Sarajevo to Dubrovnik

Before leaving Bosnia, we retraced the steps of a trip we made nine years ago and one most tourists to the former Yugoslavia make: we drove from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik, the ancient city of Ragusa on the coast of Croatia. We were startled at how much it had changed in those nine years.

Halfway between Sarajevo and Dubrovnik is Mostar, whose already-famous bridge was spitefully demolished during the war. When we were here before, a massive bridge reconstruction project was going on. Today the bridge is fully rebuilt and the center of Mostar is full of tourists. It's a beautiful bridge (and the rocks below to it are perfect for climbing).

Near Mostar is Blagaj, one of the many springs that emerge from the limestone hills here. There is a very old mosque at the site of the spring and, nine years ago, that's all there was. Now we could barely get to the spring because of all the restaurants that have been built on the shores of the river and on platforms straddling the river. It's still an impressive sight and there is one spot, if you can find your way to it through the restaurant tables and along the path behind the kitchens, where you can get to the springs.

Also near Mostar is a beautiful old village, Pocitelj, which clings to a hillside and has ancient stone fortresses that look out over the entire valley that makes up Herzegovina. When we were here before, I thought the village had been abandoned for centuries until, crawling through ruins, we discovered the remains of a modern bathroom. Pocitelj was a majority Muslim community in the midst of a majority Catholic region and was nearly leveled during the war.

We were surprised to have a hard time finding parking on this visit to Pocitelj. There were tour buses there and lots of cars. At the entrance to the village we were greeted by vendors selling white paper cones full of gorgeous fruit--apricots, cherries. Nearly all of the houses have been rebuilt, it looks like, and people live here again.

Most wonderfully of all, the mosque has been beautifully reconstructed.

When we were there nine years ago, Dubrovnik was already rebounding as a tourist destination. Or so we thought. We couldn't believe the difference now: crowds and crowds of people--buskers in costume, Spanish and French and Italian and Japanese conversations, lines to get up on the walls of the city and no-nonsense signs insisting you go around the walls one directions only to improve pedestrian traffic flow. Everything in the city is also much more expensive than it was nine years ago, too.

Still, Dubrovnik is a beautiful and special place. Florence and Paris are crowded with tourists, too, and still worth visiting. Dubrovnik is the same.

Our favorite places, though, on this trip, were the little coastal towns near Dubrovnik. We stayed in a nearby town in a modest hotel with views to die for.

And we loved the little fishing town of Catvat. The town center was charming, the boats in the town harbor (yachts and fishing boats) were fun to look at, and the beaches were lots of fun.

While there were tourists everywhere we went, it was only in Dubrovnik and Mostar that the tourists appeared to be internationals. In Blagaj and Pocitelj, as in most of Bosnia, we heard only Bosnian being spoken. Tourism is returning, but slowly.

Before and After

Lots of rebuilding has gone on in Sarajevo in the past decade. But there's still a lot of cosmetic damage left over from the shelling. The facade of Isaac's school, besides being painted an institutional green, still had lots of superficial damage when he started school this year.

 But they closed the playground for a month and redid the entire facade. It's beautiful now.

(Now that the playground is open again, teachers are using the outdoor classroom. Isn't it sweet? a half-circle of stone benches faced by the wooden bench, all circling a newly-planted tree. Why didn't we have an outdoor classroom in elementary school?)

Susan Sontag Square, Sarajevo

This surprising sign labels the plaza in front of the National Theater.  The plaza was named after the American essayist just last year in honor of her courage in 1993, soon after one of the Markale massacres, and putting on Samuel Beckett's play "Waiting for Godot" in the National Theater.

The Guardian said it should have been called "Waiting for Clinton." I think I'll never watch the play the same way again.

Sarajevo Zoo

Right before a zookeeper warned Eleanor the donkey would bit her hand if she kept trying to feed him.

When we first moved abroad, we didn't go to zoos. A zoo you can do back home; why do it in Europe? When I realized that my two year old had never been to a zoo in his entire life because of this policy, I decided that I needed to rethink things. Since then, having visited several European zoos, my attitude is very different.

There are traditional zoos, like the ones in Rotterdam or Vienna. But we've had great experiences at more quirky zoos, too, like a small private zoo in rural Austria and the fascinating Apenheul in the Netherlands.

Sarajevo has a zoo, too, with a very sad history. Before the war it had 150 animal species. The siege line was at the zoo, and even if there had been enough food to feed the animals, those who tried (and some did) risked their lives. By the end of 1992, eight months after the siege had started, all the animals had died (a gripping New York Times article from the time).

When we lived here in 2002, the zoo was struggling back. It was, as I remember, mostly cramped cages lining the sidewalks. Enterprising Sarajevans set up charcoal grills and sold cevapi (traditional Bosnian sausages) along the sidewalk.

In the years since, a lot has happened at the zoo. There is a huge playground, the biggest and best-maintained one I've seen in Sarajevo. The landscaping is lovely, and the animals are in well-designed enclosures. I don't know what the official statistics are, but the kids and I counted 32 different types of animals (including 2 types of ponies, three types of goats, and assorted chickens, geese, and ducks)--nowhere near what the zoo once had, but the animals are well-selected and fun to watch.

On sunny days, the zoo is busy and the playground, especially, rings with children's happy voices. Yes, you can visit zoos in the US, but no zoo with the history this one has.

Sarajevo Rose

During the war, the streets and sidewalks of Sarajevo were pounded with shells. Many of them killed people. All of them contributed to a climate of terror.

In silent witness to the violence, Sarajevans began filling the holes with red resin. They named them "Sarajevo Roses."

Today, some of the streets and sidewalks have been repaired. Even where they haven't, most of the resin has worn away. It's a lot harder to spot a Sarajevo rose now than it was nine years ago.

But on April 6, Sarajevo Day, someone quietly reminded us all of that not-so-distant past.

Sebilj Česma: Pigeon Square

Fountains are an important part of Sarajevo street life, and this fountain, in a square in the old Turkish part of town, is one of the most famous. Its official name is Sebilj Česma, but our family calls it Pigeon Square for all the pigeons that congregate there.

I have heard that the pigeons all left during the war. They're skittish, so it wouldn't surprise me they'd flee the mortars. But they've been back for generations now.

You can buy corn from people who sit there near the fountain selling it and feed the pigeons.

Pennywhistles in Kosovo

Image Source

Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats

AP Photo (Image Source)

As an outsider, the easiest way for me to understand the recent war is to think of it in ethnic terms: the Serbs besieged the Bosniaks within Sarajevo and fought the Croats in other parts of the country. Broadly speaking, there is some truth to that, but the full truth is much more complex.

Last week the general who led the forces protecting Sarajevo during the siege was arrested in Austria on war crimes charges brought by the nation of Serbia. The general, Jovan Divjak, is a Bosnian patriot through and through and a hero in Sarajevo, but he's also a Serb. The city was full of protesters last week, agitating for Divjak's release.

Sarajevo has a rich and centuries-old tradition of tolerance and multi-ethnicity. I have no idea whether Divjak was guilty of war crimes (though the UN has already said that the incident he was arrested for was not a war crime), but watching Sarajevans rally around a Serb who is one of their own reminds me not to be too reductionist in my explanations of the previous war. Another Bosnian Serb said that Divjak fought "for the idea of a multi-ethnic Bosnia and Herzegovina." The response to his arrest seems to prove that multi-ethnicism is still an important Bosnian value.

Who looks back when you look at your money?

The Dayton peace accords, which created the nation-state of Bosnia, resolved the ethnic tensions between the Bosniaks/Croats and the Serbs by dividing them into two semi-autonomous states within one nation. Ironically, while the division resolved the immediate conflict, it also institutionalizes the division.

You can see this in Bosnian money. Every bill comes in two versions, a Serb version and a Croat/Bosniak version. The Serb version has Cyrillic writing above Roman letters.

The Croat/Bosniak version has the reverse.

The Serb version has an ethnic Serb hero.

The Croat/Bosniak version an ethnically Croat or Bosniak hero.

In some things here, the ethnic division matters a lot. With money, it doesn't matter at all: the bills with Croat or Bosniak faces are just as prevalent in Republika Srpska as in the Federation, and vice a versa. In fact, nobody would even know which faces they were carrying around unless they got out their wallet and checked.

The heroes pictured are all intellectuals--great writers or musicians or artists or historians. Politicians and military leaders would offend one side or another, I suppose. But I think it also says a lot about the Yugoslavian appreciation for the life of the mind that everyone finds it natural to rally around these cultural heroes. When I ask locals who is on the bills, they always know.

What great thinkers or writers or musicians or artists would we put on American money? We'd have to pick ones that everyone agreed are great and whose faces are recognizable. Who would we pick? Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Duke Ellington, Frida Kahlo? Who do you think?

Bosnian Indpendence Day

It's a holiday for us! Bosnian Independence Day.

We knew a couple of weeks ago that schools and public offices were going to be closed on March 1, but we weren't sure why. Some people said it was to celebrate the start of the war. Celebrating the beginning of a war? That couldn't be right.

Finally, we learned that it is the anniversary of the day of the 1992 referendum which voted to sever Bosnia and Herzegovina's ties to the former Yugoslavia. Which means it was also the day that the war started.

So today government offices and schools are closed. Except in Republika Srpska, where the holiday is ignored.

Eleanor's class attended a special program put on by some older Bosnian schoolchildren in honor of President's Day and Bosnian Indpendence Day (which impressed me--how many US schools put on a program in honor of Bosnian Independence Day?). The kids gave short biographies of the six most important US presidents. Quick. Before scrolling down, can you guess which ones?

George Washington.

Thomas Jefferson.

Abraham Lincoln.

John F. Kennedy

Barack Obama.

And (drum roll, please), Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton, you ask? He spearheaded the push for NATO airstrikes in August 1995. There is no more loved American in Sarajevo than Bill Clinton. 

Well, not in the Republika Srpska part of Sarajevo.

(All presidential images from here.)

Staying connected

It is not true that our extended family gets seriously ill whenever we're far away. But it is true that because we never manage to live close to them, we're always far away when they get sick.

So when my brother got very, very sick earlier this week, I found myself thinking a lot about the ways we stay connected to far-away family while we're here in Bosnia. Luckily, my husband figures all of this out for us, because I wouldn't have a clue. Here is my primer on wouldn't-live-without resources when we're far away:

1) Internet connection. Nine years ago, it was rare in Sarajevo to have internet connection in homes. We used to use David's office connection after-hours to send and read emails. Today, thankfully, home Internet connections are the standard.

2) Magic Jack. This snazzy little connector let us connect an actual telephone with a US phone number to our computer. When people called that US number, the telephone would ring in Bosnia. BUT...our computers are all laptops which we carry around from room to room, and this connector broke after only four months. (Takeaway lesson: these should be used with desktop computers, not laptops.)

3) Magic Talk. When our telephone connector broke, we switched to an online telephone program. Theoretically, any program would work. In practice, we can't get Skype to work part of the time (perhaps a problem with our connection?). GoogleTalk is not yet operational in Bosnia. And we had the Magic Jack phone number already. So people can still call our US number and our computer instead of our telephone rings. Which means we need...

4) Good headset. We tried using cheap headsets. It has been totally worth it to have a good headset when this is our only contact with family. We are using a Plantronics headset.  And...

5) Speaker. So that we can all hear the news at the same time. Our iLuv speaker has met our needs perfectly.

In the case of my brother all the news we're hearing now is good. Thank goodness his heart is behaving itself again since we sending our hearts is the one thing we can't do very well over the Internet. But we would if we could, Jim.

Another shot heard round the world

Before we moved here in 1992, the main thing I knew about Sarajevo was that World War I started here.

Right here:

On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were in a car on Latinski Most (Latin Bridge)when they were assasinated by Gavrilo Princip. Which, as I learned in junior high school, preciptated all the other events that led to World War I.

Today it is a pedestrian bridge connecting the Turkish part of town with the Bistrik district of town. When we lived here before, we considered it "our" bridge because it was the one closest to our home.

When we were here before, there was nothing to mark the significance of the site. Wikipedia has a photograph of a plaque, but I've never found it. (Sarajevo readers--do you know where a plaque is?) Someone told us it was ripped off during the recent war because it commemorates something a Serb did, but I'm not sure if that's true either.

Plaque or no plaque, there is now a tiny museum at the end of the bridge. A friend who went there was less than dazzled, but our family likes it (of course, we have a thing for museums). You can see the clothes the Archduke and his wife wore and follow the events of the day in minute-by-minute detail. A good spot for fans of museums and of World War I.

Markale

Last Saturday I walked down to Markale, our produce market, to pick up food for the weekend and was dumbfounded to find the usually bustling space absolutely empty. No vendors--not even the usual sidewalk hawkers. (And of course I did not have my camera; though I'm not sure how I would have taken a photo of nothing.)

At home we did a Google search and discovered Saturday was the anniverary of the first Markale massacre. On February 5, 1994, 144 people were wounded and 68 people were killed. At the produce market. Grocery shopping.

And what's worse, that was only the first Markale massacre. A year and a half later, on August 28, 1995 90 more were wounded and 37 more killed. Buying food for dinner.

I have been researching a few specific days during the Bosnian war for another project and as I read archived New York Times articles, I relive the confusion I felt seventeen years ago trying to sort out the claims of both sides of the war. In retrospect I wonder: how could it have been so confusing?

Markale, its usual busy self

Memorial wall in Markale

Getting to Mt. Bjelasnica

Isaac and Eleanor wound up their January vacation with skiing lessons at Mt. Bjelasnica. We decided to join them, in a mini-ski vacation, for the last two days before school started.

The ski resorts in Sarajevo are all very close to town. Depending on where you live, it takes only twenty to forty minutes to drive there (reminds me a lot of Salt Lake City that way). We had been to Jahorina nine years ago in an ill-fated trip (a story for another day), but we didn't know how to get to Bjelasnica. David conferred with the ski teacher. "It's easy," he reassured David. "You know how to get to Vraca, right? It's just past there."

"So I can just follow signs from Vraca?" said David.

"Well, no," he said. The reason turned out to be, as so many things are here, political.

The Dayton Peace Accords established peace in 1995 by granting ethnic Serbs their own mini-state within Bosnia. It is known as Republika Srpska. It is largely autonomous--has its own school system, its own set of regulations, its own licensing rules. It has much closer ties to Belgrade, Serbia than any other parts of Bosnia. Signs tend to be in Cyrillic, like in Serbia, instead of in Roman letters as in the rest of Bosnia.

Once you drive past Vraca, you're in the Republika Srpska section of Sarajevo. You drive for a few minutes in Republika Srpska and then back out of it into Bosnia and onto Mt. Bjelasnica. The ski resort Jahorina is in another part of the Republika Srpska. So the road after Vraca is basically on the slope of to Mt. Bjelasnica, there are no signs directing you to Mt. Bjelasnica. All the signs direct you to Jahorina (or to Belgrade!--Beograd).

You just have to know the way to Bjelasnica.

Zetra ice skating

In 1984, Torvill and Dean won perfect scores for ice dancing here in the Zetra Ice Hall.

During December and January, Sarajevo teenagers and children flock to (the rebuilt) Zetra Ice Hall every day for an hour and a half of free skating. Some are there to skate as fast and furiously as they can. Some are there to practice spins. Some are there to hang out with their friends. Some are there to meet (illicitly?) their romantic interest. And some of us just came to skate.

We're hardly Torvill and Dean, but it was fun.

Isaac had just fallen. He mostly had fun, though.

.

Olympic Sarajevo

1984. My first grown-up Olympics was held right here in Sarajevo.

Eight years later all of the carefully-designed and lavishly built venues were in the middle of a war zone.

The Zetra ice rink, where all the figure skating events were held, is near the center of town. It was destroyed during the war. Its wooden plank seating was torn up and used as coffins. After the war, it was determined that the foundation was sound, and a new ice rink was built on top of it.

The bobsled track on Mt. Trebevic is unusable today because of the scars from the artillery set up there by those who laid siege to the city.

During the war, executions took place on Mt. Igman at the site of the ski jump competition. You can still see the bullet holes. The ski resort has reopened, but its equipment hasn't been updated yet.

Mt. Bjelasnica, where the men's alpine skiing events took place, languished for a while after the war because of the threat of mines. But now the ski resort is mine-free and a popular local destination.

Jahorina, where the women's alpine skiing events took place, was outside the siege circle during the war, so it has made the most robust recovery.

The Olympic Museum in town was destroyed during the war. But the 1984 Olympic logo is still a common sight around town.

Cemeteries in our Backyards

Surprisingly, there is not a clear answer to the question of how many people died in the war in Bosnia.

But the exact number is unimportant if you live in Sarajevo. Even we latecomers live with the grimness of the death toll. Cemeteries are now tucked into every neighborhood. I stood in the road and took a photo of the old--i.e. pre-war--cemetery in our neighborhood.

Then I turned around and took this photo of the new cemetery.

The old cemetery is about three blocks long. The new cemetery extends all the way up the hill, this tightly packed all the way up. There are cemeteries like this all over town densely packed with blindingly white tombstones.

And the death dates on the headstones in this newer cemetery? All between 1992 and 1996.

A Bosnian friend once told me that keeping your family close to you is an important part of Bosnian culture and that these pocket cemeteries--"cemeteries in our backyards" she called them--are one way of doing that. They're also one way of never quite forgetting the war.