Sarajevo
Gazi Husrevbey
March 13, 2005
The bus ride was beautiful, and the Neretva River was a beautiful light green with
a perfect view of the river bed. The country is very mountainous and this explains
the isolated groups that co-existed for hundreds of years until communication improved
and wars began. We stopped at a grill for about a half hour to eat lunch. For much
of the trip I focused on the country's litter, which contrasted the modern bus;
it’s easy to tell there’s clearly a tourist route from Dubrovnik and Split up to
Sarajevo and back.
Sarajevo is truly a sad story. The city is great and you can tell it was at one
time just a phenomenal city, but is only struggling to stay afloat after the war
and only sometimes succeeding. The downtown area consists of streets that are red
marble, windy, and uneven. There are mosques everywhere and the city is surrounded
by the mountains. The atmosphere is unlike the rest of Europe, it has an aura of
the east, of Turkey and the Muslim influence. The difference is that the people
are of Slavic descent and look European or Caucasian in every sense. The people
look European and sound Slavic, yet live Turkish. The atmosphere is strange, but
I liked it a lot, it really is a microcosm of everything Europe.
The proverbial other hand is much sadder and devastating. The city was sieged by
the Serbs during the war, who destroyed much of it. Only the downtown is still in
any sort of place to give it the atmosphere it probably once had.
The little Bascarsija area has a Catholic church, Orthodox church, synagogue, and
Mosque all within about two blocks of each other. It’s clear though that the city
is primarily Muslim with the number of mosques, souvenirs and atmosphere along with
the food.
I then walked up to the old Olympic stadium area and saw the huge cemetery that
covers too much area. The area feels hollow, the cemetery exemplifies the destruction
and death of the war on Sarajevo.
Heading into Bosnia & Hercegovina to Sarajevo I passed the country's only
water access