This week-end I went on a hiking trip to Novo Brdo, which used to be one of the most important cities in South Eastern Europe in Medieval times. It was an important mining centre, already the Romans had been mining gold and silver there. In Medieval times, Novo Brdo was bigger than London, for example. Now it is a tiny rural municipality consisting of 10 villages where about 3900 people live (cf. the OSCE municipal profile/pdf). People live mostly on agriculture. The aluminium, zinc, and lead mines - which employed about 800 workers before 1991 - practically ceased working. Click on "more" to see photos from the Novo Brdo mine, the entrance to the pit, and the workers changing room. We saw a few workers, visited the pit (which seems in quite bad shape, part of it is flooded), and learned that working 15-20 years in this mine results in an invalidity degree of 80%. Miners currently earn 130 euro/month.

The ICEG European Center, an economic research institute specialised on Central, Eastern, and South-Eastern Europe, publishes quarterly forecasts on the New Member States, on Southeast Europe and on the Hungarian economy and monthly reports on the economic developments in Southeast Europe (Southeast European Monitor). Amongst the last topics of the SEE Monitor: Stagnating Unemployment Challenges Macedonia; The current economic situation and the possible effects of parliamentary elections in Serbia; Montenegro and the Stabilisation and Association Agreement.