Part 2: Bosnia
Anyway, got up at 5:15 th next morning and headed for Mostar, Bosnia. Sadly, I crossed the border on a bus so I didn't get a stamp. Mostar was pretty interesting. To start with, the Lonely Planet said that the bus and train station were adjacent, so when I got into the bus station I was planning to check the train timetables later in the day to take the late train to Sarajevo. Well, it turns out there are 2 bus stations, and I was at the Croat one. In fact, I was on the Croat side of town, and nobody really wanted to tell me how to get to the Muslim side of town (though I didn't know the reasoning until later in the day, just that the allegedly friendly Bosnians were being awfully difficult with simple directions). In the end instead of paying 8 marks for a map (4 euro! for a dinky little one horse town map!) I paid 6 marks for a cab ride to the train station, which was probably for the better as it was pouring rain still and it allowed me to enjoy my Burek. Burek: delicious, huge, amazing, savory pastry with mince meat inside.
I wandered around, saw lots of bullet holes and bombed out buildings that I avoided, was shocked by the endless graves marked with 1993, and found my way to the old mosque. There were several tour groups of old French ladies and as I was the only individual the imam opened the door to the tower and let me climb up. Cool views, though again spoiled a little by the haze and rain. Anyway, he said to come back in a few hours when it was less busy and he'd talk to me about the mosque/town, so I wandered around. Saw old town with its uneven cobblestone streets and rebuilt old bridge (Stari Most). Latched on behind an english speaking tour guide who talked about how boys in the town jump of the 20-30 meter high peak of the bridge into the fast-moving water below, how when Franz Joseph came to see Mostar he was afraid he'd fall on the cobblestone so they put carpet out on the bridge, how it was rebuilt from original stones after the war. Saw a gallery with photos from the war, including the river below completely dry - I gathered from the guide that people used it as their only water source. I bought a gorgeous cashmir shawl and was looking at the bridge from a mosque on the river (there were about 100 mosques) when I met an American couple travelling for the whole year (had been to Ghana for several months) and invited them to come back to the other mosque with me.
Here's what I wrote hastily in my gmail after talking to the Imam:
"First we talked to the Imam about the history of the Mosque. It was built by some rich important ottoman figure, though not somebody in government. The guy was called black eyes (in bosnian obviously) and bought not only the land for the mosque but all the land around, so they get their income from renting the surrounding buildings. It is about 450 years old and the tower I climbed is 25 meters high. The tower was destroyed in the war, as were all the mosques' towers except one that was too short (which i have pictures of as well). Like the bridge, they rebuilt the mosque from as many of the original stones as they could salvage, and kept the rest on the propoerty. There are huge scars on the covered patio of the mosque from when the tower fell on it, bursting through the roof as well, which has now been rebuilt. The rich guy built a school and library as well and they have books that are 250, even 500 years old but the library is dirty and in poor condition and lets the rain in so the books are pretty much in bad, bad shape. Anyway, the muslims pray at as many mosques as they wish, basically goign to whichever is nearest. The Imam says that its good to pray at many, because it is less boring that way. We talked about how they are much more open about choice with the religion here than in other Muslim countries. Girls who wear scarves do it by choice, not because their parents make them. Though he indicated that he'd prefer girls do so because women, he said, are more beautiful than men (translation: men are more tempted by women?) so it makes it hard to pray if there are girls nearby showing too much. Anyway, after the war they got money from Saudi Arabia, but it was just enough to make the mosque safe to pray in, not enough to actually rebuild it to its former glory. Later they got money from Turkey to rebuild. Also Pavorati gave them 5Mi Euros. Saudi Arabia now no longer gives much money because the US restricts what Bosnia can receive due to worries about terrorism. Anyway, eventually we worked our way around to the war, I asked where they prayed during the war. This is out of order from our conversation, but basically at first in the very early 90s the Serbs were attacking from the East (the side of the river we are on, with all the mosques, the Muslim side) so the Croats and Muslims took shelter together on the west side. Up until that point in the 500+ year history of the town they had lived mostly in peace. Anyway when the Serbs were attacking everyone there were embargoes on Bosnians getting weapons, because some idiots in the UN thought this would stop the war. Of course the Serbs could get weapons but not the Bosnians so they were in big trouble. Eventually they started making weapons here, then fought back. So they finally drive the serbs out after a 5 month occupation, the Croats and Muslims began to fight. Something about Milosovic actually working with the Croatian president because they wanted to take Bosnian lands and enlarge both their countries. The Immam said the Serb occupation was nothing compared to the war in 1993, where thousands died. All the mosques were targetted especially, but first they had to shell the buildings around the mosques to get to the mosques. The cemetary across from the mosque I was at was sheltered by a building that was still standing, and they would bury the dead at night so the sniper couldn't get at them. There was a sniper on the other bank of the river which is now a holy spot - he scoffed at this, Im not sure if its a christian holy spot or what. They slowly retreated and ended up praying in classrooms of a school off away from the river. I asked him if he was happy when Milosovic died or if he wished hed gotten justice. He said if you are religous you know he would get justice from God. He scoffed at the Hague, saying that it is nothing, 15 years for 10000 deaths, and that the west had set it up to make up for protecting the serbs during the war but it was idiotic, etc. He said what happened to the men was worse than death, far worse than just being killed. Now that the fighting has ended it has gotten better. 8 years ago the town had 2 mayors, 2 school systems, etc. Now there is only one mayor, who is a Croat, but still two school systems - how can the kids grow up as one town if they go to different schools? I asked him if it was good to have one mayor who was a Croat or if hed rather have his own - he said it would be good if the mayor was good. This mayor has held off plans for some sort of Muslim cultural center to be built on Muslim owned land for years, but the Croats got a theater approved in a nearby location, no problem. Theres a lot of tension under the surface between the Croats and Muslims, which explains why when I arrived I had trouble getting people to tell me how to get to the bus station on this side of town.
The immam, whose name was completely unpronounceable and he knew it when he told us, was married but with no kids. He was only 25, had married at 21, had been an Imam there for 7 years! His brother was before him, and their father who died at the beginning of the war was before his brother."
Anyway, I hopped on a 6pm train to Sarajevo, and it was gorgeous, cutting through cliffs and such. I wisely went with the hostel that had an office in the train station and was ready to shuttle me and several others downtown (though the lady lied when she said they had free internet). The hostel was awesome, the first night I met a ton of cool people with interesting travel backgrounds. Think, 28 beds in a small cluster of rooms, with one tiny toilet/sink room and another that had a toilet, sink, and 2 showers....all together, in the open, with no stalls or curtains. Not sure who thought of that, but standard practice was to lock the door, so for 28 beds there were really 1.5 toilets and a shower. All of which were filthy, but the beds were very clean.
Because the guided tour was 20 marks plus 5 marks entrance to the museum, I decided to go it alone on the advice of the American couple in Mostar. I went with a kiwi on a train and a bus out to a suburb farmy type area where the driver told us to get off. We walked down a dirt road that felt like it was the wrong place, but we found the museum. They dug the tunnel during the war as a way around the Serb blockade, guarded it really well, and aside from aid drops at the airport it was the only way through to the outside world. They'd smuggle in food and weapons. Then I went back into town. Sarajevo is literally in a valley, with the river and main streets running straight between the hills. The hills made it ridiculously easy to hold in siege, you could really see it just standing in the city. I saw the ugly yellow Holiday Inn that the journalists were holed up in, and went to the History museum where there were really interesting exhibits on the history of the region and on the 1990s. There were always English captions but the articles were just in Serb so it would have been nice to have those translated. I wandered back along the river, passed the new Synagogue which was covered in scaffolding and not open, through old town. I figured out about my bus for the next evening, and on the advice of the cool hostel manager wandered up the hills for a view of the city (and, like in Mostar, the miles of gravestones that are all dated 1993-1995). I then wandered around for about an hour trying to find an atm because I literally had no Bosnian money (asked for directions about 30 times) until I ran into a guy from the hostel who'd been there a week and knew where one was. I decided to eat at this place recommended by the guide book and the American couple, so I ordered a sampler which was absolutely amazingly delicious.
Back at the hostel for the night, I was now an oldie instead of a newbie, so I got to sit around with the manager and other guests. The manager brought us beer when his shift was over and talked up a storm. I wish I'd taken the tour because what my friends in Mostar didn't tell me was that you get this amazing narrative of somebody's actual experiences. I went to the 3 places they go, but I missed out on that and got a sample while the manager was talking. He also told one of his many tour jokes: "This guy is swinging on a swing, and his friend asks him what he's doing. He says he's bored, but his friend wants to know what on earth he's doing. 'Fucking with the snipers,' he says." Now that's pretty intense. Sunny was generally an interesting guy, trying to impress the girls with his hostel-manager power trip (he controls about three quarters of the beds in Sarajevo, if you're nice he'll find you a bed on a fully booked day, if you're an asshole entitled tourist, you're screwed). He also talked about Jazne, the blond 30-something woman who's so crazy/drugged/drunk she looks like she's 50. Jazne hangs out at the train station and likes Japanese men because they don't say no very firmly for cultural reasons. So she offers them a room for 5 Euro and then seduces them, basically. She's actually in Japanese guidebooks, has a bunch of google.japan hits, this asian canadian guy I met said she'd approached him in the train station and asked if he was from Japan and that he'd heard about her from a Japanese guy on a boat in Croatia. Half of Japan loves her, says Sunny, and half is scared of her and shows up at 7am at the hostel office asking for a room for the next night. Sunny also talked about his 2 great disappointments when he travelled out of Bosnia. I guess he went on some end of high school trip to Italy and his friends appointed him to go order in MacDonalds. (Did I mention? No McD's in Sarajevo, they didn't want it or the jobs they'd lose for the property McD's demanded, so along with probably Havana it's one of the only capitals without a McD's.) He ordered Big Macs in English from a woman who didn't speak much English, and when she put them on the tray he was sure there was some misunderstanding. "Big Macs, Biiiiggg macs. Big," he said. I guess the "Big" Mac and the statue of David were his two great disapointments in Italy.
Colorful detours aside. Wednesday I got up bright and early and, refusing to use the slooooooow overpriced internet next door, set out towards the Jewish cemetary, certain I'd find a cafe along the way to check the primary results. Problem was, I left old town and hadn't wandered passed one, and new town isn't touristy so there were none there. At that point I was pretty much at the turn off to go up the hill to the cemetary, so I did without knowing the election results. The Jewish cemetary in Sarajevo is incredible. It's up on a hill that overlooks "sniper alley," a busy intersection near the Holliday Inn where civilians were often shot by snipers...from the Jewish cemetary. It looks like it's been hit by vandals, and in a way it has. Many gravestones have scars from bullets hitting them, many are knocked over. The giant rectangular stone holocaust memeorial actually has a shell hole on one side. It's sort of a tourist site so a lot of it is well-walked on, even littered upon, but I went way up high towards the old section before I realized with a start that, while it is a residential area, a tourist site, and has no warning signs, there was a possiblity there might be mines off the main path. So I walked on the gravestones back to the path. By then I had gotten used to always staring up at bullet holes in buildings, but the mine thing wasn't something I'd thought about, having been only in the city. After the cemetary I found internet and was very happy about Deval, then went to a few Jewish museums. One was the city's official Jewish museum located in the old temple, with vague exhibits on culture and the holocaust, the other was a gallery next door that had letters and pictures from concentration camps and of victims and survivors on display, and really interesting stories. The Jewish community was at one point 14,000 or so, and after the Holocaust had dwindled to either 7000 or 1500 (I forget). After the war in the 90s it was down to either 1500 or 700, with many poeple going to Israel and leaving a population with very few young people. I wish I'd stayed in Sarajevo for Rosh Hashannah, I'm sure I would have been invited to dinner and that would have been really interesting.
After more amazing food from the same restaurant, and talking with a grad student doing field research on the conflict who had heard of Tim Burke, I got on a night bus to Zagreb, Croatia. I pretty much locked my purse to myself, and slept not so well, though apprently well for the last hour after the border crossing (still no stamp for Bosnia, damn it) that when I woke up we were in Zagreb and the bus was empty and I had to rush to get my shoes on and get off the bus while my contacts were all messed up. I found the train station and got on the next train to Ljubljana, Slovenia.
I wandered around, saw lots of bullet holes and bombed out buildings that I avoided, was shocked by the endless graves marked with 1993, and found my way to the old mosque. There were several tour groups of old French ladies and as I was the only individual the imam opened the door to the tower and let me climb up. Cool views, though again spoiled a little by the haze and rain. Anyway, he said to come back in a few hours when it was less busy and he'd talk to me about the mosque/town, so I wandered around. Saw old town with its uneven cobblestone streets and rebuilt old bridge (Stari Most). Latched on behind an english speaking tour guide who talked about how boys in the town jump of the 20-30 meter high peak of the bridge into the fast-moving water below, how when Franz Joseph came to see Mostar he was afraid he'd fall on the cobblestone so they put carpet out on the bridge, how it was rebuilt from original stones after the war. Saw a gallery with photos from the war, including the river below completely dry - I gathered from the guide that people used it as their only water source. I bought a gorgeous cashmir shawl and was looking at the bridge from a mosque on the river (there were about 100 mosques) when I met an American couple travelling for the whole year (had been to Ghana for several months) and invited them to come back to the other mosque with me.
Here's what I wrote hastily in my gmail after talking to the Imam:
"First we talked to the Imam about the history of the Mosque. It was built by some rich important ottoman figure, though not somebody in government. The guy was called black eyes (in bosnian obviously) and bought not only the land for the mosque but all the land around, so they get their income from renting the surrounding buildings. It is about 450 years old and the tower I climbed is 25 meters high. The tower was destroyed in the war, as were all the mosques' towers except one that was too short (which i have pictures of as well). Like the bridge, they rebuilt the mosque from as many of the original stones as they could salvage, and kept the rest on the propoerty. There are huge scars on the covered patio of the mosque from when the tower fell on it, bursting through the roof as well, which has now been rebuilt. The rich guy built a school and library as well and they have books that are 250, even 500 years old but the library is dirty and in poor condition and lets the rain in so the books are pretty much in bad, bad shape. Anyway, the muslims pray at as many mosques as they wish, basically goign to whichever is nearest. The Imam says that its good to pray at many, because it is less boring that way. We talked about how they are much more open about choice with the religion here than in other Muslim countries. Girls who wear scarves do it by choice, not because their parents make them. Though he indicated that he'd prefer girls do so because women, he said, are more beautiful than men (translation: men are more tempted by women?) so it makes it hard to pray if there are girls nearby showing too much. Anyway, after the war they got money from Saudi Arabia, but it was just enough to make the mosque safe to pray in, not enough to actually rebuild it to its former glory. Later they got money from Turkey to rebuild. Also Pavorati gave them 5Mi Euros. Saudi Arabia now no longer gives much money because the US restricts what Bosnia can receive due to worries about terrorism. Anyway, eventually we worked our way around to the war, I asked where they prayed during the war. This is out of order from our conversation, but basically at first in the very early 90s the Serbs were attacking from the East (the side of the river we are on, with all the mosques, the Muslim side) so the Croats and Muslims took shelter together on the west side. Up until that point in the 500+ year history of the town they had lived mostly in peace. Anyway when the Serbs were attacking everyone there were embargoes on Bosnians getting weapons, because some idiots in the UN thought this would stop the war. Of course the Serbs could get weapons but not the Bosnians so they were in big trouble. Eventually they started making weapons here, then fought back. So they finally drive the serbs out after a 5 month occupation, the Croats and Muslims began to fight. Something about Milosovic actually working with the Croatian president because they wanted to take Bosnian lands and enlarge both their countries. The Immam said the Serb occupation was nothing compared to the war in 1993, where thousands died. All the mosques were targetted especially, but first they had to shell the buildings around the mosques to get to the mosques. The cemetary across from the mosque I was at was sheltered by a building that was still standing, and they would bury the dead at night so the sniper couldn't get at them. There was a sniper on the other bank of the river which is now a holy spot - he scoffed at this, Im not sure if its a christian holy spot or what. They slowly retreated and ended up praying in classrooms of a school off away from the river. I asked him if he was happy when Milosovic died or if he wished hed gotten justice. He said if you are religous you know he would get justice from God. He scoffed at the Hague, saying that it is nothing, 15 years for 10000 deaths, and that the west had set it up to make up for protecting the serbs during the war but it was idiotic, etc. He said what happened to the men was worse than death, far worse than just being killed. Now that the fighting has ended it has gotten better. 8 years ago the town had 2 mayors, 2 school systems, etc. Now there is only one mayor, who is a Croat, but still two school systems - how can the kids grow up as one town if they go to different schools? I asked him if it was good to have one mayor who was a Croat or if hed rather have his own - he said it would be good if the mayor was good. This mayor has held off plans for some sort of Muslim cultural center to be built on Muslim owned land for years, but the Croats got a theater approved in a nearby location, no problem. Theres a lot of tension under the surface between the Croats and Muslims, which explains why when I arrived I had trouble getting people to tell me how to get to the bus station on this side of town.
The immam, whose name was completely unpronounceable and he knew it when he told us, was married but with no kids. He was only 25, had married at 21, had been an Imam there for 7 years! His brother was before him, and their father who died at the beginning of the war was before his brother."
Anyway, I hopped on a 6pm train to Sarajevo, and it was gorgeous, cutting through cliffs and such. I wisely went with the hostel that had an office in the train station and was ready to shuttle me and several others downtown (though the lady lied when she said they had free internet). The hostel was awesome, the first night I met a ton of cool people with interesting travel backgrounds. Think, 28 beds in a small cluster of rooms, with one tiny toilet/sink room and another that had a toilet, sink, and 2 showers....all together, in the open, with no stalls or curtains. Not sure who thought of that, but standard practice was to lock the door, so for 28 beds there were really 1.5 toilets and a shower. All of which were filthy, but the beds were very clean.
Because the guided tour was 20 marks plus 5 marks entrance to the museum, I decided to go it alone on the advice of the American couple in Mostar. I went with a kiwi on a train and a bus out to a suburb farmy type area where the driver told us to get off. We walked down a dirt road that felt like it was the wrong place, but we found the museum. They dug the tunnel during the war as a way around the Serb blockade, guarded it really well, and aside from aid drops at the airport it was the only way through to the outside world. They'd smuggle in food and weapons. Then I went back into town. Sarajevo is literally in a valley, with the river and main streets running straight between the hills. The hills made it ridiculously easy to hold in siege, you could really see it just standing in the city. I saw the ugly yellow Holiday Inn that the journalists were holed up in, and went to the History museum where there were really interesting exhibits on the history of the region and on the 1990s. There were always English captions but the articles were just in Serb so it would have been nice to have those translated. I wandered back along the river, passed the new Synagogue which was covered in scaffolding and not open, through old town. I figured out about my bus for the next evening, and on the advice of the cool hostel manager wandered up the hills for a view of the city (and, like in Mostar, the miles of gravestones that are all dated 1993-1995). I then wandered around for about an hour trying to find an atm because I literally had no Bosnian money (asked for directions about 30 times) until I ran into a guy from the hostel who'd been there a week and knew where one was. I decided to eat at this place recommended by the guide book and the American couple, so I ordered a sampler which was absolutely amazingly delicious.
Back at the hostel for the night, I was now an oldie instead of a newbie, so I got to sit around with the manager and other guests. The manager brought us beer when his shift was over and talked up a storm. I wish I'd taken the tour because what my friends in Mostar didn't tell me was that you get this amazing narrative of somebody's actual experiences. I went to the 3 places they go, but I missed out on that and got a sample while the manager was talking. He also told one of his many tour jokes: "This guy is swinging on a swing, and his friend asks him what he's doing. He says he's bored, but his friend wants to know what on earth he's doing. 'Fucking with the snipers,' he says." Now that's pretty intense. Sunny was generally an interesting guy, trying to impress the girls with his hostel-manager power trip (he controls about three quarters of the beds in Sarajevo, if you're nice he'll find you a bed on a fully booked day, if you're an asshole entitled tourist, you're screwed). He also talked about Jazne, the blond 30-something woman who's so crazy/drugged/drunk she looks like she's 50. Jazne hangs out at the train station and likes Japanese men because they don't say no very firmly for cultural reasons. So she offers them a room for 5 Euro and then seduces them, basically. She's actually in Japanese guidebooks, has a bunch of google.japan hits, this asian canadian guy I met said she'd approached him in the train station and asked if he was from Japan and that he'd heard about her from a Japanese guy on a boat in Croatia. Half of Japan loves her, says Sunny, and half is scared of her and shows up at 7am at the hostel office asking for a room for the next night. Sunny also talked about his 2 great disappointments when he travelled out of Bosnia. I guess he went on some end of high school trip to Italy and his friends appointed him to go order in MacDonalds. (Did I mention? No McD's in Sarajevo, they didn't want it or the jobs they'd lose for the property McD's demanded, so along with probably Havana it's one of the only capitals without a McD's.) He ordered Big Macs in English from a woman who didn't speak much English, and when she put them on the tray he was sure there was some misunderstanding. "Big Macs, Biiiiggg macs. Big," he said. I guess the "Big" Mac and the statue of David were his two great disapointments in Italy.
Colorful detours aside. Wednesday I got up bright and early and, refusing to use the slooooooow overpriced internet next door, set out towards the Jewish cemetary, certain I'd find a cafe along the way to check the primary results. Problem was, I left old town and hadn't wandered passed one, and new town isn't touristy so there were none there. At that point I was pretty much at the turn off to go up the hill to the cemetary, so I did without knowing the election results. The Jewish cemetary in Sarajevo is incredible. It's up on a hill that overlooks "sniper alley," a busy intersection near the Holliday Inn where civilians were often shot by snipers...from the Jewish cemetary. It looks like it's been hit by vandals, and in a way it has. Many gravestones have scars from bullets hitting them, many are knocked over. The giant rectangular stone holocaust memeorial actually has a shell hole on one side. It's sort of a tourist site so a lot of it is well-walked on, even littered upon, but I went way up high towards the old section before I realized with a start that, while it is a residential area, a tourist site, and has no warning signs, there was a possiblity there might be mines off the main path. So I walked on the gravestones back to the path. By then I had gotten used to always staring up at bullet holes in buildings, but the mine thing wasn't something I'd thought about, having been only in the city. After the cemetary I found internet and was very happy about Deval, then went to a few Jewish museums. One was the city's official Jewish museum located in the old temple, with vague exhibits on culture and the holocaust, the other was a gallery next door that had letters and pictures from concentration camps and of victims and survivors on display, and really interesting stories. The Jewish community was at one point 14,000 or so, and after the Holocaust had dwindled to either 7000 or 1500 (I forget). After the war in the 90s it was down to either 1500 or 700, with many poeple going to Israel and leaving a population with very few young people. I wish I'd stayed in Sarajevo for Rosh Hashannah, I'm sure I would have been invited to dinner and that would have been really interesting.
After more amazing food from the same restaurant, and talking with a grad student doing field research on the conflict who had heard of Tim Burke, I got on a night bus to Zagreb, Croatia. I pretty much locked my purse to myself, and slept not so well, though apprently well for the last hour after the border crossing (still no stamp for Bosnia, damn it) that when I woke up we were in Zagreb and the bus was empty and I had to rush to get my shoes on and get off the bus while my contacts were all messed up. I found the train station and got on the next train to Ljubljana, Slovenia.
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