Bosnia's lady in red plans for the afterlife

[October 18, 2019]    BREZE, Bosnia (Reuters) - Zorica Rebernik has spent her life in red and plans to stay that way -- even after she dies.
 
 After four decades dressing in the color from head to toe, the 67-year-old Bosnian has had tombstones made for herself and husband Zoran -- whom she married wearing a red gown -- from a special red granite imported from India.

Zorica Rebernik, obsessed with the red color, drinks coffee in her house in the village of Breze near Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina October 16, 2019. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

The retired schoolteacher lives in a red house, where she and Zoran eat from red plates, drink from red glasses and sleep in red bedding. Even her hair is dyed red.

"When I turned 18 or 19 there came a sudden, strong urge to wear red," Rebernik told Reuters. "There must not be a single dot of any other color on my home decorations or clothes."

Wearing shades like scarlet and vermillion gives her "the feeling of strength and power".

Rebernik's obsession with the color has made her a local celebrity in her hometown of Breze, close to Tuzla in northern Bosnia.

"Everybody knows me. As soon as people see me, they offer me different red things," she said, adding that she would reject any gift that was not red, no matter how precious.

She even goes to funerals dressed in red, eschewing traditional black.

The only problem is that her husband does not notice when Zorica wears something new. "I can't tell the difference. Everything is the same," he said.

(Reporting by Dado Ruvic, Writing by Maja Zuvela, Editing by Catherine Evans)

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