotives were among the first participants in the Croatian railroad traffic and they, therefore, tell their own story of this year’s anniversary. Building railroads in Croatia was a task set out within the traffic policy of the Habsburg Monarchy which, in 1836, accepted the technical study of a Vienna university professor Franz Xaver Riply as a framework of its railroad network. The study predicted a construction of 13 railroad tracks, with their starting points in Vienna and Budapest, from where the railroad tracks network was intended to spread in the shape of a star towards the areas that were a part of the Monarchy. A part of the plan included linking the centres of the Monarchy with the ports on the Adriatic Sea (Pula, Rijeka, Šibenik and Split) via the railroad, as well as the rivers Sava and Danube. Railroads Zidani Most – Zagreb – Sisak, Zagreb – Karlovac and Budapest – Rijeka were supposed to be the first Croatian railroad tracks. However, due to the political situation, the first 42 kilometres of the railroad tracks in Croatia were built between the Machine station, on the today’s Slovenian and Croatian border, and the Kotoriba railway station, as a section of the Pragersko – Čakovec – Kotoriba – Nagykanizsa railroad tracks.

The aforementioned railroad, known as the "Croatian stub", was opened for public on 24 April 1860 and it connected Budapest directly to the main Vienna – Trieste railroad. The construction of the railroad tracks through the Zagreb area followed. The first of them, the Zidani Most – Zagreb – Sisak railroad, was opened on 1 October 1862, and three years later the Zagreb – Karlovac railroad was opened as well. Both railroads had the status of lateral railroads within the main Vienna – Zidani Most – Ljubljana – Trieste railroad and they were built by the Imperial Royal and Privileged Southern Railway Society.

Alongside the first railroad tracks, in 1862 Zagreb also got its first railway station, the Zagreb South Railway Station, today known as the Zagreb West Railway Station. The construction of the railroad tracks continued with the objective of establishing a railroad connection with Rijeka. In 1870, the Hungarian National Railroad Company finished the construction of railroad tracks between Zakany, Koprivnica, Križevci, Dugo Selo and Zagreb, and in 1873 it completed the railroad connection between Budapest and Rijeka by finishing the last section between Karlovac and Rijeka. The same year, the Southern Railway Company succeeded in establishing a railway connection with Rijeka by a railroad between Sveti Petar, i.e. today’s Pivka, and Rijeka. At the same time, in 1871, first railroads were also built in Slavonia, between Erdelj, Sombor, Erdut, Dalj and Osijek and between Osijek and Beli Manastir. Seven years later a railroad connection between Dalj, Vinkovci and Slavonski Brod was completed as well. At that time, Austria was simultaneously building a railroad between Divača and Pula, which was opened for public in 1876. Railroads in Dalmatia were the last on the list of railroads built within the Monarchy’s railroad network. The first kilometres sprung up in 1877. It was the Split – Siverić section with branches leading to Perković and Šibenik.

In 1888, the railroad was extended from Siverić to Knin and the Dalmatian railroads were not included into the entire railroad system up to 1925, with the construction of the Lika railroad between Ogulin, Gospić and Gračac. The Zadar area gained its only railroad in 1967 by the construction of the Zadar – Knin railroad. During that first period of building railroads in Croatia, all railroad tracks were financed from state resources and they were categorized as main railroads of the first and second order. However, the possibility of building vicinal railroads, which connected the economically developed smaller towns and were connected to the already existing railroads, was legally verified in 1880. Vicinal railroads could have been built by individuals using their own resources, as well as by towns and companies, which aroused interest of wealthy farm and factory owners in Croatia and Hungary and led to a sudden expansion of the railroad network, particularly in Slavonia and Hrvatsko zagorje. Thanks to that, at the beginning of the 20th century all larger industrial centres in Croatia (Zagreb, Sisak, Karlovac, Osijek, Rijeka and Pula) were interconnected by main railroads, and they were also directly connected to capital towns of the Austrian-Hungarian Monarchy.

Other smaller Croatian towns were connected to the main railroads via the widely spread network of vicinal railroads. In the 20th century the railroad network in Croatia was expanded in accordance with the interests and needs of the new international law systems which Croatia has been a part of since 1918. In terms of transport, the framework of the railroad system was the newly established main railroad Zidani Most – Ljubljana – Zagreb – Belgrade. Redirecting and connecting the existing railroads in a different way followed, and the construction of new railroads was synchronized with the traffic demands of a different railroad system. Nowadays, the railroad network of the Croatian railroads includes the 2976.276 kilometres of railroad tracks. The international transport takes place on a total of 1711.622 kilometres of railroad tracks, the regional transport on 600.296 kilometres and the local transport on 664.218 kilometres of railroad tracks. The total length of the electrified open railroad tracks amounts to 1228.4 kilometres, and the total length of Croatian Railroads’ sections of the Pan-European traffic corridors is 767.6 kilometres.

The railroad network counts an overall number of 252 railway stations. A steam locomotive of the SüdB 18 series Steam locomotives of the SüdB 18 series were designed by Austrian constructors between 1859 and 1872. They were used to pull the passenger trains on the lowland railroads. According to the information available to us, the locomotives of the SüdB 18 series also pulled trains on the first Croatian railroad tracks between Čakovec and Kotoriba, and Zidani Most, Zagreb and Sisak. The locomotive’s power amounted to 258 kW (350KSi), it was 8105 millimetres long, weighed 32.90 tons and could reach the maximum of 60 km/h. The locomotives were a part of the Croatian traffic since 1922. Not a single locomotive of this series remains preserved in Croatia today. A steam locomotive of the MÁV 326/JŽ 125 series Steam locomotives of the MÁV 326/JŽ 125 series were built between 1882 and 1897 in factories in Vienna, Linz and Munich, and since 1888 in Budapest as well. They were primarily used to pull the cargo trains but they were used for transport of passengers as well. These locomotives first operated on a railroad track between Budapest and Zagreb, and then they were also used on the Rijeka railroad. The power of the locomotive amounted to 302kW (410KSi), it was 15.131 mm long, including the tender, it weighed 48.750 kg, also including the tender, and it could reach a maximum of 45 km/h. Locomotives of this series were used for transport for sixty years. Only one locomotive of this series (mark 125-052) has been preserved in Croatia. It is now a part of the Croatian Railway Museum and it is on display on the Main Railway Station in Zagreb. The locomotive was built in 1891 in Budapest and it is the oldest vehicle in the Museum’s collection.

Helena Bunijevac

• Date of issue: April 15, 2010
• Value: 6,1 kn
• Author: Ariana Noršić, designer, Samobor
• Size: 29,82 x 35,50 mm
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint + Gold
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity: 100000
• Motif: A Capuchin and St. Leopold Mandić under arcade of the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Rijeka

During history, the Friars Capuchins - known as the order practicing highly contemplative life – developed a diverse apostolate among different social strata. They accepted the pastoral work as well as the spiritual care, education and missionary work and were an important leverage of the Catholic Reformation in the 16th and 17th century. Actually, after 1574 the Pope Gregory made possible the spreading of the Capuchin Order outside Italy, so that from that time their intensive preaching and missionary work began. The arrival of Capuchins in Croatia is directly connected with the founding of the Capuchin Monastery in Steiermark (Styria) in 1600, i.e. with the coming into existence of the Styria Province in 1608. Officially the Capuchins arrive for the first time to Croatian regions in 1610, first to Rijeka where they found and begin to build the monastery, whereafter monasteries are founded in Zagreb in 1618, in Split in 1691, in Varaždin in 1699, in Osijek in 1703 and in Karlobag in 1710.

The period from 1625 to 1789 is also known as the golden age of the Order because then starts the intensive spreading of the Capuchins to other Croatian towns. The 18th century marked the beginning of stagnation of the rank and the dissolution of numerous monastery communities. The year 1824 is considered the beginning of the new epoch. In that year a sixteen-year old Juraj Bedenik from Koprivnica, who receives the name Fra Angelic, joins the Order. Actually in 1845 Fra Angelic becomes a custos of a Croatian littoral custody for which he - in 1874, managed to achieve the promotion to a rank of province. At the beginning of the 20th century the monastery in Rijeka under the leadership of Fra Bernardin Škrivanić becomes the central monastery of Croatian Capuchins and the focus of the religious and cultural revival in Croatia.

Thanks to his initiative, in February 1904, the building of the church of Our Lady of Lourdes in Rijeka - after the project by the architect Giovanni Maria Curet, begins. The lower part of the church was finished in 1908 and dedicated to Our Lady Comforter of the Afflicted in Purgatory. Its final aspect received the facade of the upper church in 1929 after the project of the architect from Rijeka, Cornelij Budinich. In the upper church, the famous painter from Rijeka, Romolo Venucci, successfully made the ceiling paintings and decorations. The sculpture decorations on the facade were made by the Venetian sculptor Urbano Bottasso and the stonemason from Rijeka Antonio Marietti. The bell tower, which was to be erected above the main facade, has never been built.

The entire building, a quality neo-mediaeval architecture is unique in wider Rijeka region. At that time, on the initiative of Fra Bernardin Škrivanić, also modern printing houses “Miriam” and “Kuća dobre štampe” (The House of Good Print”) were founded. The monastery in Rijeka becomes a central point of the Croatian Catholic Movement headed by the Bishop of Krk, Antun Mahnić. In the year 1967 the contemporary Capuchin Illyric Province which included Slovenian and Croatian monasteries, was divided into Slovenian and Croatian Commissariat, i.e. Commission. Short time after that in 1974 the minister general of the Order, Fra Pashal Rywalski, proclaimed the Croatian Commissariat an independent province. From that time till today the Croatian Capuchin Province is under protection of St. Leopold Mandić and comprises the monasteries in Zagreb (St. Michael and St. Leopold), Varaždin, Osijek, Rijeka, Karlobag, Split and Dubrovnik. The commemoration of the 400 years from the arrival of Capuchins to Croatia is a very important anniversary in the Croatian cultural history and presents an outstanding and important element in the overall Croatian identity.

(HRV) FAMOUS CROATS - IVAN MATETIĆ RONJGOV (a.k.a. GIOVANNI MATETICH)

• Date of issue: April 22, 2010
• Value: 4,5 kn
• Author: : Tomislav Vlainić,designer, Zagreb
• Size: 29,82 x 35,50 mm
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity: 100000

Croatian composer, melograph and music educator Ivan Matetić Ronjgov was born 10 April 1880 in a small village of Ronjgi (comunity Viškovo) [in Istria], according to which to his family name the attachment Ronjgov has been added. He finished Teacher Training College in Koper, where he acquired his first music knowledge and after formal schooling, in the period between 1899 and1912 he taught in many Istrian villages, and later, till 1919, in Opatija. Though already skilled in composition and in choir conducting, it is only in his mature age that he will acquire professional education at the Music Academy in Zagreb, where he graduates in 1922 in the class of Franjo Dugan, the older.

After three years spent at the Sušak Gymnasium as a teacher in singing, he returns back to Zagreb in 1925 and becomes a secretary at the Music Academy. From 1938, when he retires, till 1945 he lives in Belgrade but after the end of the war he returns first to Zagreb and in 1946 to his Rijeka. There he works for some time as a part-time teacher at Music School, today bearing his name.

(HRV) OVERPRINT - RIJEKA (#778)

• Date of issue: May 17, 2010
• Value: 3,1 kn
• Author: Hrvoje Šercar, painter and graphic designer, Zagreb
• Size: 35,50 x 25,56 mm
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity: 4900000

See also: Cities, Towns and Hamlets - Rijeka (Fiume)

• Date of issue: May 21, 2010
• Value: 10 kn
• Author: Igor Konjušak, graphic artist, Zagreb;Photographer: Petar Strmečki
• Size: 96,50 x 79,50 (35,50 x 29,82) mm
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Quantity:
• Motif: Lubenice - panorama Lubenice – a town of stone

The power of the ancient myth, in which the main characters are Apsyrtus, Jason, Medea and the Argonauts, introduces us into the pre-origin of the group of islands called Apsyrtides, to which also Cres belongs. At cultural level, on the island Cres there can be noticed for centuries present interaction between the landscape and the evidence of very different peoples (Illyrians, Greeks, Romans and Venetians) who in their historic eras and within their own civilisations created a cultural and historical matrix of this region. The area of Lubenice and Pernat, called Gerbin (south-western wind) by local inhabitants, is bordered on its west side by the vast bay of Cres and by its position stands out as a separate micro-region of the island Cres. As concerns historic continuity here we find: settlements existing from the pre-historic period till today, settlements built next to cultivated soil and settlements of the scattered type, built at the seashore. A Roman Hibernicia/Hibernitia, i.e. medieval Ljubljenice, and today’s Lubenice, is a settlement existing in an unbroken continuity for over 4000 years, situated in the central part of the island, at 378 m above sea level, on the high cliff dominating the open sea of the Kvarner Bay. Lubenice, like other pre-historic settlements has used its geostrategic position during history in order to control the entire Kvarner Bay through the Big Gate. The castle of Lubenice falls under Venetian rule from 1409 to 1797 and remains urbis and logos, with the church seat and military garrison, for the inhabitants who escaped from the further away situated fields of Vransko Lake and the Pernat peninsula.

The prosperity of Lubenice is reflected in the huge territory belonging to the community, from the Cape Pernat to Ustrine and from Orlec to Belej, including also the villages mentioned. The autonomous community of Lubenice was abolished at the end of the 15th century, when it – with all its territory - passes under the administration of the community of Cres. The flourishing, opulent period on the island at the end of the 17th century favours erecting of houses and sacral buildings also outside the castle, fortified for centuries. The inhabitants of the peninsula Pernat, and also of Lubenice have always been economically oriented to agriculture, livestock farming and forestry. Among the particularities of the island Cres are the huge estates with vast sheep economies - the so called shepherd’s dwellings. Through the oval shape of Lubenice, elongated in the direction north-south, and beginning at the town square, there stretch three main winding paths (streets) leading into the medieval town space. In the far history Lubenice was fortified by walls from the east, that survive today in fragments while the south part of the settlement leans against a vertical, inaccessible cliff above seashore. In a bounded space, between the renewed south and the original north town gate, the morphology of the construction art of Lubenice is found, spanning from the traditional functional minimalism to the renaissance-baroque elements with rare Venetian additions. In the first plan of the small town, at the town square and dominating it, there is a parish church dedicated to Our Blessed Virgin Mary. Next to the edge of the square and the former town loggia a new bell tower was erected in 1791. At the south end of the locality there is a renewed gothic church of St. Anthony the Eremite and a small Romanesque church of St. Sunday. In the centre of the small town, next to the former rectory there stands a gothic church of St. Jacob (14th – 15th century). After the north city gate, at the town cemetery, there is a church of St. Stephen from the 17th-18th century. As for the housing itself, it uses all the elements of autochtonous and organic art of building, combined with the elements used in the continental littoral. In the beginning of 2005 Lubenice was included into the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List. A somewhat anticipatory concept design of an eco-park in the Pernat peninsula (1988) by the scientist Marijan Vejvoda, with the dynamic idea of including Lubenice in it, a detailed project for the adaptation and reconstruction of the building heritage with the concept for the revival and shaping of a varied tourist offer with compatible contents (1955), an always greater engagement and continuous presence (since 1999) of the Centre for Sustainable Development – Eco Park Pernat - are all important indicators showing that Lubenice is no "island", and that the ideas of its full-scale revitalisation, supported by active participation of local inhabitants, will prudently and harmonically incorporate sociological, anthropological and architectural aspects in future, new concepts.

See also: Cities, Towns and Hamlets - Cres Island

• Value: 1,6 kn
• Author: Hrvoje Šercar, painter and graphic designer, Zagreb
• Size: 35,5 x 25,56 mm
• Paper: white 102g, gummed
• Perforation: Comb,14
• Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint
• Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
• Date of issue: May 17, 2010
• Quantity: 1900000

• Croatian Post Inc. - Croatian Postage Stamps - http://www.posta.hr/markeasp/frame_e.html (English) & http://www.posta.hr/markeasp/ (Hrvatski)
• Post of Slovenia - Stamp Land - http://www.posta.si/Namizje.aspx?tabid=386
• Poste Italiane, Filatelia - http://e-filatelia.poste.it/showCataloghiProdotti.asp?id_categoria_prodotto=281