A local sculptor from Croatia – a small country in Central and Southeast Europe – is carving a life-sized stone replica of Mercedes Benz Minika car. Roko Drzislav Rebic is building the stone statue as a monument in the honour of thousands of migrant workers who left their homeland in search of better fortune abroad. The Mercedes became a symbol of their success as they would drive home in a car, proving that they fled poverty and unemployment, and came back with good fortune.
The Mercedes monument will be revealed on June 8 in Imotski, which is a small town situated on the slopes of the Dinara mountain. It is about 30 kilometres (48 miles) from the famed Adriatic coast. The stone for building the sculpture was brought from areas near Imotski and once the monument is finished it will weigh 50 tonnes.
Imotski’s population has decreased over decades due to successive waves of migration. “Our fathers and grandfathers moved away, mostly to Western Germany at the time to earn something. To show they have earned some money they would drive back home in their Mercedes car,” Ivan Topic, a man who runs a club of old-timer vehicles, told Reuters. Topic, who owns eight Mercedes cars, added, “Out of gratitude to them we are building this monument today.”
Imotski, which has the population of 25,000, estimatedly has up to 8,000 Mercedes cars in, Topic said. “Not all of the cars are registered.” he added.
In 1971, one of the biggest waves of economic migration initiated, when thousands of labourers left for Germany in search of work. Another such wave took place in 2018 after Croatia joined the European Union and thousands of young people left the country to work in Western Europe.