Two weeks ago, my friend Jasmine found really cheap tickets to Sarajevo, so she, Tanya and I decided to have a last-minute weekend getaway. A perfect mix of adventure
and frugality!
Unfortunately, my first impression of the Sarajevo was not good; the
first thing we did upon arriving was to get lost in a semi-autonomous area,
where the streets were creepily empty and the buildings riddled with bullet
holes. As my travel companions and I tried to find the tram stop (all the while
being followed by large, stray, barking dogs) we wondered “What are we doing here!?”
 |
| The tram is a hand-me-down from the Czech Republic. |
However,
three days later, my opinion on Sarajevo has completely changed; it was one of
the most fascinating places I have been to in a long time. Although still
recovering from the ravages of the Bosnian war, it has a lot to offer for such
a small city. The memories of the war are evident everywhere, and many of the
most interesting places we went were related to the Siege of Sarajevo, but battle
scars are not the only thing Sarajevo has to offer; It is a fascinating place, steeped
in history, where many different cultures and religions intersect. There is one
particular intersection in the city where, if you look East, you might think
you’re in Istanbul—but then you turn to the West, it could easily be a street
in Vienna. This is a city where you can walk by beautiful Orthodox and Catholic
churches while hearing the Muslim call to prayer from neighboring mosques.
 |
| Sarajevo from above. |
 |
| East-West Divide |
 |
| Bosnian Coffee |
Speaking
of which, the food in Bosnia: OH. MY. GOODNESS. IT. IS. DELICIOUS. Lots of
people make a big fuss over the cevapi (little
meat rolls in a bread pocket), but my favorite meal was pita. Bosnian pita is nothing like the pita we know in the United
States – it’s so much better. Bosnian Pita consists of filo dough stuffed with
one of several ingredients (cheese, spinach, potato, meat…) which is coiled up
and baked. It’s sold by the slice, and you can get a large, hot serving for only
$2. My favorites were the potato and spinach kind – I could have eaten it every
day, but I had to show some self-restraint, so I only ate it two days out of the
three. However, I did indulge in daily servings of various types of baklava. My favorite was a hazelnut-filled
piece of heaven called the Queen’s Baklava at a family-run place. My mouth
waters just thinking about the crispy pastry and the sweet honey.
 |
| Pita |
 |
| Baklava -- the Queen's Baklava is the rolled-up one in front. |
The
fact that Bosnian food is so amazing made it somehow even sadder to imagine how
it must have been in the city when there was no food to be had -- during the Siege
of Sarajevo, the almost four-year period where Bosnian Serb troops surrounded,
blockaded, and assaulted the city. The Bosnian war ended only twenty years ago,
so most Sarajevans still have very vivid memories of that time. Signs of recent
warfare are evident; all over the city, on the pavement you can find “Sarajevo
Roses,” the remnant of mortar shells that were later filled in with red resin
to mark the places where mortar explosions resulted in deaths.
 |
| Sarajevo Rose |
We
wanted to learn more about this time of struggle in Sarajevo’s history, so we
signed up for a half-day tour to take us to the places we couldn’t walk to. First,
we visited the Tunnel of Life, an underground tunnel dug by Sarajevans to
smuggle supplies and food into the desperate city and transport wounded people
out. The tiny, cramped, and often wet tunnel was a lifeline. We were allowed to
walk through a small segment of the tunnel, and I tried to imagine the
desperation of the people who built and depended on the tunnel as I followed in
their footsteps.
 |
| Tunnel of Life |
Later, we also visited the Olympic bobsled track. When it was
built for the 1984 Winter Olympics, the track was a shining emblem of Yugoslavian
pride; just ten years later, it would become a bloody battleground and defensive
position for Bosnian Serb forces. Nowadays, the track is largely abandoned, but
you can walk down it; covered in moss, graffiti, and bullet holes, it is hard
to imagine a place with so much natural beauty that once held such promise
being the scene of such horror and death.
 |
| Bobsled Track |
You
might think that Sarajevans would be angry, depressed, or jaded after the ordeal
they went through; and yet, almost everyone we met was extremely friendly and
genuinely interested in talking to us about their lives and finding out more about
us. On one occasion, we went to visit one of the famous mosques in the city,
Gazi Husrev-Beg’s Mosque. The man who sold us our tickets to the mosque struck
up a conversation, and when he found out it was our first time to enter a
mosque, he took the time to show us around and give us an impromptu tour. We
learned that he was in fact the imam of the mosque, and he even gave us a
demonstration of a prayer.
 |
| Gazi Husrev-Beg's Mosque |
Similarly, later in the day, after eating dinner we
asked our waiter if there was a grocery store nearby. Not only did he tell us
where it was, he walked us most of the way to the grocery store – which was
good, because he kept telling us the name, and we all thought he was saying “horse
shit” (a weird name for a grocery store). Turns out it’s called “Hose”
(hoe-sheh), so if he hadn’t walked us there, we’d probably still be wandering
the streets of Sarajevo looking for horse shit.
One
thing that really surprised me about Sarajevans was the attitude expressed by
several of the people we talked to about Yugoslavia. Both of our tour guides expressed
a profound sense of nostalgia for the time before the war, when Yugoslavia was
united under the firm control of Marshal Tito. There was almost a feeling that
independence had brought nothing but war and death to Bosnia. This is so very
different from the feeling I got in other countries (such as Mozambique) that also
fought bloody civil wars and wars of independence. There, people seemed to value
their right to self-determination even more because they had paid such a price
for it. I did not get that feeling in Sarajevo. I also felt an uneasiness from
a lot of Bosnians, several of whom expressed to us that the peace is a shaky
one, and there are still deep divisions and unresolved issues between the
ethnic groups in Sarajevo. Of course, the most obvious manifestation of this is
the fact that the country is still divided in two, with the Bosnian Federation
(Bosnia and Herzegovina) controlling one portion (including most of Sarajevo),
and the Repubika Srpska (the Bosnian Serb Republic) acting as an autonomous
nation, complete with a different language (politically, anyway), alphabet (Cyrillic),
as well as their own, very Serbian-looking, flag.
All
of this just adds to my fascination with the city. This is a city that was
ruled by Romans, Ottomans, and Austro-Hungarians, before becoming a part of
Yugoslavia and then gaining independence. It’s a city of only 200,000 people,
but it has as much or more to offer as any other capital city in Europe. A picturesque
river runs through the middle of town with several unique bridges spanning it
(incidentally, one of the bridges was the location of the assassination of
Archduke Franz Ferdinand which sparked World War One).
 |
| Latin Bridge, assassination point of Archduke Ferdinand. |
Right
now, the scars of the Bosnian war are still painfully evident everywhere, but I
can imagine what Sarajevo will look like in another few decades, when it has
had more time to recover and rebuild: a beautiful city, nestled in the valley,
surrounded by mountains, with so much to offer. In any case, if you’re ever in
the area, I would highly recommend it as a place to visit. It was one of my
favorite places to explore in a long, long time.
 |
| Travel buddies :) |
No comments:
Post a Comment