Škrapna once again brought together song, speech, customs, and flavors of the Matulji area
On Sunday, June 14, 2026, Škrapna once again became a meeting place of local heritage, old-style singing, sopnjada, dance, local speech, and traditional cuisine. Organized by the Tourist Board of the Municipality of Matulji, the second edition of the Festival of Old-Style Singing, Sopnjada, Dance, Speech, and Cuisine "Bilo (j') vavek veselo" was held, an event that this year again gathered many visitors interested in music, customs, local history, and socializing together in the setting of Škrapna. The program combined concert and drama performances, stories about the homeland, a lecture on an important part of the war history of the wider area, and an offering of homemade products and dishes inspired by recipes passed down within families and local communities.
According to the announcement by the Tourist Board of the Municipality of Matulji, the festival was conceived as an evening in which elements of everyday and festive life of this area are presented in one place: song, speech, dance, music, and cuisine. Such an approach is not only a program concept, but also a way of preserving local identity in an area that throughout history was connected with the Opatija Riviera, the hinterland beneath Učka, Ćićarija, and old traffic routes. The Matulji Tourist Board describes its area as the green-blue hinterland of the Opatija Riviera and a historical crossroads of routes, and it is precisely in such a space that tradition is preserved not only in archives, but also through performance, speech, encounters, and shared customs.
A festival that performs tradition before an audience
The second edition of the festival confirmed that Škrapna is not merely a scenic backdrop, but one of the key elements of the event. The gathering space, cisterns, antiquities, and memories of former life in the village gave the program special value, especially because a large part of the performances was connected with personal and collective memories. The cultural and artistic program began with the composition "Bilo vavek veselo" performed by KUD Učka, which immediately established a connection between the name of the event and its basic message: joy here is not presented as superficial entertainment, but as a form of togetherness and recognition of common roots.
Later in the evening, Aleksandar Valenčić on accordion recalled his own roots, childhood, and the Škrapna he remembers from earlier times. This part of the program had a distinctly local tone because the music was connected with personal memory, with people who marked the performer's life path, and with a space that has emotional value for the local community. The performance by Elvis Stanić, a multiple award-winning jazz musician and composer, further broadened the musical range of the evening. At Vela šterna, with a view of his ancestral home, Stanić led the audience through instrumental performances toward a different, more intimate experience of the place, in which contemporary musical expression met the local landscape and family memory.
Special emotions were evoked by Mauro Staraj with his performance of the song "Ča bin se otel mu reć", which the audience greeted with strong approval. In such moments, the festival showed how much the Čakavian expression and local idiom can be a powerful bearer of feeling, especially when performed in a space and before an audience that recognizes the nuances of language, rhythm, and meaning. The drama section of the Domoljub 1909 association, "Lisinski vetar", performed part of a play and staged life in the 1950s, recalling the everyday life, relationships, and humor of a period that is increasingly rarely remembered through direct experience. Together with actor Tarik Filipović, it also invited the audience to the premiere of the play "Minju j' oženit", announced for August 29, 2026, in the Matulji amphitheater.
The lecture on Hospital Ljubica opened the historical layer of the program
An important part of the festival program was a lecture by Alfred Šaina entitled "Hospital Ljubica". With this, the event moved beyond the framework of an exclusively musical and gastronomic event and opened space for conversation about local history, memory, and places that are not always widely known outside the local circle. According to a post by the Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of Liburnia, the partisan hospital SRS I/2 "Ljubica" was built in the area of Vodičke griže, in a rocky and wooded landscape intersected by limestone grooves and sinkholes, at approximately one thousand meters above sea level. The same source states that the choice of location was encouraged by activists of the People's Liberation Movement from the village of Škrapna, which further connects the lecture with the place where the festival was held.
According to data published by UABA Liburnije, Hospital "Ljubica" had several facilities, including barracks, dugouts, a space for food and medicine, and separate sections intended for the wounded and medical staff. The association states that at least 300 to 400 wounded fighters passed through the hospital and that it was the largest permanent hospital in Istria that operated undiscovered until the end of the war. This historical fact gives special weight to the festival lecture because it shows that the heritage of Škrapna and the Matulji area is not exhausted by song, dance, and cuisine, but also includes layers of wartime history, resistance logistics, solidarity, and local organization.
In the context of the festival, the lecture on Hospital Ljubica also had broader significance. It enabled visitors to view the space around them not only as a beautiful setting for summer socializing, but also as a landscape marked by concrete historical events. When such content is included in the program of an event, local history leaves specialist texts and commemorative occasions and becomes part of public conversation. This is precisely one of the important roles of events like this: to connect memory, performance, and community in a way that is understandable to a broad audience.
Homemade products, fritaja, wine, honey, and Brda delicacies
Alongside music, drama, and the lecture, the offering of homemade products and traditional delicacies attracted great interest from visitors. According to the announcement by the Tourist Board of the Municipality of Matulji, the gastronomic section featured Briške žene in dekleta, OPG Ružić Jarbola, Antak Food Truck, Vina Kapić, and Pčelarstvo Kos, while the report from the held event particularly highlighted desserts with Brda cherries, wines, honey products, and a large fritaja. Such an offering was not only an addition to the program, but an equal part of it, because the name of the festival explicitly includes cuisine, that is, the memory of flavors that shaped the everyday life of the area.
Dishes inspired by grandmothers' recipes offered visitors a direct encounter with gastronomic heritage, not merely its description. In local events, food often has an important social function: it gathers people around the table, starts conversation, and enables tradition to be experienced through the senses. Vina Kapić and OPG Ružić Jarbola took care of the wine offering, Pčelarstvo Kos presented honey products, and Briške žene in dekleta from neighboring Goriška brda brought sweet delicacies with Brda cherries. In this way, along with its local Matulji character, the festival also gained a cross-border note of connection with areas with which this part of Kvarner and the hinterland shares a similar feeling for tradition, seasonal ingredients, and socializing together.
For visitors who plan to follow the continuation of summer programs in Matulji, especially concerts, plays, and evening outdoor events, accommodation offers in Matulji and the surrounding area may also be useful. Since programs are held at several locations, from Škrapna and Bregi to the Matulji amphitheater, staying nearby can make it easier to participate in several events during the same week. Such an approach is especially practical for visitors who want to combine the cultural program with touring the hinterland of the Opatija Riviera, walks, cycling tours, or exploring places connected with local heritage.
Heritage as living practice, not only memory
The Matulji area is known for its strong connection with intangible heritage, and the wider Kastav area is internationally recognized for its bell-ringers' processions. The Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia, describing the annual carnival procession of bell ringers from the Kastav area, states that groups from places such as Bregi, Brgud, Mučići, Mune, Rukavac, Zvoneća, Žejane, and other settlements visit villages along traditional routes, wearing bells and sheepskins, thereby maintaining a custom that has an important social function. Although the Festival "Bilo (j') vavek veselo" is not a carnival procession, it belongs to the same broader cultural framework in which local identity is preserved through performance, participation, and public gathering.
In this sense, old-style singing, sopnjada, dance, and local speech are not nostalgic decorations of the program, but means of transmitting knowledge. They show how the local community remembers its predecessors, how it recognizes its own language, and how it brings younger generations closer to what cannot be fully learned from written sources. The performances of KUD Učka, the drama section, local musicians, and guest performers therefore have a dual role: they entertain the audience, but at the same time preserve the continuity of cultural amateurism, Čakavian expression, musical heritage, and the staged depiction of former life.
The Municipality of Matulji highlights on its pages the work of cultural associations and the importance of maintaining cultural amateurism, and in the description of KUD Učka it mentions the cultivation of a repertoire connected with Ivan Matetić Ronjgov and the Istrian scale. This is relevant context for understanding the festival because it shows that the musical program in Škrapna is not an isolated event, but part of a broader network of associations, choirs, drama groups, and individuals who continuously work in the Matulji area to preserve local expression. When such work gains a festival stage, it becomes more visible and more accessible to audiences who may otherwise not follow the regular activities of associations.
Matulji Summer Evenings continue the program under the open sky
The festival in Škrapna is part of the broader summer program "Matuljske ljetne večeri – Tramontana će vas ofriškat", an event that, according to the published June program, has been held in Matulji since 1995. The program takes place at several locations and includes concerts, children's plays, school and musical performances, folklore and cultural content, and other forms of outdoor socializing. A special atmosphere is also created by the very name of the program, which relies on the tramontana, a wind that organizers' texts mention as a recognizable part of the local summer experience.
After the festival in Škrapna, the June program continues with content for different generations. According to the published program, the puppet show for children "Svojeglavi Štapić", performed by the RECiŠOU Association, is announced for Thursday, June 18, starting at 8 p.m. in Bregi. The musical part of the program continues on Sunday, June 21, with a concert by the TarLyn duo, consisting of Lina Grlaš and Tara Marmilić, in the Matulji amphitheater, starting at 8 p.m. The June program, according to the same announcement, concludes with a performance by the Vocal Group Sonas on Sunday, June 28, also at 8 p.m. in the Matulji Amphitheater.
The program also includes Matuljicious Bike&Taste guided e-bike tours, which, according to announcements, take place on Wednesdays from June 10 to September 16, from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., with prior registration and a limited number of participants. In this way, the summer program of Matulji connects cultural events, recreation, local products, and tourist exploration of the area. For those who want to follow several events in a row, especially when programs take place in the evening hours, accommodation near the event venues can be a practical choice, especially because of the program schedule at different locations in the municipality.
Škrapna showed why "vavek veselo" is more than a name
This year's edition of the festival showed that tradition is most convincingly transmitted when it is not closed within ceremonial protocols, but when it is performed before people, in the space to which it belongs, and with the participation of the community. In one evening, Škrapna brought together memories of childhood, musical excellence, local humor, the Čakavian word, a historical lecture, and the flavors of the region. Precisely for this reason, the name "Bilo (j') vavek veselo" did not act only as a nostalgic formula, but as a description of an atmosphere in which past and present meet without pathos and without loss of authenticity.
The festival once again confirmed that small local events are often important places for preserving cultural diversity. They do not attract attention with large production effects, but with immediacy, recognizable speech, homemade flavors, and the participation of people who do not present heritage as a distant topic, but as part of their own lives. In Škrapna, therefore, the program was not only watched; people listened, tasted, remembered, and talked there. Such encounters give meaning to summer evenings in Matulji and confirm that old customs can remain alive when they are passed on in real encounters, before an audience, and in a community that understands them.
Sources:
- Tourist Board of the Municipality of Matulji – official announcement of the Festival of Old-Style Singing, Sopnjada, Dance, Speech, and Cuisine "Bilo (j') vavek veselo" with data on the program, organizer, participants, and logistics (link)
- ArtKvart – June program "Matuljske ljetne večeri – Tramontana će vas ofriškat" with the announcement of the festival, the play "Svojeglavi Štapić", the TarLyn duo concert, and Matuljicious Bike&Taste tours (link)
- Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of Liburnia – information on the partisan hospital SRS I/2 "Ljubica", its location, organization, and historical role (link)
- Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia – description of the annual carnival procession of bell ringers from the Kastav area as intangible cultural heritage inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List (link)
- Matulji Tourist Board / Visit Matulji – description of Matulji as the green-blue hinterland of the Opatija Riviera and an area connected with tradition, routes, and local experiences (link)
- Municipality of Matulji – information on cultural associations, the work of KUD Učka, and the importance of cultural amateurism in the local community (link)