database encoding

Hi.

I set the database encoding to utf-8
(Croatian collation and character type)
and when I try to add a new record via html form
(the web page is also utf-8) I get, for example, &#273 instead of "đ",
in database table.
Everything is correctly displayed on the web page after submitting a form
but not in database.
Should I change the database encoding to windows 1250 or the problem is
somewhere else ?

Thanks