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Bosnian Adventure in Sarajevo - 20-22 September
My bus ride from Belgrade to Sarajevo was beautiful but crazy. It was just a minibus but it was completely full and had very little space. The driver was also crazy, as he overtook people at will and sped through the narrow and windy streets. It did mean that we got there quite quickly though and he dropped me right off at my hostel which was ideal. After originally planning to get in
around 2 I didn't end up arriving until 9pm due to the slow train ride into Belgrade which meant that I missed Arijan's (the hostel owner) war presentation. In Sarajevo I was staying at the War Hostel on the recommendation of Mike and had been told I needed to see his tour so that was quite disappointing. However after a long day of travel I was extremely hungry so I headed into the old town to have a look around and find some food. The food in Bosnia was crazy cheap, I ended up having both a massive kebab (which was different again from Turkish and Greek) as well as some burek (national dish with meat inside flaky pastry) for a total of €3.50. The town itself was also really nice. As you walk through town you even pass both mosques and churches and I even found a sign on the ground which said 'where cultures meet' and pointed to a church on one side and a mosque on the other. However this was just a taster for the feeling of the city that I would get the next day on my war tour.
The next day at 10am we met with Arijan's father for him to take us on his war tour. We all got into his car and headed off with the first stop being up the Olympic mountain that was behind the house. When we got to the top of the mountain he pointed out to us where the Serbian front line had been and how they had been able to shoot straight down into the city. He showed us where some of their bunkers had been and how they had been made and we also saw some of the signs for areas where the mines have not been cleared away yet. It was crazy to think that this had all happened in my lifetime and to see where it had actually all happened. He told us stories about how the Sarajevans couldn't even walk the streets safely as the Serbs could see them from their vantage point on the hill. He also showed us to the Bosnian front line and the actual bunker that he had fought from durning the war. Hearing his stories of how the war had panned out, the tactics of each side and most importantly the friends that he had lost as well as his own close calls was extremely moving. Especially when you could see the evidence of it for yourself. He also talked about how it hadn't been a war of patriotism and heroes but of survival and people who wanted nothing more than a normal life back with food and electricity. The siege lasted four years and in that time there was no electricity, very little food and the constant threat of death. He discussed how the people in the city had lived together happily for hundreds of years until people tried to force labels onto them. Even during the war there were many Serbs who stayed in the city and fought, something that wasn't often portrayed well in the media. One image that shows what the people thought of the war quite well I think is the graffiti from the photo above that was on the remains of the Serbian command bunker 'Make burek not war' (Burek is a national food of Bosnia).
Next he took us to the site of the Winter Olympics in 1984, only 8 years before the war began. We saw the remains of the chairlift that used to come straight from the central city and of the bobsled track which is now half destroyed and was used as a bunker by the Serbians during the war. This really drove home to me what the war had done to this place. Seeing the rubble and hearing Arijan's fathers stories of his youth when they used to come up here to drink and have a BBQ made me think what a beautiful and vibrant city this must have been before the war. It got me thinking that if the war had never happened it would still be an awesome tourist attraction to catch the chairlift up and ride the bobsled instead of it being a symbol of the war. We were dropped off at the top of a section of the bobsled track that is still complete and we walked down it for a kilometre or so and you could just imagine what it would have been like which is really sad. From the mountain he took us across town to the only remaining part of the tunnel that was completed in 1993 and connected Sarajevo with the free Bosnian side. This was the lifeline that allowed the Sarajevans to keep going so long and it was awesome to see a bit of it and imagine what it would have been like. The museum attached was also very interesting with many artefacts from the war. On the way back to the hostel we stopped for food and I experienced my first cevapcici which are small sausages in a pita bread with yoghurt and are a typical Bosnian dish.
That afternoon I went and wandered round the centre city with a couple of other people from the hostel. We passed a number of the Sarajevo roses which are memorials to innocent civilians killed during the war and also passed the spot where Franz Ferdinand was shot in 1914, the event that sparked WWI. When we got back to the hostel Arijan had a documentary on the war ready for us to watch. This was inside a replica war bunker that they have in the basement that is also filled with a small museum of items that they have found since the war finished and it made for a great place to watch the documentary. The documentary was by an Englishman who had lived in Bosnia for many years and showed him coming back while the siege was going to see how the city was. It was a really good documentary and gave a good idea of how the people were feeling. It really reinforced everything that we had heard firsthand from his father that morning.
That night as I was sitting in the common room I got chatting with Arijan's father again and we had a beer together. We talked about some very intense subjects and he was very passionate about them. We talked about refugees, the current crisis as well as the Bosnian refugees. He was saying how he can understand what they are doing and what they want but he also made a very good point about the Bosnian ones. Once they leave they never come back and he explained how this was a big problem for Bosnia now as most of the educated elite left during the war. He also talked of how much better informed the current refugees are than when he fought in the war, he said he had nothing at the time so he thought that he couldn't leave. If he went to Germany as many of his friends did he believed that he would live on the street and that is why he stayed and fought for his city. He said if war came again he would leave immediately and never look back, he didn't love his city that much. This was a point that really stuck with me as it really helps you to understand the current refugee crisis.
He also talked of the corruption in the current government and how they are still trying to fit people into the very particular groups. He talked of how he had to give up his profession as an electrician as since he is not Muslim he can not get a job in the current regime. He also talked of how I come from a 'perfect land' in NZ as we are very multicultural and all live together happily and we have no real worries.
After my couple of days in Sarajevo I had learnt a lot and really started to get a feel for the people who lived there. Arijan and his father at the war hostel really take you in and help you get to know their city. While Sarajevo is a city with a lot of sad history, it is still a beautiful place. Somehow despite everything that has happened the city still has a great feel to it but if you look hard enough the scars of war are still very visible.
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