GRABOVNICA, Croatia (Reuters) - Zlatko Salaj has come a prolonged approach from a dour Christmases of his youth.
The 67-year aged former telecommunications operative has incited his nation estate in Grabovnica, central Croatia, into a festival of light and colour that attracts thousands of visitors any year.
Starting in 2002 with 70,000 light bulbs hung on any of a hundreds of tiny trees and shrubs on his 7-hectare (17 acres) estate, Salaj has this year illuminated 1.2 million lights, many in a figure of Santa Claus, his sleigh and reindeer.
"My childhood was really... we were poor. My father had a indent though it was broken in World War Two. On tip of that, my mom left us when we was 4 so father and we finished adult alone," he told Reuters.
After a career spent abroad, mostly in a Middle East and Africa, Salaj returned home and set about a project, that he named "Christmas Story."
"It was a prodigy in a whole region, quite for children. People asked me how many lights we would use a following year and we pronounced '100,000'. So a series grew some-more and some-more any year."
He and his family laid 5 km (3 miles) of subterraneous electricity cables and roughly 180 km of wires placed on trees and shrubs. Every year he takes roughly 3 months to ready and another 3 to idle a decoration.
The electricity check for final Dec alone totalled some 70,000 kuna ($12,500) so Salaj started charging a tiny entrance fee, though has no goal of stopping.
"God willing, we competence have a good warn for Easter," he said.
($1 = 5.5999 Croatian kunas)
(Reporting by David Spaic Kovacic, modifying by Paul Casciato)
News referensi http://news.yahoo.com/croats-christmas-now-comes-million-lights-192650216.html
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