Greetings from the sunny and election obsessed Macedonia.
For few days I’ve been thinking if managing the visa problems is official part of the research. After having good time in Berlin, and a very very good time in Italy, I decided to take a rest from the vacation :). After enjoying few days in Skopje and surrounding mountains (which by the way is most beautiful in this time of the year) and getting used to the work, I started with the official research. Looking for contacts in Georgia and Abkhazia. Looking for ways to get the so much needed visa.
Looking for people, international experts and asking them for interview. The second part was easier, opposite of what I thought. The visa part was scary. In Macedonian ministry for foreign affairs I got information that I should go to Ankara, Turkey to get visa for Georgia. Funny or no you decide, but luckily in our MFA they don’t know a thing, so after I called the Georgian embassy in Ankara I was told that I can get the visa on the Georgian border. You can agree that that is a relief. On the other hand, I still need a visa for Abkhazia but that can be done by mail. First, I should get the permission for entering this unrecognized state. Then I need to go to the Abkhazian MFA to obtain the visa. Lets all hope that it will be given to me and that I won’t have to come back immediately.
The real fear came while reading about Abkhazia on internet. One US based site wrote that when traveling to Abkhazia, the person should get vaccines against like 10 things. How interesting is that. They even have malaria over there in the 21-century. But like always, when you don’t know a lot about something, your fear is exaggerated. The answer from the Macedonian health department is that there is no need for any vaccine, except getting some protection from the mosquitoes. OK, the research got back to normal.
For a while I forgot about Basque country (getting visa is much easier).
Also who cares about the shootings in Georgia because of the parliamentarian elections and the car-bomb in Basque Country.
That makes the research even more interesting (or scary). Just like it has started.

Magda Munteanu, Romanian Fellow of the Balkan Fellowship for Journalistic Excellence, on May 27 won the prize for “Best Financial Journalism” in a contest organised by the Romanian Press Club.

Magda was awarded for an investigation “Behind ARLO’s gate”, which looked into the main Romanian aluminum smelter, owned by a Russian company. The investigation was published by Romanian Business Week news magazine.

Cezar Ion, the president of the jury praised Magda’s investigation as having been written according to Anglo-Saxon journalism standards.

On her part, Magda said: “I am very proud of this prize. I believe that economic reporting is still a minor journalism genre in Romania so, there, I will continue to publish such articles and to better promote them.”

Romanian Press Club is the country’s main press organisation.

Gjergj Erebara in Berlin

On 1971, in a western Berlin movie, an old man walked looking around and asking: “Once, here there was the Potsda