16-Dec-2023
Sarajevo is a wonderful city for walking. And we've had two good days for it up to now. Yesterday was a tad rainy, but nowhere near rainy enough to deter the intrepid Terns. Today felt like a bonus. We'd worried about snow, and contemplated a day indoors. But no, it was cold, but neither snowy nor icy, so we had a good day's walking again.
There are points of interest in Sarajevo at every turn, and there's also just a lot of sheer handsomeness:
But what strikes you most, because you can't help but bump into it, is that Sarajevo has experienced more than its fair share of history:
The Emperor's Mosque, Sarajevo's oldest, and the first to be built (in the mid-15th century) after the Ottomans conquered Bosnia (it was then completely rebuilt a century later)
Views from the Yellow Fortress, which came into being after Eugene of Savoy sacked Sarajevo in 1697, thereby proving that the previous fortifications were inadequate. This attack was the reason Travnik became the capital for a century and a half. And this vantage-point shows Sarajevo's extraordinary topography really well
Here was where the shot was fired that ultimately triggered WWI
The Eternal Flame remembers those killed in WWII...
One of the "Sarajevo roses", which commemorate casualties of shelling during the Bosnian War (1992-95). Rather than repairing the damage conventionally, the holes have been filled with red resin to help us remember
There are plenty of facades still showing their wounds
Monument to the hundreds of children killed during the siege of Sarajevo
More of the fallen
Another pause for remembrance
And here we're recalling, with tongue in cheek, the international community's food aid during the siege
Gabriele Moreno Locatelli, an Italian peace activist killed by a sniper in 1993 while crossing the Vrbanja bridge. "I'm asking you to shout... I'm asking you to shout. Peace! Peace! Peace!"
Sarajevo's Jewish cemetery, founded in 1630, is one of the biggest of its kind in Europe. It became part of the front line in the 1990s war, and served as an artillery position for Bosnian Serbs. It was reopened in 1998, after undergoing extensive demining
The Holocaust Memorial
Logavina Street. Journalist Barbara Demick: "When I arrived [in Sarajevo] in January 1994, an 'empathy fatigue', as they called it in the humanitarian aid business, had settled over Bosnia. Readers around the world were numbed to the suffering of a people whose names they couldn't pronounce in a place they had never been. To bring home the reality of the war, my editors at the Philadelphia Inquirer suggested I pick a street in Sarajevo and profile the people living there, describing their lives." This was the street she selected
What a history... You can only hope for future peace and prosperity for this graceful city that has suffered so much.
The Multicultural Man, by Francesco Perilli, presented to the city by the Italian people in 1997. May we, like him, build the world better...