Roots and Wings: Sarajevo and The Mountains of Bosnia

After we finished with Plitvice

we traveled back to Sarajevo, Bosnia.

This was about a 5 and a half hour drive.

I slept through some of it.

We played our favorite music while we drove.

We stopped at quaint restaurants for their amazing

and incredibly inexpensive food.

And the country side was breathtaking.

The mountainous terrain was steep,

and emerald green, covered with trees.

These pictures do it absolutely no justice,

but at least you have an idea.

That drive was lovely and fun.

Then we got to Sarajevo and stayed with our cousin Wayne.

He is married to my cousin Sue who is currently in Greece helping with refugees.

It is a bummer we didn't get to see her,

but it was great spending time with Wayne.

This house - Wayne and Suzan's - was built after the war, but is situated right on the front lines of where the war was.

If we had taken the photo from the other end of the porch, you would have seen the area where the Serbs occupied the hills during the siege of Sarajevo.

Wayne said their neighbor's house, which you cannot see in this picture,

still had bullet holes on its walls until he finally patched it.

Which brings me to the city.

The siege in Sarajevo was from 1992 to 1996.

The length of the average american's high school career.

Summer's included.

It has been 20 years since the war.

But you can still see the bullet holes on the old buildings.

You can also see remains from bombs in the sidewalks.

These are called Sarajevo roses.

This old apartment building is completely covered.

These buildings have been repaired,

but you can still see where all of the bullet holes were.

Those can demonstrate for you.

The main drag in Sarajevo was known as "Sniper Alley"

Here is an old picture, placed on a new picture of the alley during the war.

(I wanted to get our own picture of this, but we weren't able to get it.)

Serbian snipers were paid 500 German marks for every Sarajevan they killed.

They were stationed on the tops of the buildings and shot day and night. (Pg. 191)

In my book about Oslobodjene the author writes:

"People continued to die, but no one bothered any more to hide from the bullets or the mortar shells. If you stayed in the cellar all the time you would die just the same, because you would have no food, water or firewood. And so you were forced to go out."

Pg. 206

In fact, one of his reporters had a wife who refused to leave her house after the siege commenced.

She locked the door behind her husband as he went out to get bread one day.

When he came back, she was laying on the floor dead, with a bullet in her.

Staying home didn't insure safety.

There are cemeteries all over the city.

I didn't take any pictures, but after a while, you start to notice that it is unusual.

13,952 Sarajevans were killed during the war.

Before the war the city had over 500,000 people.

Since the war, there are more than 300,000

But still about 200,000 less.

But just look at this gorgeous city.

Let's move on to some happy thoughts for a wee bit.

The 1984 winter Olympics were held in Sarajevo.

We visited the luge.

For a silly video at the luge, click here.here.

And a lovely view of the city as we drove down from the luge.

We did not, however, visit the place where they used to hold the medals ceremony.

Because it was used during the war for executions.

What a contrast of great human achievement

and human barbarity.

Well, that was a great transition to the start of WWI

It was in Sarajevo that the Arch Duke Ferdinand was killed

along with his pregnant wife.

By this bridge.

With this gun.

By a Serbian nationalist.

(To be fair, these people in the Balkans have had so, so many people rule over them through the years. I can understand why they would be interested in building their sense of nationalism.)

Transitioning back to happy

This is the city hall, a lovely example of Austria-Hungarian architecture.

When they went to build it, there was an old man's house on the property.

Try as they might, the man would not leave.

Finally, after much pressure, he relented,

on the condition that his house be moved brick-by-brick to the other side of the river

and a bag of gold.

That house is now known as the House of Spite.

They serve traditional Bosnian food at this spiteful house now.

A symbol of the stubborn Bosnian.

I like this view with the minaret.

Which brings me to visiting the Gazi Husrev Begs Mosque.

It was built by the chief architect of the Ottoman Empire around 938

I had never been to a Mosque before.

All of the men were washing their feet and engaging in prayer.

There were very few women in sight.

Prayer rugs.

It really is remarkable how many Muslims are in the city. I'm not sure I've ever been in a place before where 20 - 30% (it seemed to me) of the city population was made up of Muslims.

I enjoyed that.

Every medeaval town has a clock tower.

But this one is special

it is the only public clock tower in the world to display lunar time.