When it comes to property in Motovun and its surroundings, Emil Soldatić is the key man in the local government. Blessed by exceptional memory, he knows all the houses and land lots by number. With his deep connections in the leading political party in Istria, of which he was the secretary general for many a year, he can always get any information he wishes from the key offices concerned with property rights on the peninsula. During the real estate boom, the main buyers were foreigners. “Let them buy everything,” he would laugh on occasion in one of Motovun’s watering holes. “One day we will kick them out just as we have done before, so we can sell everything once again!” And he knows what he is talking about. His father was one of the leading men in the hilltown under the communist regime. One way or another, property was in the hands of the single political party in existence at the time. Property, schmoperty. As Emil knows perfectly well, it is a question of power and nothing but power.