Hello!

I arrived in Serbia today, and was fortunate to be given a tour of 
Belgrade or Beograd, as it is spelled here - it means White City.  
(beo, Russian byle = white; grad, Russian gorod = city ...in the same 
way as Belarus means White Russia).  Today, the name seemed apt - the 
city was snowy, cold, and grey.  But it also seemed to me that it must 
have originally meant the beautiful side of white as we walked through 
the downtown decorated in ribbon and garlands for the holidays.

My tour guide was a young man who works for the office that has hired 
me to be here this week to do a training on local economic 
development.  He described the post-war climate in rather pessimistic 
terms - corrupt government, people who are slow to change, and the need 
for a shift in consciousness.  We drove past a few of the places that 
had been bombed and which still are not rebuilt - largely buildings 
that had a military role, he explained to me.  Ive attached a document 
with photos of the buildings.

We also walked through the commercial district, down to a pretty 
riverside park on the Danube, where another river flows into it.  While 
we were walking back, a crowd of people passed us, all dressed up in 
historical costumes, carrying flags.  The first two people we saw (I 
couldnt get my camera out fast enough, apologies) were two men dressed 
like medieval knights, and they took positions on either side of the 
crosswalk where this huge crowd was about to cross the road.  There 
were hundreds of people in the march, coming down a pedestrian mall.  A 
priest was videotaping the whole thing - looking something like a cross 
between Joan of Arc and Steven Spielberg.

My guide told me that it was a peaceful protest of the continued 
occupation of Kosovo by the international peacekeepers - people here 
want it returned to the Serbians.  Kosovo has many of the sacred sites 
of the Serbian Orthodox church, and it is memorialized for an 
historical battle against the Turkish invaders - my guide seemed to 
think that today might have been an anniversary of that battle.  The 
dangerous mix of nationalistic sentiment and religion that this has 
inspired here is the root of so many seemingly endless conflicts, when 
you think about it - Northern Ireland, Jerusalem...

I was surprised to learn from my guide that Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia 
for so many years, was a Mason.  I had never heard that before, but 
tonight when Hunter arrived she said that there are tours of Belgrade 
that show you all the buildings with Masonic symbolism integrated into 
them.  (Im here with my colleagues Hunter Lovins and Christopher 
Juniper from Natural Capitalism, Inc.)  My guide didnt know a lot 
about Masons, and attributed the belief that Tito was a Mason to the 
conspiracy theories that circulate to explain why he was able to hold 
such a contentious region in relative stability for as long as he did.

After the tour, we drove to Novi Sad, a city about two hours from the 
capitol.  This is where the training will take place, starting Tuesday. 
Im staying at the Alexander Hotel, which is quite a nice hotel by any 
standards - not the more spartan variety Ive come to expect in this 
region.  Its brand new - less than four months old, and I have a sense 
that I might be one of the first people to sleep in my hotel room.  The 
three of us were the only customers in the restaurant for dinner 
tonight, so its hard to say how much demand there is for four star 
hotels in the area.

Apologies if the picture file attached took some time to download - I 
tried to make them as small as possible, but I see the file still is 
about 1 MB.

Peace & love, Gwen.