Kringa

Kringa is situated five kilometres southern of Tinjan on the spot of the Iron Age edifice later a Roman fortress, the second largest settlement in the Tinjan municipality. Among the founds from the Earlier Stone Age there are remarkably, almost artistically elaborated idols. Written sources take account of Kringa from 1102 onwards under the name of Curitico or Coriticum. In the Middle Ages it is the constituent part of the Pazin principality.

In the central part of the settlement there is the parish church of St. Peter and St. Paul's from 1787 along with the piazza adorned with two rustic stone cisterns and a hackberry (Celtis australis) tree.The notable Istrian priest and community worker Božo Milanović (1890-1980) was born in Kringa. He was also on of the Istrian representatives on the 1946 Paris peace conference, where the Istrian post-war destiny was defined. A memorial stone in his honour was placed on the building where he lived and worked. This fairly small village has other three older churches which can be explored by taking a short circular walk: St. Anna's church from 1558 on the cemetery, St. Catherine's church and St. Anthony the Abbot’s church, along with the rustic Calvary built in 1876. Nowadays Kringa has been more and more notable for Juro Grande, the oldest European vampire and for the unusual events from 1672 related to his character of which Johann Weikard Valvasor took account.

Jure Grando and the nine brave men
Jure Grando is the earliest European vampire to be recorded in written documents by given and family name. The testimony of his elimination in 1672 was recorded by Johann Weikhard Valvasor, famous Slovenian traveller and writer in his book The Glory of the Duchy of Carniola.
According to Valvasor`s records, Jure Grando was an inhabitant of Kringa, who died and was buried in the usual way in 1656. But on the first night after the funeral he rose from the grave, wandered around Kringa banging on house doors where soon somebody would die. He would also visit his widow every night, forcing her to comply with her marital duties

After sixteen years of such terror, the mayor of Kringa, Miho Radetić, gathered nine people from the village. They opened Grando`s grave, found in it the completely preserved body with rosy cheeks. After unsuccessfully trying to pierce the body with a hawthorn stake, they cut off his head and refilled the grave. Valvasor concluded his record by saying that Jure Grando molested the inhabitants of Kringa never again.