In the small Croatian town of Koprivnica, a handful of devotees have been regularly organizing Nama Hatta programs since 1994. Koprivnica is an industrial town in the north of Croatia, with the closest ISKCON temple more than 100 km away. That makes it difficult for devotees to attend temple programs and festivals. Fortunately, Koprivnica is also home to several enthusiastic devotees who didn’t let these circumstances negatively affect their spiritual lives.
Their community is small, only 3 devotees who tirelessly care for the wider community of 100 devotees from surrounding towns and villages. As summer has arrived to this part of the world, they have recently organized the Chandan Yatra and boat festivals. It took them a week to prepare for the program. They bought a small inflatable pool, bhoga for cooking the feast and cleaned the backyard where the festival was going to take place. With great joy they spent 2 days preparing the feast for all the Vaishnavas. On the day of the festival more than 100 devotees were happily singing, dancing and glorifying Krsna. Every devotee did some service. Some fanned the Deities, some pulled the “boat” around the pool, some served prasadam, honored prasadam, played musical instruments, sang and danced. The sounds of the Mahamantra resonated around the backyard of Maharasa mataji whose house and garden are always open for visiting devotees and big festivals.
Without the initiative of these few Vaishnavas, most of the other devotees in the area would miss out on having regular devotee association and celebrations. Every program is also an opportunity to bring new people and introduce them to Krsna Consciousness in a very joyful way. Those who come for these programs very happily invite their friends and family members because they know that they will be received with a lot of care and kindness and will leave wanting to come back for more.
