A hotel saving a shell-marked village

“More than anything, we want to be good neighbours,” added Sanja Bubalo, sales manager of the hotel, which opened in 2019. The property’s first project was to help restore the still-damaged home of the elderly couple living next door, who did not have the resources to do it themselves. So far, the hotel has worked to refurbish 10 buildings in town, and people have returned to live in some of them. Černevšek, who rents a room from the couple, explained, “There are plans to set up a foundation. We will work with others to tackle difficult problems such as the lack of public transport.”

Much of the village burnt down during WW2 and though it was rebuilt in the 1970s, it is still recovering from conflict in the 1990s. Indeed, this part of Croatia has a long history of conflict. While Plitvice Lakes is the country’s oldest and largest national park (opened in 1949), it was also the site of one of the first acts of aggression between Croatians and Serbs in the break-up of Yugoslavia, and this area witnessed battles throughout the ensuing war. As a result, many residents fled and never returned. 

Once a thriving community predominantly made up of ethnic Serbs, Ličko Petrovo Selo now has only a few hundred villagers, many whom are more than 80 years old. As we sat in the hotel’s reception area, Sonja Henka, a social activist and local tour guide, told me, “Some buildings are owned by people who now live abroad, vacationing here occasionally, others are completely abandoned.”

Henka was among some 250,000 refugees displaced from Croatia in the wake of the Croatian military’s Operation Storm campaign. “In 1995, my family and I fled to save our lives,” she said. When she returned home in 2002, she had trouble finding work despite a university education. “There is indirect discrimination against Serbs,” she said. “We often seem forgotten.”

The hotel aims to bring together the ethnically diverse community, and that process starts with its staffing policy and its collaboration with locals such as Henka. Sales manager Bubalo is Serbian, receptionist Ana Rukavina is Croatian, and another receptionist is Bosnian. “We try to hire an equal number of staff of these three nationalities,” Bubalo explained.

The property also attempts to train up younger residents, like Rukavina, who is one of only five year-round villagers under the age of 25. She started interning at the hotel when she was 16 and now holds a job as receptionist. “I hope I will continue to live in Ličko Petrovo Selo,” she told me from behind the reception desk, where she shares her local knowledge with visitors, telling them about the village’s history and places to visit in the surrounding Lika region of Croatia, as well as across the border in Bosnia.

Guests can also learn about the town’s past from older generations who lived it. Henka explained that Hotel Lyra was built on the site of the former primary school – and she remembers when it had hundreds of pupils attending. “When I lived here in the 1990s, there were factories, shops and an air base – it was a busy place, full of people of all ages,” she recalled.

The remnants of Zeljava airfield complex, built during the 1950s and ’60s, are also nearby, and on my trip, Henka led us from the hotel on foot to see them: an abandoned Douglas C-47B Dakota plane, a disused airbase and a partially destroyed underground airport and military base.

The history of war is not the only thing she wants to pass on to visitors though. When she returned home to the village, Henka became worried that local Serbian culture and traditions were dying out, so in 2004 she founded the Tara Community Association, bringing together the women of the village to share and pass on their weaving and knitting skills. When the hotel opened, it gave her and the other members of Tara more opportunities to educate people about their culture by holding demonstrations there and by selling their knitted, woven and embroidered items in the hotel gift shop.

Local goods can also be found in Lyra’s restaurant: much of its food is sourced from family farms in the area, and local cooks prepare homestyle recipes for guests. And that’s just one way the hotel is addressing its sustainability mission. Others include the use of 123zero‘s all-natural, vegan, plastic-free toiletries; and a commitment to not serving beef in the restaurant. “Covid has meant we have not done as much as we would like,” Bubalo said. “Our priority now is to fit solar panels.” 

Through all this effort, the hotel team hopes to forge a deeper connection not only with visitors but with the area’s history and future. “We want our guests to understand the unique place where they are staying,” said Bubalo. That understanding will likely start with a taste of locally made plum brandy, a custom that the Lyra team picked up from their neighbours. “A traditional welcome involves bread dipped into salt, of course washed down by silovica,” said Henka.

In July 2022, the village celebrated its 230th anniversary. It was an event that brought everyone together for a celebration outside the Orthodox Church. According to Henka, “Five years ago, this was a ghost village, it is beginning to come back to life. We are proud of our past and have hope for our future.”

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