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The Serbs population outside Serbia outnumbers the total number of Americans living abroad. Despite the fact that no accurate estimate exists of the total number of Serbs and Americans citizens living abroad, it could be taken with reliability that about 3.5 million American and 4 million Serbs live outside their homeland.
It is worth noting that Rosemary Bailey Brown, an American married to a Serb, claims in a recent blog post that "Even the Serbs who emigrate tend to form social clumps in their new lands. If you mention any country in the world to my husband, he'll automatically tell you roughly how many Serbs are living there, and he'll probably know how to get in touch with them." I'm sure that's true, Serbs are everywhere. There are 70,000 Serbs in Britain, 350,000 in Germany, 120,000 in France, 76,600 in Sweden, 97,000 in Australia, and 170,000 in the United States according to various estimates.
For many years, the Serbian Diaspora Ministry has tried to reverse the brain drain in developing policies to attract more skilled expatriates to make the move back to Serbia. Late last year, the Serbian Diaspora Ministry even came up with a survey that attempted to prove that many Serbs (two-thirds of people of Serb origin living abroad) intend to return to Serbia. Of course, it´s one thing to say: "I would return to Serbia" and another thing to do it. That's why it's interesting to see software development manager/fashion photographer Ivan Glisin who quit his IT job in Toronto to move back to Serbia:
"I was never even thinking of working as a fashion photographer. I took fashion photography course at George Brown College here in Toronto. I must say I that I LIKED IT VERY MUCH!!! So much, that I quit my IT job here in Toronto (whoops!), and decided to move back to Belgrade, Serbia (I am leaving Canada on May. 30) to start working in fashion and advertising photography there. There is an interesting emerging market, many new designers, Belgrade Fashion Week is growing fast (some big names attended this year!), camera and studio equipment is available at several stores and rental shops, and so on. All looks very promising, and this will be very exciting year for me I am sure."
I have no idea if this plan will work, but it is fascinating that an experienced Serb software development manager moves back to Serbia to start working in fashion and advertising photography in Belgrade. It will be interesting to see if Glisin reports back on how well this experiment goes.