Cemented Cultures in Sarajevo, Bosnia

I arrive in Sarajevo knowing practically nothing about it. Tired and disorientated, my friend and I joke that it must be a decent place to visit since Bosnia and Herzegovina has competed in the Eurovision. Disembarking the rickety train from Serbia, we have no map, but the name and reservation number of a hostel.

Amna, a middle-aged maître d’, greets us outside a stark residential tower, where clothing dangles from many open windows. With voracious gusto she carries our bags up several flights of stairs till we are outside what was advertised to us as a hostel. Its extreme modestly is not what we expected. We find ourselves standing in a single room apartment, dwarfed by the presence of three bunk beds, each lining the wall. Amna senses our discontent because before we say anything she briskly insists on lunch at Burekdžinica ASDž, an apparent local favourite. It is over a meal of Ćevapi – Bosnian kebabs – that we get a real taste for Sarajevo and its turbulent past.
“You know,” she begins, “you know what happened here?” We awkwardly glance down at our Styrofoam plates of onions, sour cream, ajvar, and pita, to conceal our embarrassed looks.
Setting aside her fork, Amna takes time to tell us about the Bosnian War. She starts by recalling the hope she had when Yugoslavia dissolved. Her future was abruptly clouded when the Bosnian Serb forces brutally took siege of the city, in April 1992. A bloody genocide raged on for three years, resulting in the death of thousands.

She despondently tells us how her life had changed while she was doing her studies, explaining, “We were the new Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina for so little time before the Serbs destroyed everything. My home is no more, my family lost everything, and I didn’t finish my school.” She sombrely continues by telling us about the home and belongings she left behind. Her house is now a deserted shell, standing in the outskirts of the city and her processions have long been stolen.

With this heavy meal and heavier story to digest, we part ways. My friend and I climb aboard a battered tram, smelling of smoke and ancient leaves. Inside, a distressed toddler competes with the tram’s stridulating sound as it moves along the track. After Amna’s story we notice the dilapidating buildings which stand on either side of us, with their paneless windows and crumbling bullet holes.

We get off the tram when the driver gruffly shouted “Center” over the crackling intercom. It was then, standing in the Ottoman quarter that Sarajevo’s secularity quickly strikes us. The rounded domes of Ottoman architecture are a stark contrast to the communist blocks, looming on the outskirts. I hear the undulating sound of the ezan, while passing the gothic Sacred Heart Cathedral and can’t help but laugh at the juxtaposition. By following the sound, we find Gazi Husrev-bey Mosque. Under the sun it stands surrounded by people in prayer, kneeing on thread bead mats.

As we roam the streets, lined by low-lying eateries, cafes, and curiosity shops, we are cajoled by the restaurant proprietors who lazily scratch and stretch in the heat. Impatiently, they wait for people to break their Ramadan fast and for festivity to fill the air. A rotund man with a sweating lip coaxes us into his establishment. He is gracious until we ask for beer. In response he throws up his hands, repeating “Ḥarām” and leaves the restaurant. Moments later he reappears with a woman, carrying two beers. She sits them on the table and explains, “You come pay me for these after” and points to an Italian take-away a few doors down.

That evening we mount the Yellow Fortress to find placid Muslim families, assembled under trees. The lambent light illuminates the hazy outlines of churches, mosques and synagogues, which are nestled in the great valley surrounded by the Dinaric Alps. From this vantage point Sarajevo really resembles a melting pot of the world’s great religions. With the Ottoman in the south, Orthodox in the east, and Roman Catholic in the west, the diverse population lives and has collided.

It is hard not to be moved by the resilience and strength of these people. After three years of savage killing, the disparate creeds of Sarajevans managed to eventually reconcile their differences. The city exemplifies the importance of cultural tolerance, which we can so easily take for granted. While the aftermath of such atrocity is embedded in the nations’ consciousness, this city is the beacon of hope and peace.
Behind us a canon is shot to mark Iftar. We venture back into the centre where a sense of festivity is contagious, irrespective of religion. The din of families eating is heard from every restaurant. Some with beers, some without.

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