THE LATERNA MAGICA ROUTE – 251

The earliest known mention of the town’s name is the Zlahtaria estate, which was owned by the Bedeković family at the end of the 13th century. Zlatharia is the Latin form of the Croatian word Zlatar. However, the original form of the name of today’s Zlatar, as it was pronounced by the people who lived there at the time, was Zlatarjeva or Zlatarjevo. In the 19th century, Zlatar fully established itself as the administrative, political, economic and cultural centre of the entire region. In his book “Laterna Magica”, the writer Slavko Batušić described his childhood days in Zlatar, spent at the beginning of the 20th century. The book gives a detailed account of what the City looked like at that time, and what the culture and way of life were like. Read the book, hop on your bike and experience Zlatar in your own way, while thinking about how things were at the beginning of the 20th century. You start the route in the very centre of Zlatar, in the parking lot in front of the Zlatar Municipal Court building.