Blog – Page 27 – Ecotopia Biketour

Biketour supports struggles against Gold Mine in Rosia Montana

leule September 16, 2013 October 28, 2013

In the last few weeks, a huge wave of protests has hit all parts of Romania (and beyond) since September as people fight against a catastrophic gold mining project in Rosia Montana, close to Cluj. This project has been initiated by the Canadian-owned Rosia Montana Gold Corporation and would be the largest gold mine in Europe. The project would use cyanide-mining techniques requiring thousands of tonnes of the dangerous chemical, which would have massive impacts on the environment of the whole region. Or better to say, on that part of the region that would still be left; the project would…

Biketour supports Worker Run Factory Struggle: Jugoremedija

kate September 12, 2013 October 31, 2013

In Zrenjanin we met up with some of the ex workers from a long standing worker owned factory struggle at Jugoremedija, that has been under threat of Privatization since 2000. Serbian politicians and investors fear this kind of organising, despite being sucessful, will “bring us back to the dark days of self-management”. You can read an English write up of the history of the struggle, and similar struggles in Serbia, in the above link. We spent one night hosted in the garden of a library that was donated to the council by the author of serval books about the resistance…

Every Day Action at Inex Film: Beograd

kate September 12, 2013 October 28, 2013

On entering Belgrade (8th September) we met up with some of the local Critical Mass crew along the Danube, led by a Serbian Biketour veteran, who showed us some of the problems for cyclists that are squeezed off the roads by heavy car and summer pedestrian traffic. Our mini Critical Mass ended on the outskirts of Belgrade, at the ex cinematography factory, now a thriving squatted social center where we were to be hosted called Inex Film. The huge building at Inex was once left abandoned, and squatted by various characters, latterly artists and activists who revived it from being…

Beyond Borders: On film in Hungarian

agnessiob September 9, 2013 March 3, 2017

In Novi Sad we met up with a film crew for the local Hungarian language TV, and here are the results! The first 7:30min relate to the Beyond Borders biketour: For those that don’t speak Hungarian, in the clip we talk about the history of Ecotopia Biketour, this year´s beyond borders theme, how we organise and also our route. Novi Sad is in the Vojvodina region, where there are several minority languages including Hungarian. In the clip they also mention the sections of our biketour which pass through other regions with Hungarian speaking minorities, such as the last leg of…

Anti Car Dogs, Military Tunnels and Serbian TV… Biketour in Novi Sad

kate September 7, 2013 October 27, 2013

The following day we followed the Danube all the way to Novi Sad just in time for the 3rd year anniversary event of CK13, a social centre for arts, culture and politics, run voluntarily by some of our local hosts with a cafe, workshop spaces an anarchist info shop, and a regular people’s kitchen. The evening’s theme was Veganism, Environmental Activism and Animal Rights. We watched a number of short films including Hrana za život (Food for Life) and Proždirući zemlju (Devour the Earth) and a speech by Phillip Wollen, subtitled in Serbian, on ‘Why animals should be off the…

Ecotopia Biketour Beyond Borders Video

kate September 6, 2013 March 3, 2017

(Vimeo link) Check out this beautiful video made during our kick off days in Berlin by the wonderful Claudia! … Subtitles available in German / Untertitel jetzt auch auf Deutsch: Download here/hier! (Video von vimeo runterladen und auf Computer speichern. Dasselbe mit der Untertitel-Datei. Video mit VLC-Player öffnen. Untertiteldatei auswählen. Abspielen!)

Vukovar’s alphabet wars are all in the signs

kate September 4, 2013 November 10, 2013

En route to Novi Sad we heard about the protests in Vukovar, (or Вуковар as the Serbian population would want it to be referred to) that had recently erupted over a longstanding dispute about minority language, that led to the newly erected Cyrillic signs being torn down from public buildings and three days of rallies and protests.*Protest image from this BBC News article. Since the 2011 census in Vukovar, it was recorded that the population of Serbians in the Croatian town had exceeded one third, which was the ‘legal’ requirement to have bilingual signs in both the Latin (Croatian), and…

Brčko, the Balkans’ ‘Free City’?

kate September 3, 2013 October 4, 2013

We left the common pastures of Croatia and again skirted the border between Croatia and Bosnia, finally crossing for a lunch spot at the border control point. Here an Italian man stopped to wish us well on our journey, only to then return 10 minutes later with a huge watermelon and bottles of fizzy pop; it was a warm welcome back to Bosnia. After the border crossing, the traces of the war became more and more apparent. Only too aware of the landmines that still contaminate the land, we were careful to find our camping spots either on recently made…