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.