11 March 2009 | Belgrade Alternative Guide is a project set up by 10 young Serbians who see it as their responsibility to show visitors the true Belgrade.

“First we set up the website, which has been online for about a month,” says Nebojsa Bozovic, one of the people behind the Belgrade Alternative Guide. On the website www.belgradealtguide.com the ‘tour guides’ introduce themselves and explain the idea behind the project.

The idea, it seems, is for students and young people from Belgrade to show visitors a different side to the city, to help them uncover places that only the locals know.

Visitors to Belgrade can complete a contact form to introduce themselves to the Belgraders. “We want them to tell us what they like, what they enjoy doing so that we can take them to events and venues that suit their taste as well as more traditional places, if that is what they are interested in”, says Nebojsa.

This week Belgrade Alt Guide had its first foreign ‘guests’: two young people from Brazil who were in Belgrade to give a presentation at Megatrend University. The two Brazilians found their guides on Facebook, got in touch with them and went on an tour of Belgrade and Zemun. “Aleksandar’s (one of the guides) grandmother was a famous cook during Yugoslav times. She prepared Sarma and the like, which our guests really didn’t expect and they were really touched. We want to make visitors feel at home. It is our pleasure to show them around the city,” explains Filip Balunovic, one of the guides.

Last week the organisation registered as an NGO and presented themselves and their idea to their local peers, at a party and presentation at Kulturni Centar Grad. The youngsters have also been in touch with the Belgrade Tourism Organisation and will be present at the Tourism Fair, taking place this weekend.

But unlike the tourist organisation, they do not merely want to act as conventional sightseeing guides nor are they interested in using their concept as a business model. Nebojsa explains,“I don’t think that we will ever commercialise our project because it would lose the personal touch.” They stress that they want to show young foreigners who come to Belgrade what life is like here and how it is different or similar to wherever they are from.

Belgrade is not a city you visit for its public buildings. Belgrade’s National Gallery has been closed for years, the Gallery of Modern Art does not look like it will be opened any time soon and the Ethnographic museum, without any labelling in English does not really cater for tourists either.

But at the same time, nor are there up to date tourist guides available that enable you to seek out the city’s hidden gems.

“Let’s face it. You can spend one afternoon or perhaps a maximum of one day looking at Belgrade’s monuments”, says Nebojsa. The team at B.A.G. want to help visitors get under the skin of the city.

“Incidents such as the death of the young French Football fan are devastating for us here and are bad publicity for Serbia and for Belgrade. It is our responsibility to promote the good side of Belgrade, the ones that you don’t normally read about in foreign newspapers.”

This article is courtesy of Balkan Insight, the online publication of the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, which contains analytical reports, in-depth analyses and investigations and news items from throughout the region covering major challenges of the political, social and economic transition in the Balkans.

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