I went to Novi Sad on 7 July, to hand over a patrol vehicle to the head of the local police. We are just coming up to the annual EXIT rock festival in Novi Sad, and this year, as for the last two years, we are expecting about 9000 Brits to turn up. They arrive in various ways, some by air via Belgrade or Budapest, others by bus, train or car: many will spend four or more nights camping at a special festival camp site. Altogether, some 100,000 people will attend over the whole period of the festival, but visitors from the UK make up the largest single foreign contingent. Many of the guest bands are British too.
Naturally, this great influx of visitors imposes a considerable burden on the local administration, the police in particular, and over the last few years we have worked very closely with them in the run-up to each year's festival. This year, we arranged for two Novi Sad police officers to visit the Glastonbury festival, so they could see how the Somerset police manage things, and when we asked what else they needed, they said some support with vehicles. Which is why I handed over the keys to a new Skoda (the same make as their existing cars) this morning. It will help them patrol the event better, and when that's over they will assign it permanently to the 'foreign visitors' section of the police car pool, so it will go on helping them to support the growing number of tourists who come to Novi Sad.
After that I went with the Mayor and police chief to look at the camp site, where many Brits have already arrived. The site is new this year: last year one visitor from Macedonia was killed when a branch fell from a tree at the well-wooded site, and so they had to find somewhere new, and safe. The first idea was to place the camp by the river, but the Danube is very high this year and that site flooded. So the plans changed again, and another site was found, at an old army barracks within the Petrovaradin fortress itself (the festival site). Everything had to be got ready at top speed, but they managed it, and the first arrivals seemed very happy with what they found.
EXIT opens on Thursday; we will have an Embassy team on hand, to help with any consular problems. Let's hope there aren't any serious issues to deal with, and they can just enjoy the music too!
Posted at 09:30 08 July 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth | Comments[6]
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Were we cycling the joint European future of the region?
Today we are hosting an
entry written by Vladan Avramovic, member of our Projects team, and a 'Danube by Bike' tour participant.
A team of staff from the British Embassies in Budapest, Zagreb and Belgrade joined in the 'Danube by Bike' Tour. Altogether, four hundred people cycled the length of the Danube river in Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania last week. It was an opportunity to bring together people from all over Europe - EU member states, Western Balkan countries and Turkey - to encourage integration and dialogue, whilst raising awareness of the rich cultural heritage of Southeast Europe.
The British Embassy Team cycled from Budapest in Hungary, through Osijek and Vukovar in Croatia and on to Novi Sad and Belgrade in Serbia. The tour left the participants with a sense of pride, and a number of new friends. We were only cycling – but we feel we contributed a little to the European future of the region.
Serbia leg of the tour
The Serbia leg of the tour started on Saturday 27 June in Novi Sad and took the group to Sremski Karlovci where it boarded the tourist train, “Nostalgia”. Several keen cycling enthusiasts carried on to Slankamen where they were rewarded with what is claimed to be the best fish soup on Danube. The British Embassy Cycling Team agrees!
The day ended with an astonishing group ride through Belgrade which brought together more that 500 cyclists. It was a celebration of the European diversity and environmental consciousness, and for local, sometimes not very cyclist-friendly, car drivers, a unique opportunity to get the feeling of being an oppressed minority. It might help a few of them to respect cyclists' rights better in the future!
We posted news, views, photos and videos on the following Tumblr site throughout the tour, from its start in Budapest on Tuesday 23 June to the grand finale in Belgrade on the evening of Saturday 27 June: http://danubebybike.tumblr.com/. There is more about the tour on: http://danubebybike.eu/home.html and on the Embassy FlickR pages.
Posted at 15:51 29 June 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth | Comments[3]
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On 3 February we organised a trip to Novi Sad to catch up on developments. It's always a pleasure to go there - there's a real feeling of positive dynamism now, of people working together with a common objective of promoting the region and doing a good job for the ordinary people.
I had a number of meetings, including with the Speaker of Vojvodina Provincial Assembly, and I gave an interview to the local newspaper, Dnevnik. Naturally I was interested in hearing about the progress of the Vojvodina Statute.
Everyone dismissed out of hand the scare stories put around by the right wing parties that this is in some way a first step towards 'separatism'. Vojvodina politicians are now doing 'outreach' visits to other parts of Serbia to put the facts across clearly. Coming from the United Kingdom, which has devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, each with its own powers, it was interesting to hear how Serbia's politicians are trying to balance the wish of local people to have more say in their own affairs against the need to respect and promote the role of the central institutions.
Maybe some people reading this will have their own views on this?
Posted at 14:56 07 February 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth | Comments[6]
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As a blog writer, it's always interesting when you get some feedback. Mostly, this is when people leave comments on this page (as anybody reading this can do, by filling in the box below, in English or in Serbian).
But now and again you find references popping up in quite different places. I was browsing through 'NIN' the other day (15 January edition), and found one of their correspondents getting quite excited about my blog. He'd been busy; he'd read my pieces about Scottish dancing, about my impressions of last year, about my nice day out in Novi Sad, even my comments about the Radicals.
Then, in a box on the next page, Mr Todorovic of the Radicals (Beard and Badge) got a little over-excited about supposedly over-mighty foreign Ambassadors, and ended up calling me an ' English ballet dancer' ('baletan'). So he must know about my Scottish dancing blog piece too. I never had him down as a fan. Mind you, if he thinks that England is the same as Scotland, and that Scottish country dancing is the same as ballet, maybe he should get out more often...
Posted at 09:42 23 January 2009 by Stephen Wordsworth | Comments[2]
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