Not Another Croatian Blog Entry

Last fall, chief researcher Marilyn Terrell spent a week in Croatia, and then couldn't stop blogging about it. The tide of Croatia-themed entries did eventually ebb, but one remaining bit of trivia has been lapping at IT's shores, and we felt it was time to let this last Balkan wave break over you, our Croatia-thirsty readers.

Croatia hasn't joined the EU yet, so it still has its own money, called the kuna. Kuna is also the Croatian name for the marten, a furry weasel-like mammal related to the mink. The website Croatia-in-English has the story (complete with a photo of a coin from about 1250) of how this currency came to be named after a weasel:

In ancient times the kuna pelt was an export item from many regions of what is today Croatia. Around A.D. 1000, the towns of Cres and Beli (on the island of Cres) had to pay an annual tribute in kuna pelts to the Venetian authorities. This was the first known instance of the kuna pelt being used directly as payment.

Between the 13th and 16th centuries, a coin called the banovac was minted with a picture of a marten on it. During Croatia's brief independence between 1939 and 1945, they created a currency inspired by that earlier coin, this time actually called the kuna. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Croatia had to choose a new currency to replace the Yugoslav dinar, and they went back to the kuna.

In Zagreb you can see the image of a running kuna on the roof of St. Mark's church. The roof tiles are laid out to represent the coat of arms of the 19th-century kingdom encompassing Croatia (checkerboard), Dalmatia (three little lions wearing crowns), and Slavonia (the kuna).