2008-05-11 14:50:41

Jobs in Serbia: Expats Wanted

Rosemary Bailey Brown RSS / 11.05.2008. u 15:50

Over the past nine months, since I've begun blogging, no fewer than five Western businesses have approached me wondering if I'd like to work for them in their new Serbian office. None of them knew anything about my skills, education, experience, or had even met me in person. They only knew I was an American businesswoman who now lives part of the year in Serbia. They've ranged from bio-tech companies to Internet firms.

Although Western companies do, on occasion, aggressively headhunt top qualified candidates for key positions, pinging random bloggers to see if they want jobs is not

 
2007-11-29 09:40:53

Notes from a Serbwife Wintering in Nepal

Rosemary Bailey Brown RSS / 29.11.2007. u 10:40

Thanks to the Internet and a forbearing boss, this year I left formal office life behind to live anyplace in the world (with Net access) that my heart desires.  My heart, as it turns out, pretty much desires to live wherever my husband is. 

That said, although I loved our time this summer and fall in his hometown of Sombor Serbia, when he announced we were moving to Nepal for the winter so he could do some trekking, I was So Not Excited.  I bitched, I moaned, I whined, I was not a pleasant person.  I never wanted to own hiking boots and 3rd world countries don’t sound enticing

 

If you yourself are a Serb expatriot (of which I suspect thousands surf B92 weekly) or you are a foreigner married to a Serb, I've started a new Facebook group for us to gather. It's free, but you must be a Facebook member (which is also free.) I've learned though this blog and my own separate blog that I'm not the only non-Serb out there who is in that crazy world of being married to a Serb. So, I figured, let's make company for each other!

Specific Instructions:

#1. If you are not on http://www.facebook.com already, create a free account for yourself.  You can create a

 

And now for something completely different from current politics... and yet, sadly, just about as depressing. A few B92 blog readers have emailed me asking if I have any tips on teaching their wives/girlfriends/boyfriends Serbian. Here's what I know - if you have any tips to add please do.

#1. Be nice. Serbian is a very hard language to learn.

In the first throes of love or infatuation, your new partner will inevitably volunteer to learn your language. Then he or she will actually try to learn some. Unless he or she is a language-genius or you live fulltime in Serbia surrounded

 
2007-10-06 16:27:29

Funniest Sites About Serbs (in English)

Rosemary Bailey Brown RSS / 06.10.2007. u 17:27

I'm not a Serb myself, just married to one.  So I only understood about 10% of the jokes on these sites... but they seemed fairly funny to me. I showed them to my step-children who laughed hard but wouldn't explain anything, "You have to be a Serb to understand."  Well, ok, you guys are Serbs, so maybe you'll understand.  Are these funny or not?  And are there any better funny sites about being a Serb?  Because, you know, sometimes we just all need a laugh.

#1.  You Know You're

 

Just got back from Nepal, where I got many emails from Belgrade friends saying if we are going to buy in Belgrade, now is the time before prices go insane.  Belgrade is cheaper now than Zagreb and Zadar where my husband's parents still live.  And what with favorable politics, rich Russians and Kosovo-ites and perhaps loads of East-West spies and diplomats all descending on Belgrade - plus the looming someday maybe of EU membership - I guess we'd be crazy not to buy.

But then I wonder if it's a good investment after all.  Prices seem very high in relation to typical salaries.  Any

 

A reader just emailed me to ask about retiring in Serbia. I'm not retired yet, but definitely considering things. Plenty of expat Serbs do retire in Serbia now, and that number will increase phenomenally if/when economic and political stability are on the horizon. Here are my tips and I'd love to hear yours:

o Cheap living -- Belgrade is pretty pricey (although not compared to London, New York or Boston), but other places, such as my part-time hometown of Sombor Serbia are remarkably cheap. You can buy or build a house for very little, perhaps 100k Euros for a nice house in the best

 

On Sunday night, a couple of local friends stopped by our little house in Sombor, Serbia with their 13 year old daughter.   After half an hour of polite attention, she began to slump in her chair, bored, bored, bored with all the grownups chatter.  "Rosemary, I bet she would like to play on the Internet.  Show her your computer," my husband ordered.  Armed with a plateful of chocolate cookies, I led her into my home office to go online.  

She honestly had no idea what to do online (something unimaginable in a 13 year old US girl but typical of her peers here I've found).  So I

 

According to The Economist's 2008 World Rankings Book, the average Serb (man, woman, and child) smokes 5.8 cigs per day, ranking them as the Top 9 Most Smoking Countries on Earth.  That's a lot of smoking.

Greece comes in at #1 with 8.4 cigs per day; Macedonia is #2 at 7.1 cigs per day, Russia is #3 at 6.8, and Slovenia kicks Serbian smoker ass at #5 with 6.2 cigs per day.  Bosnia is below at #13 (5.2 per day) and Croatia is not ranked on the list.  Yet oddly, Croatia has by far the highest cancer deaths rate of the region at 167 deaths per 100,000 population.  (Serbia spends a far

 

This is my first post to B92 (thanks for inviting me Dejan!) and I feel rather self conscious about it. Which proves to be inspirational because that is the way I think most Serbs feel about America. According to most of my Serb acquaintances, America as a country hates Serbia. America is a big mean bully, glittering with gold, nuclear weapons, and Hollywood celebrities, that personally hates Serbs and wants to cause problems for them.

When I married my Serb husband, none of his family and friends from Serbia came to the wedding in the US even when we offered to pay for all travel.

 

Rosemary Bailey Brown

Rosemary Bailey Brown
Datum rоđenja:  05.05.1962 Pol:  Ženski Član od:  20.09.2007 VIP izbora:  33 RSS RSS Feed Saznajte više o autoru

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