Moved East

[markowe]

We just don't have anything like this in England, say, hence the lack of an adequate English word, but this is a little booklet that all adults have in which a record of their working life is kept. It's not clear why this is needed, because all this data is kept somewhere in the Social Security records anyway.

But at some point you will need this - if you are going into full-time employment in Serbia then almost certainly. In it you receive stamps from your current employer indicating the dates of your term of employment. The booklet usually lives with your employer while you are working there. You also need it to carry out certain operations with your health insurance, like getting yourself a new health insurance booklet like they made everyone do last year.

The radna knjizica is a grey, passport-sized booklet containing your basic details (though no photo - a rarity with Serbian documents!), details of your schooling and details of your employment record.

It is actually one of the easiest documents to obtain, since it is the starting point for any further bureacratic hoops. You need to:

1) go to a knjizara like Savremena administracija and ask for a Radna knjizica (you will be given a blank booklet) and an official form excitingly entitled Form Number 1! (Obrazac br. 1)

2) you need to fill in the form in duplicate (you did buy two, right? Always buy multiple copies in case you mess anything up!). Most of it is basic data, the only complication comes about under point 7, where instead of entering your ID card number you will probably enter your passport details and number, e.g. "Pasoš Velike Britanije, br. 7xxxxxxxxx, 1.12.05 (date of issue), FCO (place of issue)". Point 8 you will probably leave blank, as this is for the JMBG, the 13-digit personal ID number that all Serbian citizens have and you don't as a foreigner. This space will probably be left blank in your booklet too. Also you need to enter your highest level of education, which will probably have to be a rough Serbian equivalent of whatever you completed in your country of origin. Also you need to add, e.g. "Visoka (stručna sprema)", which means higher education, or some other designation.

3) You take this, together with your passport and photographs of the relevant pages therefrom (photo, visas, residency permits), to the local council office in the catchment area of your place of employment gravitates and.. that's pretty much it. All the counter staff will do is copy what you have written in the form across to your booklet (or ask you to do it, as in my case, to avoid getting any English names wrong!), whack a stamp on it, and that is it!

I was additionally told that I might need to get my university diploma officially validated (a process called "nostrifikacija") by the Ministry of Education, or rather the Vojvodina Regional Ministry, but that this was not essential for this stage, it would only be necessary when I wanted to call on my formal education for some reason. Which I haven't had to do so far...

Hope that helps someone!
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