THE REBIRTH OF CREATIVE BELGRADE – NEW YORK TIMES HEADLINES FOR THE WEEKEND

BELGRADE DESIGN WEEK HELPED CREATE A COMPLETELY NEW VIEW OF THE SERBIAN CAPITAL FOR ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST RESPECTABLE MEDIA

Positive news about Serbia and Belgrade are rare, especially if they are professional or analytical. The framework of this year’s international Belgrade Design Week – BDW – one of the world’s premier professional events in the field of creative industries, helped the lucid reporters of arguably the most reputable newspaper in the world, The New York Times, to be inspired by a burgeoning Serbian creative scene, and communicate their most recent findings in the fields of the general travel appeal, the particular gastronomy and the hospitality of Belgrade, but especially regarding art, architecture, design and urban developments of the city, marked by bold new projects.

The statement of BDW’s founder Jovan Jelovac, that “this new generation of Belgraders is super-open-minded about innovation and change”, was a superbly positive conclusion to this well lay-outed article on three pages in The New York Times’ weekly “T Magazine”, a luxurious color Sunday supplement, which is already posted on their blog under this  link .
The print edition of the T-magazine appears on newsstands around the world next weekend.

BDW’s effort is even more valuable if one takes into consideration that this non-profit organisation has virtually no support from the City of Belgrade or, for that matter, the Serbian Ministry of Culture, nor from the Serbia Investment and Export Promotion Agency (SIEPA), to the extent that Belgrade’s current Secretary for Culture, stated that BDW is an “unimportant event” and that she “has not received any instructions to support it”, which depicts the absurdity of the current cultural policy in the city and the country.

This article on the “creative development of Belgrade” presents, professionally measured, probably the most valuable and the most positive article of leading international media about Belgrade in the last thirty years, while being only the last of many great reports from BDW published in major international media such as the Spanish ABC, the British Guardian and the Financial Times, the Italian Il Sole 24 Ore, and many others.

Our thanks go to the phenomenal people at the New York Times, to the curious and innovative world travelers and media that convey the true picture of the real creative potential of Belgrade and Serbia, helping us to disseminate a real-life picture of a struggling society, often against interests of the corrupt local administration. And especially thanks to all the great creatives in Belgrade and Serbia, together with all those people of goodwill who are constantly working on the development of our society and culture of knowledge, without almost no support. You are, in addition to our great sportsmen, our almost only “courage-makers of the nation”.

Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/10/20/t-magazine/belgrades-awakening.html
http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/11/on-the-verge-belgrade-europes-latest-urban-success-story/?_r=1&