The Other Side

Days 51-53, Wednesday 8th – Friday 10th October 2008 (Cath)

(It says ‘Welcome to Sarajevo ‘84′, in case your screen is as small as ours)

Whenever I think of Sarajevo, I think of Bono. I can’t help it. It is something to do with war and hope and human rights, something to do with U2 being the first band to tour to the city after the war, and something to do with their song, ‘Miss Sarajevo’.

This article describes the setting of their 1997 concert: http://www.croatia.org/crown/articles/9273/1/U2-in-Sarajevo-10-Years-After-September-23-1997.html

So U2 helped shape my frame of mind as we trundled inland towards the city, enjoying gorgeous mountain scenery, on the early morning train from Mostar.

For some quiet recovery time, we stayed in a guest house that felt just like a suburban family home, probably because it was. The owners were nice, but we only saw them when they picked us up from the train station, and then when we knocked on their door to pay on our fourth day. It was very comfortable, with tea, coffee, and cakes on arrival, and a view over the city.

Our short walk across the river into the old town took us past a fruit shop, so we had an apple a day to keep ourselves feeling healthy (sorry, no rhyme in me tonight). Wandering the old town, with its many Ottoman-style souvenirs and a couple of kebab shops, somewhat unsurprisingly reminded us a bit of Turkey. In contrast to other old towns we have visited, there was a larger proportion of trendy-looking locals having coffee and cakes here, instead of it being completely overrun by tourists.

And in contrast to Turkey, although Bosnia and Herzegovina is also in theory largely secular, mosques were not the only religious buildings in the centre of the city. We saw the mosque, Orthodox church, Catholic church and synagogue (although the latter seems to be a museum now) which all share one city block. Most Bosnians are rightly very proud of the fact that they place tolerance and respect above religious ties. I think they could afford to be a bit less tolerant of pigeons, though.

(Al in ‘Pigeon Square’ in the old town, Bascarsija)

We also visited the Tunnel Museum on the outskirts of Sarajevo, where a tunnel connected the besieged city to the rest of BiH, bringing in desperately needed food, people, medical aid and military supplies. The family who let their house be used (and endured it being shelled) as the start of the tunnel now look after the museum, and proudly show photos of world leaders and celebrities who have visited (I didn’t notice Bono on display, sadly, but I may have just missed him).

(Impact from shell debris on concrete in the backyard of the house)

A highlight for us was seeing the Sarajevo Haggadah, very carefully mounted and protected in its own room at the National Museum. It is a rare illuminated Jewish manuscript, created in Spain in the fourteenth century. It has survived the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492, religious persecution in Italy from the 1500s, a direct request for it to be destroyed by the Nazis in Sarajevo during WWII (it was hidden from them by a Muslim cleric in Zenica), and finally the most recent war in the 1990s, when it was protected in an underground bank vault to escape Serb shelling. Our interest came from a book we both read earlier this trip (thanks Mum!) called The People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks. And yes, you read correctly, it is a novel, and Al did read it. Highly recommended.

(As close as we got to the Haggadah - it was valued at US$700 million in 1991)

(The road known as ‘Sniper Alley’ during the siege – the yellow Holiday Inn was the only hotel still operating, so it was where the journalists stayed, mainly on the side away from most of the shelling)

It was confronting to see the shell holes still in the footpaths and roads, and that so much of the city is still being rebuilt and gradually getting back on its feet. It was almost more shocking to realise that this terrible war and siege of an entire city (which had hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984!) started while I was in Grade 5 (1992), having water fights, riding my bike, and worrying about school projects about Scotland. Even in high school, it was not something that was on my radar, even though we learnt a lot about older wars. The siege ended in February 1996, probably just before I was fully aware of what the mentions of ‘Yugoslavia’ on the news meant. All I knew was that later that year, my friend was excited to be able to visit her cousins in Croatia for the first time. I have learnt more since, mainly through news of war criminals being brought to justice, but it is a shame that (I imagine) lots of others in my generation also really have minimal knowledge of something so terrible that happened in our lifetimes.

While we were in Sarajevo, I was also finishing off another great book – The Bridge Over the Drina, by Ivo Andric – which covers a few hundred years of Bosnian history up until World War I. It provokes a lot of thought about history repeating itself! Our trip picked up where the book left off. We saw the bridge in Sarajevo where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, sparking off WWI, and next on the itinerary are the battlefields of Belgium and the Somme, where much of that war was then played out.

We found it sad to leave BiH after only a week, because we felt we had only scratched the surface of a very interesting country. On the upside, it was good to get Al away from the bakeries with their continuous cheap chocolate donut supply, but I will also miss the spicy potato burek.

Day 50, Tuesday 7th October 2008 (Cath)

I am not sure exactly how, but I am pretty sure this really did all happen in one day. In summary: if you visit Mostar, stay at Majda’s Rooms, and do the tour.

We bought apples, bread rolls and a ‘croissant surprise’ (it later turned out to contain a sausage and was discarded) for breakfast in Mostar, and ate them in the street while smiling and nodding at a cheerful, drunk guy who refused to believe we didn’t speak Slavic. Out on the road we saw some Spanish NATO personnel in a jeep, and had a run in with a Croatian tour guide.

We visited an old Ottoman fortress, climbed its lookout tower, learnt about its mosque, and had a syrup tasting session in the home of a lady who lives there (one big glass of each syrup – mint flower, elderflower, pomegranate, and one made from an unidentified flower). Conveniently there were also some pieces of baklava, grapes, figs, dates and cups of strong Bosnian coffee to cleanse our palates. The nearby toilet was also very convenient after all that liquid.

We played basketball in an abandoned concrete water tank to work off the sugary goodness (Editor’s note: After shaking off some initial rustiness, Al dominated).

We worked up such a sweat that half an hour later, diving into clear (apart from small pieces of green algae), fresh, twelve-degrees-celsius water seemed like a good idea.

Luckily our breath only disappeared temporarily, and even though we felt like we were just creating splashes with frantic windmill arms and randomly kicking legs, we somehow ended up on the other side pretty quickly. The amazing tingling feeling as my skin started to warm and dry in the sun was the only thing that made me want to get back in the water again. Al was motivated more by the fact that all our valuables were still on the far side of the river. But first we had waterfalls to explore, and the best moment of the day for me was scrambling up over the mossy stones and through a cave full of running water, behind the main fall.

Further down the river, Al took his official photographer duties seriously, which meant making sure the camera stayed completely dry while I tried out a rope swing, and then while some crazy guys jumped off an eight-metre cliff.

A quick soccer game finished the warming and drying process (Editor’s note: Al scored a goal and then tried unsuccessully to pull his tight t-shirt over his head to celebrate), and then we headed off to see the area around the town of Medugorje. In these hills, the Virgin Mary apparently appeared to a group of teenagers in the eighties. The Vatican has not yet approved this as an official miracle, but this hasn’t stopped others from cashing in. These days, if you ever need a large statue or indeed a keyring of the Virgin, you know where you can find the biggest range.

We then visited a place sacred to other religions - originally to the Bogomil Christians of Turkey, and then to the Muslims from Ottoman times onward – where there is now a Dervish lodge. Spring water flows out of a cave in a tall, sheer cliff, after flowing (according to sonar) about nineteen kilometres underground. We followed custom and drank water from the sacred, pure source, just before finding out a French scuba diver had never returned from his exporations of the same source just a couple of months earlier.

Our brilliant day was made possible by the ‘big German woman’, this orange VW van. Apparently it was a bargain because this was the colour of garbage trucks before the war. She was a hard worker, but got a bit tired by late afternoon, so that after our driver was pulled over by the cops for an illegal overtake, the seven of us had jump out to push start the van in front of them.

We finished off the day at a local Mostar brewery, decorated with tennis balls hanging on fishing wire from the roof. The beer was far too sweet but nobody was complaining.

Day 49, Monday 6th October 2008 (Al and Cath)

And so to Bosnia and Herzegovina. We arrived in Mostar´s bus station to the usual frenzy of women offering private accommodations. This time though, there was a kind-looking woman waiting with a piece of paper with several names written on it – one of them “Alister” (not such a coincidence, as we had booked on the internet). A welcome sign indeed. Majda of `Majda´s Rooms´ introduced herself, as did her enthusiastic brother Bata. It turned out that about eight people on our bus from Dubrovnik were staying at their place.

Bata, constantly singing and making jokes, drove us to their hostel in his big orange van, pointing out sites of significance in Mostar along the way. Tea, strong Bosnian coffee and delicious home made cake were served while we were told what to do and where to go in town, and also about Bata´s famous day tour, on offer for the next day. We also met `Mama´, who we were correctly told would dote on us as if we were her non-existent grandchildren.

We walked into the old town, where after a few shops and Cevapi/Cevapcici (spicy meatball) restaurants, Mostar´s main attraction poked its head out from behind a bend in the cobble-stoned path – the Stari Most (old bridge) after which the town is named.

Our first destination, because it closed early and we wanted to put our visit in perspective, was the Museum of Herzegovina, mainly to see its ten minute film, which showed the bridge throughout the twentieth century. The traditional diving competition featured prominently, followed by some idyllic pictures of the town in the eighties, and then, as suddenly as it must have seemed in real life, the shelling of the town and the bridge started. At first the nationalist Serbs attacked from the hills to the East, with the muslims and Croats defending the town together, and then when the tide of the war changed, the Croats began shelling the town from the hills to the West, landing the final blow which collapsed the bridge in November 1993. It had stood for nearly 440 years.

(We weren`t entirely clear on this before we came here, but in Bosnia and Herzegovina, people who identify as Serbs are Orthodox Christians, Croats are Roman Catholics, and most other Bosnians are muslim.)

The bridge was rebuilt to its original specifications and reopened in July 2004 as a symbol of hope. The rest of the town is also recovering gradually, some parts faster and more easily than others, often with the financial support of foreign governments and embassies (we saw plaques recognising the USA, Spain, The Netherlands and Italy).

Near the museum in the middle of the eastern side of town, on what is still known as Tito Street, is a cemetery with too many graves from the same dates in 1992 and 1993. The traditional cemetery couldn`t be accessed while the town was under siege.

We climbed the minaret of the mosque in the centre of the photo above, for views over the town and the new Old Bridge (below):

A guy from the Mostar Diving Club just happened to be doing a jump as a favour for a friend (usually they do it for money only) as we passed:

`Dangerous Ruin´:

Half newly rendered, the other half of this apartment building on the former front line remains as a reminder:

Front line – the main highway through Mostar:

Both sides finding the way through the maze to peace, with the rebuilding of the bridge:

The almost unanimous message, although optimistic, is one of remembering the past so that it won`t happen again.