Sarajevo

This blog post covers a trip which I took to Bosnia & Herzegovina in Southeast Europe. I had never before been to the country. I was excited for the opportunity to see Sarajevo, and all its museums dealing with the post-Yugoslavia wars, although the stories they tell are grim. The city has certainly advanced since the Siege of Sarajevo. That being said, there are still traces of the war all over the city. Remains of the war were particularly evident elsewhere in the country, as I would learn during a day trip to the city of Mostar.

TUESDAY, October 16th

I enjoyed a nice, punctual evening flight with an Austrian Airlines Bombardier Dash-8 operated for SWISS from Zurich to Sarajevo.

After arriving at the airport in Sarajevo, I took a taxi to my Airbnb apartment. Once there, I met with the expat owner’s assistant. The owner herself wasn’t home.

After a little bit of relaxing at the apartment, I needed to use the bathroom…where’s the soap? It dawned on me that there was none at all! I searched all over, and in all the cupboards. Oh well, at least there was some shampoo for washing my hands. On the way to dinner, I made a stop at a small grocery store to buy a bar of soap for the equivalent of 0.5 USD. But seriously?! That’s a first, even for Airbnb.

For dinner, I went to a cheap Bosnian/Balkan restaurant (not the one pictured above) in the Bašcaršija area of Sarajevo. I had a dinner consisting mainly of dolma, which are stuffed grape leaves.

After I finished eating, I didn’t actually have any sightseeing planned for so late at night. However, I had plenty of time to get to the Avaz Twist Tower before it closed at 11 PM.

I got on a tram away from the city center. Then I walked over to the tower the rest of the way.

The receptionist told me I had “maximum 15 minutes”. All there is to see is pretty much just the 36th-floor observation deck. Fifteen minutes was more than sufficient. It was a very clear night sky, so virtually all of the city was visible.

The views were definitely worth the extra effort to get there.

Just before closing time, I took the lift back down, got back on the tram and returned to my Airbnb. 

WEDNESDAY, October 17th

Went to a cafe just 5 minutes from my apartment, in order to have some breakfast.

Then I went sightseeing around the Bašcaršija area, which is essentially the old town of Sarajevo. Initially, I stopped at the Gazi-Husrevbey Mosque, which is one of the more historic mosques in downtown Sarajevo.

It was constructed in 1531 by the region’s Ottoman governor, whom it is named after. His tomb is just beside the mosque itself.

Then I continued past Pigeon Sq. and the Sebilj Fountain. It is the main square in the Bašcaršija district.

The reason for the name of Pigeon Square becomes quite obvious once you walk along the square.

I then decided to walk a slight detour along the atmospheric side streets of the old town, towards the City Hall.

I entered the City Hall for a look inside, particularly the basement museum. The City Hall itself was created in 1896 in a neo-Moorish style. It is without doubt the most beautiful of Sarajevo’s Austro-Hungarian-era buildings.

The City Hall suffered a lot of damage during the Siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s. It reopened in 2014 after reconstruction had finished.

Inside the City Hall, the building is even more spectacular than on the outside. It features a beautiful, colorfully-decorated interior, with its stained glass ceiling being a nice, added touch.

The museum in the basement has an exhibit focused on the modern history of Sarajevo in the 20th and 21st centuries, with some details about the history of Bosnia & Herzegovina as a country as well.

Particularly explained in detail is the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, which sparked World War I. The exhibits also cover the Olympic Games of 1984, which took place in Sarajevo.

Also explained in the museum exhibit is the Siege of Sarajevo in the 1990s, which left a devastating mark on the city.

Inside the City Hall are the contents of a courtroom used for prosecuting those who perpetrated the Srebrenica Massacre. The actual legal proceedings took place in the Hague, Netherlands. Some of the furniture from the courtroom in the Netherlands was moved into this room as part of an exhibit.

Following my visit to the Sarajevo City Hall, I walked along the Majlika River to the very corner where Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914.

As his motorcade drove through Sarajevo as part of an official state visit to the city, they made a stop at this exact corner. There was some confusion regarding the routing.

At that time, Bosnia & Herzegovina was part of the much larger Austro-Hungarian Empire, which encompassed a significant portion of the Balkan countries. Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, decided to ride in an open car. He did so, despite knowing that he wasn’t popular with everyone in Sarajevo. Independence movements were gaining momentum, although they were oppressed.

It was known that there were credible threats against the life of Franz Ferdinand during his visit to Sarajevo. For this reason, a last-minute decision was made to change the routing from that which was officially announced. The problem was, that the man driving Franz Ferdinand’s car wasn’t informed. The police officers driving right behind him shouted at him to make a turn, which he didn’t expect. He stopped to make clear what the intention of the police was. Gavrilo Princip was standing at that exact corner. When the motorcade stopped, he approached the Archduke’s car and fatally shot Franz Ferdinand.

There’s a small museum on the corner too. The exhibits explain a bit of the history behind the event. The museum also displays personal items belonging to Gavrilo Princip, and other would-be assassins from the same organization. It includes the pistol that Princip used to shoot Franz Ferdinand.

The connection between Princip and Serbian-trained secret units eventually led to Austro-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and their allies. This decision snowballed into the First World War.

After visiting the museum, named “Muzej Sarajevo 1878-1918”, I crossed the Majlika River. Then I walked back past the City Hall, to have lunch at a Bosnian restaurant nearby. The name of the restaurant translates to “Spite House”. It has an interesting story.

The building used to be a traditional Ottoman house located in the spot where the City Hall stands today. It was moved brick-by-brick across the river to its current position, to make way for the Sarajevo City Hall. For lunch I had some cevapcici, which is a typical Bosnian type of kebab.

I had planned to visit the former Olympic bobsled track either later in the day or even the following day. However, I realized that it had recently become more accessible. The reason was a newly-opened funicular running between Sarajevo and the Trebevic Mountain, where the bobsled track is located. The restaurant I went to for lunch was just a five-minute walk away from the funicular station in the city. I decided to make my way up to the mountain after lunch.

The bobsled/luge track isn’t really an official tourist sight. However, it was mentioned on a map once you exit the funicular at the top.

Sarajevo hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984. After the games, the track was used sporadically for World Cup championships and smaller tournaments. In 1992, during the Bosnian Civil War, the Bosnian Serb army took control of the hillsides surrounding Sarajevo, including Mt. Trebevic. They set up artillery positions close to the track. The Bosnian Serbs even used some of the former Olympic facilities to store shells and rockets.

The city was besieged for three-and-a-half years. The Bosnian Serb army bombarded Sarajevo from positions such as those along the Olympic bobsled track.

Today, the abandoned Olympic bobsled track has become a huge graffiti canvas. There are new “works” being added continuously.

I was surprised to see dozens of people walking along the graffiti-covered track, including families with small children.

After having walked the entire length of the Olympic bobsled/luge track, I hiked back to the funicular station. From there I rode the funicular back to downtown Sarajevo. My next stop was the Tunnel of Life Museum, on the city outskirts. I took a tram out to western Sarajevo, and then a taxi to this small museum south of the city’s airport.

When Sarajevo was besieged in the early 1990s, there was a very small corridor leading to Bosniak-held territory from the city. The airport, and particularly the runway, was in the way. On the map above, the orange line denotes the border between Bosnian Serb-controlled areas and that held by the Bosnian Muslims. In the middle is the city of Sarajevo. The airport is in the narrow gap between Bosnian Serb-held territories.

The Bosnian Serbs had initially surrounded the city and taken hold of the airport. Control of the airport was handed over to United Nations peacekeepers, on the condition that no Bosniak soldiers or any civilians were allowed to cross the premises. The idea was to keep the airport open and intact for humanitarian aid flights.

This presented a challenge for the Bosnian Muslims (Bosniaks). The airport was the only friendly territory leading out of the valley of Sarajevo. However, the UN soldiers arrested anyone jumping over the airport fence. Those that somehow made it past the guards were shot at by Bosnian Serb snipers in the nearby hills.

The idea was conceived to build a secret tunnel underneath the runway. The project was eventually finished during the siege. Even though the Bosnian Serbs knew a tunnel existed, the location of the entrance and exit was not known to them until after the war. The small, narrow tunnel was enough of a lifeline to supply ammunition for the defenders of the city of Sarajevo. It also brought in supplies which kept the city’s population alive.

The Tunnel of Life museum isn’t at the entrance or exit themselves. However, the museum has access to a 25m(75ft) section of the original tunnel, which has been kept open for visitors to get a feel for it. The real tunnel was about a kilometer long, but it is mostly closed today.

After having finished touring the tunnel museum, I got a taxi back to the tram terminal in Ilidza, a western suburb of Sarajevo. I took the tram back towards the city, getting off in front of the National Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina, and it’s neighbor, the History Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina.

The history museum would be open until 9 PM. I opted to start at the National Museum, because it was going to close earlier. The National Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina exhibits objects within various themes, related mostly to archaeology, biology, and ethnology.

A gilded, decorative part of a belt from medieval times.

It’s by far the biggest museum in Bosnia, housed in several multi-floor buildings. Some parts were closed for renovation though. Adding to that, the biology section was mostly stuffed animals, so I just quickly breezed through it. But the archaeology section was worth the price of admission alone.

A stone plaque with inscriptions made using the Glagolithic alphabet.

The museum’s ethnology section provided a decent look into Bosnian culture, particularly in regard to the design of homes.

As the National Museum neared it’s closing time, I made my way over to the adjacent History Museum of Bosnia & Herzegovina, which is a separate museum. The exhibits there are centered around the Siege of Sarajevo and the Bosnian War in general.

Covered as well were the negotiations for peace which followed the war, resulting in the so-called Dayton Accords, and where they have placed Bosnia & Herzegovina today.

The section of the museum dealing with the siege is particularly interesting. On display are plenty of photographs showing the horrors that Sarajevo’s population lived through for three-and-a-half years.

There’s also plenty of pictures of the damage caused by snipers and artillery, such as the blood-stained classroom seen below.

Some before-and-after pictures show how damaged the city became, and how much it has recovered.

There’s also plenty of household devices on display, used during the era for cooking, heating or providing electricity. All of these were either created entirely or modified for using firewood during the siege, when regular supplies and electricity were limited.

After I had finished exploring the inside of the History Museum of B&H, I noticed a small art installation outside of the museum dedicated to Syrian refugees who transited or are staying are in Bosnia. Many Bosnians were themselves refugees a little over 20 years ago. Their view of the Middle Eastern refugees is perhaps different from that of other Europeans. There are portraits, with short quotes from the Syrians, placed on boards outside the museum entrance.

I noticed another art installation on the side of the museum building. It has a hundred or so gloves, some of them kids’ size, hung on the side wall of the building. I can only imagine these belonged to some of the kids who died during the siege of Sarajevo.

Having finished exploring the museums, I went to a nearby restaurant listed among others in my Lonely Planet book. This restaurant was within a short distance, just a few stops on the tram. Its cuisine was described as “international”. I was a little disappointed to find no Bosnian food whatsoever on the menu. Oh well, I hadn’t had any pizza in a while. 

THURSDAY, October 18th

In the morning I got up somewhat early to get on the tram towards the western suburbs. I got out near the National Museum to walk to the nearby bus terminal.

I bought a ticket for an 8:30 AM bus to Mostar, in the Herzegovina region of Bosnia & Herzegovina in the south of the country. The bus departed a few minutes late, but eventually we were off. The end destination was Mostar, but the bus also stopped at some smaller towns and even villages on request.

About halfway into the 2.5-hour journey, there was a 10-minute coffee/restroom break in a small city. The bus stopped in a spot where a handful of cafes were lined up next to each other.

I took the photo of the cafes above on the return trip, later in the day.

The landscapes along the route were beautiful, with several mountains and hills. You could also see some autumn colors on the trees.

What was also painfully obvious was the wounds from the Bosnian War in the early 1990s. On several buildings, many of them apartment buildings, there were still visible bullet holes. Every now and then you’d see ruins too.

Once we arrived in Mostar, I specifically started out exploring the less touristy parts of the city. Mostar is Bosnia’s second-biggest city, and it’s very famous for its UNESCO-listed Old Bridge (Stari Most). But the further you go away from the city’s tourist area, the more remains you see from the war.

Inside the city itself, there are several bombed-out ruins, and buildings with facades covered in bullet holes from machine guns. Keep in mind, the war ended in December 1995. One of the more prominent ruins from the war is the Ljubljanska Banka Tower. The Ljubljanska Banka Tower used to house banking offices, but earned the nickname “Sniper’s Nest” during the war. All that remains is the skeleton of the original building, and its bullet holes have been morphed into graffiti art.

I walked towards the old town area of Mostar, and the number of tourists gradually increased. Before seeing the Stari Most bridge, I made a quick photo-stop at its nearby little brother, the Crooked Bridge.

It was built before the Old Bridge, and is regarded as a trial run for the latter. But it is nowhere near as impressive as the Stari Most itself.

The Stari Most bridge collapsed during the Bosnian War, as Bosnian Croat forces shelled the city of Mostar. A temporary chain-link bridge was set up to allow locals to cross the river. The bridge has since been rebuilt. Although it is on UNESCO’s list of cultural heritage sites, the current bridge isn’t from the 16th century like the original was. There are numerous vantage points to have a look at the bridge. It is definitely quite picturesque, with the turquoise water running beneath it.

There’s a small rocky flat, not really a beach, just beyond the bridge. From there you have a good opportunity for photos. Having photographed the bridge from various angles, I walked across the bridge itself to get to the other side of the Neretva river.

One aspect of the bridge that’s hard to miss is its Diver’s Club. There’s a donation basket for all the tourists that pass by. Once they’ve collected enough money, one of the divers will jump off the Stari Most into the river below.

I had lunch at a restaurant along the riverside. The restaurant’s balcony had a nice view of the bridge, so I got to see a diver jumping off.

People on the bridge started clapping just beforehand, so I got my phone out to record some video of it.

After having had some Bosnian-style kebab for lunch, I set out to explore two historical Ottoman houses in Mostar. Both of them have been mostly preserved in original 16th/17th-century styles.

The Kajtaz House was the larger and much more interesting of the two. One of the rooms has been preserved in the exact original style without modifications.

The current owners of the Kajtaz House are descendants of the original owners as well. I had a brief chat with the family father about the origins of the house. He explained how it was designed in an Ottoman style, with separate sections for men and women.

I left the Kajtaz House and walked towards the other Ottoman house. On the way, I stopped by a bakery to pick up some burek. It is a traditional, filled pastry popular throughout the Balkans.

The Bišcevica Cošak, the other Ottoman house, had some different decorations, plenty of which were original too.

This house had less of a personal feel, in my opinion. There were large groups of tourists passing through during my visit, which didn’t help the atmosphere.

Still, the comparison between the two original Ottoman houses was quite interesting.

Eventually, it became close to 3 PM, at which point I knew a bus bound for Sarajevo would depart the bus terminal in Mostar. Thus, I started walking back to the bus terminal.

When I arrived at the bus terminal, there was already a large crowd standing in front of the bus (most of them out of frame on the picture above). For a moment I wasn’t sure if the bus had already been sold out, but fortunately it wasn’t. I got myself a ticket. Before the bus departed, I had a moment to wander around the old bus terminal, which seemed somewhat abandoned.

A few minutes before 3 PM, everyone got on board, and we set off towards Sarajevo on time. On the way, we passed more beautiful landscapes. The bus driver made a longer coffee break in the same town that we stopped in earlier in the morning.

Around 6 PM, we arrived back in Sarajevo. The drive took us past several apartment buildings notably covered in bullet holes, on the way into the city center.

At that point in the evening, I still had enough time to visit Sarajevo’s War Childhood Museum. It’s a really touching museum. The exhibit presents 50 stories, out of which one is a recent story from Syria, and the rest are from Bosnia & Herzegovina. Every story is presented along with at least one, random personal item, that reminds the story-teller of the Bosnian War in the 1990s. The majority of the stories focus on the 4-year long Siege of Sarajevo.

Some of the stories are presented by survivors, others are the relatives of those that died. Regardless, the stories are all told by people who were growing up during the Bosnian War. The stories are thus focused on how war and violence are perceived through the eyes of children.

Most of the items connected to the stories are toys, school supplies, or the only pieces of candy they received throughout the entire siege. There’s even a Guinness-certified world record for the largest personal collection of humanitarian aid packaging.

Also displayed in the collection throughout are letters, including those sent from other countries along with donations and aid packages. The War Childhood Museum presents a different perspective on the war, and their way of presenting each story is excellent. It truly personifies the suffering, and you can’t help but sympathize with each and every one of the stories. The War Childhood Museum is definitely not a fun experience given the pain that it portrays, but it is by far one of the most interesting museums in Sarajevo. 

After I had gone through the War Childhood Museum, there was still one more museum on the to-do list. Its name was “Galerija 11-07-95”. However, it wasn’t an art gallery, rather a museum dedicated to the Srebrenica Massacre, which occurred during the Bosnian War. Srebrenica was a Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) enclave within territory controlled by Bosnian Serbs.

Srebrenica was protected by international treaties, and guarded by a small Bosniak army along with UN peacekeepers. Over the summer of 1995, the Bosnian Serb army surrounded the enclave. They initially blocked supplies for the military divisions inside, before shutting out all humanitarian aid as well. After starving both the human population as well as the armies in Srebrenica, the Serbs attacked the enclave.

The Bosniak army, already under-equipped and not always wearing uniform, gave up their arms and tried to mix in with the civil population. The UN peacekeepers withdrew further into the city and were heavily outnumbered and outgunned. Although they initially fired back, they were powerless to do anything, and were mostly without desperately-needed air support. The Serbs raped and killed hundreds of civilians when they first reached Srebrenica.

Under pressure from international organizations, they agreed to evacuate the civilian population. However, the Serbs controlled every road leading from Srebrenica. Every single bus was stopped, and all of the military-age males were separated from the evacuees. The Serbs feared that once the buses reached Bosniak territory, all of the men would be used to reinforce the Bosniak military.

All of the military-age males were systematically executed by the Bosnian Serbs. Tens of thousands lost their lives in Srebrenica. It became a turning point for the international community’s stance on the Bosnian War.

The Galerija 11-07-95 (July 11, 1995) has a long list with the names of all the victims, written on the walls inside one of its rooms. Some of the victims’ portraits are displayed as well. This is a testament to the fact that a significant amount of the victims were young teenage boys. It’s certainly not a museum that’s fit for everyone to visit. Several large photographs display haunting images of skulls and human remains being unearthed from mass graves.

The museum also features several computer stations with an in-depth, step-by-step description of the events that led to the massacre in Srebrenica. The grief of relatives is also evident in photos that are taken from refugee camps housing Srebrenica survivors. Most of the survivors are women and younger children. Pictures from the morgues showing numerous body bags, and hundreds of caskets, are evidence of the immense loss of life that took place in Srebrenica.

When the Galerija 11-07-95 closed at 8 PM, it was time for dinner. However, I certainly needed a small break before I had a real appetite, after seeing a museum like that.

I went for a walk to a fusion restaurant close to my apartment. The concept there was actually quite simple. There’s no menu, rather, the staff asks whether you want a meat or vegetarian dish. Then you’ll be asked which main ingredients you’d like on the side. Based on your choices, the chefs will cook up a dish that they feel best suits the ingredients.

It was quite good food indeed. The restaurant is run by a group of Bosnian celebrity chefs. After dinner, I needed to get to bed before an early flight the following morning.

FRIDAY, October 19th

I got up early in the morning, packed the rest of my stuff together and departed the Airbnb I was staying at. Fortunately, I didn’t have to walk too far downtown before I found a taxi, which would get me to Sarajevo Airport. I paid the taxi driver in Bosnian Marks. He was quite nice and gave me change back in Euros, at the exact exchange rate of the Bosnian Mark. Usually, I keep a small amount of leftover cash from foreign currencies, which I place in a collection at home. But I had plenty of Bosnian Mark left in my wallet already. Getting change in a currency that I could use again was really practical.

I had some breakfast at the airport. Then, shortly before 7 AM, it was time to fly to Vienna with Austrian Airlines. Fortunately, the flight was punctual, which gave me ample time to make my onward connection from Vienna. After a quick break at the airport there, I continued to Zurich with SWISS. The flight home was quite comfortable and most importantly, we arrived on time.