The vampire is nearly as old as humanity itself. Its features have shifted over the centuries, yet its most recognizable traits have proved remarkably durable.
These bloodthirsty undead were a particular scourge in plague-era Europe, a continent already gripped by fear of an invisible, deadly contagion that had wiped out vast swaths of its population.
Ancient, primal dread merged with the terror of an enemy no one could see or name, and belief in revenants grew stronger than ever.
Today, most people picture the vampire as a suave, aristocratic count who seduces his victims with charm rather than savagery — nothing like the feral, grave-risen creature of older tradition.
From Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the vampire’s image was changed forever. By the time Anne Rice reimagined Lestat as a rock star in Queen of the Damned, the original myth — the sinister revenant who fed on the life force of others — had become nearly unrecognizable.
That is why we set out to retrace the steps of the first documented vampire in history, Jure Grando, across a strange borderland where Croatia, Slovenia and Italy meet.
Jure Grando: A Real Vampire?
To understand Jure Grando, we must travel back to the mid-17th century.
The setting is Istria, an Adriatic peninsula that at the time fell under the dominion of the Republic of Venice. Its population, however, had grown predominantly Slavic — settlers from Eastern Europe who had put down roots there centuries earlier.
That heritage helps explain why Slavic folklore was already deeply rooted in local belief by the time Jure Grando died.
Grando was an unremarkable peasant, one among many in the village of Kringa, where he spent his entire life — marrying, raising a couple of children, and dying as quietly as he had lived.
In 1656, Jure Grando died of an illness, most likely an infectious one. His body was laid out, mourned, and buried according to the customs of the time. That is where the official record ends.
What followed is far stranger. Documents from the period indicate that for the next 16 years, Jure Grando kept rising from his grave to terrorize his former neighbors. He was said to be a štrigon — the local Slavic word for a “vampire” or “undead.”
This is no mere local legend. It survived because a scholar, Janez Vajkard Valvasor, recorded it in one of his books with the rigor of a man who took testimony seriously. In doing so, Grando became the first documented vampire in history.
In his account, Valvasor collected testimony from the villagers themselves, who claimed that after his death, Jure roamed the village every night, spreading terror through the streets.
Sometimes he would stand outside a door for hours, then knock just before dawn and slip back to his grave before sunrise. The knock was taken as an omen of death: within days, someone in that household would die.
Jure even visited his widow, whom he reportedly attacked in her bedroom.
This went on for years. The villagers tried everything they could think of to rid themselves of him, and nothing worked.
The haunting finally ended when one of the villagers decapitated him as he lay in his grave during the day.
Peace returned to Kringa, though for years afterward the fear that Jure might come back never fully faded.
Kringa Embraces Its Legend
Today, Kringa lies in Croatia, which holds most of the Istrian peninsula. A strip in the north belongs to Slovenia, and a small area just south of Trieste is Italian.
The region draws visitors in large numbers because Croatia has become one of Europe’s hottest destinations. Kringa is no regional capital. It is a small village in the heart of the peninsula, but the legend of Grando has given it something larger towns cannot manufacture: a story that stops people in their tracks.
The village has embraced its identity as the “home of the vampire” with quiet confidence. What once spread terror in the 17th century now draws curious travelers who stop by and end up staying longer than planned, won over by how fully this community has welcomed its most notorious resident.
There is a small museum dedicated to Jure Grando, along with a walking trail that passes the houses where the vampire allegedly struck, as well as his burial site.
Local bars and restaurants have joined in, offering vampire-themed menus designed to give visitors one more reason to linger.
In the 21st century, superstition has largely given way to entertainment, and the vampire has become more romantic antihero than monster. Yet the fascination endures. Kringa has understood that the fame of Europe’s first documented štrigon is not just a curiosity. It is a way of telling the story of a people, their fears, and the long, strange arc of what we choose to believe in the dark.
