Just a little while ago I was in Croatia for their national Baduk tournament. It was a very interesting and eye-opening experience. Despite the country's natural beauties what really touched me was the kindness of the locals and their vision that Baduk can be something more than just a game.
Recently Baduk has been seen more and more as a sport in Korea, strength is the most valuable quality and winning is almost all it matters. In Croatia Baduk is still taking baby steps and even thought they are small steps it's certainly on the right direction.
The organizer of the tournament, Mr. Mladen Smud , has a special class where he teaches mentally handicapped people how to play Baduk. He believes that Baduk can help improve their overall life quality. He enthusiastically told me how much some of his students enjoy his teaching program and about how Baduk is more than just a game but something that can be used to change our lives in a positive way.
One of the friends I made in Croatia, Vigor Grego, shows great interest in the game of Baduk. Currently a 3dan player he's trying his best to improve his Baduk strength. He has been studying Korean very hard in order to be able to read Korean Baduk books. He also plans to study Baduk in Korea in the future. After seeing his passion for Baduk I'm sure he will be able to achieve his goals.

Croatian players have a strong desire to improve their Baduk levels but that's rather difficult because of the lack of stronger players in Croatia, so they were very interested in wbaduk after I told them it's possible to play professional and semi-professional players in simultaneous games for free by just logging in to wbaduk.
One person I met in Croatia was very curious about Korean Baduk. His name was Mr Zvonko. He wanted to know about the professional system, general history of Baduk in Korea among other things. He told me that knowing the history of one of the 3 Baduk countries (Japan, China, Korea) could be helpful to Croatian Baduk. Because of his desire to learn more about Korean Baduk we have exchanged e-mails and he promised that next year there will be another Croatian Baduk tournament and it will be even bigger! I think that's very likely because of the passion Croatians have for Baduk.