BRITIC – AN ONLINE MAGAZINE
Whenever you think you might have missed an important announcement about Serbia or any of the newest things happening around the UK when it comes to the Serbian society, I recommend visiting this great online magazine. It might not be considered a hobby to read news, but who knows… maybe you will find an article in here that inspires you to try something new.
Britic actually started off as a hard-copy magazine about 11 years ago, and the minds behind this brilliant idea, Aleks Simic and Stan Smiljanic, were mailing it to thousands of Serbian households around the UK. They were both born in Britain, but their parents come from Serbia, Bosnia, Lika and Slovenia; all of which makes them great candidates to dive into the topics that they write about in the magazine. They saw how much our Balkan community needed a boost of culture and spirituality after the wars in the 90s, and they wanted to provide the people with the means to feel connected to someone again.
They have since moved on to digital magazine, as the time went by, and more and more people went online for any kind of information. The magazine offers information on local and global news and reaches many people around the world. Most of their views come from the UK, but they have also intrigued people in the USA, Canada, Germany and many Balkan countries.
Both Stan and Aleks have day jobs, and they put as much of it possible into the magazine. The costs of having an online magazine are not being covered with the ads, but they are still determined to keep making the website better for the sake of their loyal ‘followers’. They will be having a revamp of it sometime this year, and with that, they hope to make it even easier for the viewers to make their way around the website.
All the texts on the website are available in English, and about 10-20% of them are even available in Serbian as well. As this is an online magazine in the UK, it is more than understandable that the main language is English, but Stan wanted to add that: ‘It is a sad truth that relatively few of our children growing up here (England) attend Serbian language lessons. So, while everyone who lives here needs English in order to thrive, many younger Serbs do not find reading Serbian at all easy.’
If you do think that there will be any interesting information on there for you, please visit them on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Britic/
or go straight to their website
or if you’re more of a phone person like me, download their app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=rs.tp.Britic
FOLK DANCING GROUPS LONDON
If you have ever wanted to pick up a new hobby that will involve dancing, having fun and representing where you come from, Kud Rastko London is a place for you!
This amazing group for traditional folk dance has been around for 35 years, and it welcomes people of all ages, which means you, your child and your grandmother can all be a part of something extraordinary.
You can become a member of their ‘family’ no matter where you come from, as right now their groups are a mixture from across the Balkan region. There are many that were born in the UK, but also many that came over from their countries at some point of their lives, which makes it a good mixture for socialising and helping each other out if needed.
The choreographer Nada Grkinic has been running the group since it was first formed in 1983 and she is the one training all the groups, including the juniors. Tanya Lezaic, who has been a member of Kud Rastko London for more than 20 years has explained: ‘My aunt and my uncle were members of Rastko and were taught by the same person, teta Nada, which makes the group even more family and tradition orientated. There are many people who have met friends for life, as well as their partners, if I may add that as a cheesy note.’ She also mentioned that there are many opportunities for competitions around the world as well as performing.
Last year Rastko participated in the ‘Evropska Smorta’ in Banja Luka, performing as a guest group. They’ve also travelled with their group to Chicago, Canada,Paris, Munich and many more.
If you would like to see them here in London, they are performing for St Sava weekend and Vidovdan at the church hall in Ladbroke grove.
If you would like to join, they are doing the official sign ups in September, but are open to excepting new members all year round as well, and the membership is paid yearly. There are practices from September until June, each week on Sunday afternoon and evening, depending on your age group. Tuesday evenings are specially allocated to the mature dancers’ group, called Nemanje.
For more information please do visit their Facebook page
Instagram account
https://www.instagram.com/kudrastko_london/
Youtube channel
Balkan in London 