Small Town, Silvertown: Srebrenica

My limited orientation in Sarajevo and some animosities between different parts of the city made getting to Srebrenica a bit difficult in the beginning. I am not sure in which direction from the final stop of my city bus the overland bus station Eastern Sarajevo is located and only with the help of some German speaking lady in the street I finally get the officer to reconsider his answer that there is no other bus station anywhere around: Ah, the Serbian bus stop...! Well, yeah, the Serbian one. I get on the small bus just in time and enjoy another ride with many great views up and down the mountains.

The first thing I hear when I get off the bus in Srebrenica is the muezzin's call. ın a town that had most of its Muslim male population murdered only 18 years ago this doesn't sound as normal to me as in all the other Muslim places I stayed at so far. Srebrenica, however, is not at all to be reduced to a crime scene. In fact, considering its size of 3000-5000 inhabitants I get to know it as a place not much different from many rural towns in the eastern part of Euıope. And more alive than many places I've come across in rural Germany. I had my directions on my inner map a bit mixed up, but I soon fınd the hostel right off the main street (Maršala Tita, of course) with a garden at the Guber, a stream now tiny after several weeks of drought, but still giving a cheerful and soothing background sound. Miloš, the owner, is still at work and his mother and I don't have a common language, so we mostly smile, drink coffee and play with the cats. When he returns we are instantly in a good conversation about things like traveling and this place, the mineral springs that form the Guber and made the town a spa resort after the big days of silver mining and manufacturing were over that first gave the place its name (srebra is the Serbian/Bosnian word for silver) and how the town has developed since. I don't feel as if I just arrived; this is a good place.

The other guests, four Dutch guys and a Frenchman return from theır rafting trip and we decide to have dinner in the most astonishing restaurant Bato. On the way there we see many children and young people play basketball on the concrete sports ground next to the maın street now the heat of the day is over. We sit on the terrace of the fancy restaurant and after the charming owner has handed us the menu a young man with a blond pony tail whom we just saw playing basketball on the pitch appears, he seems to have beamed himself up the road. Now he beams at us and explains his mother doesn't speak English, so he helps with the foreigners. His English is very good, he translates and explains the menu and creates a vegetarian dish on the spot as there is none on the menu. The evening passes in cheerful conversations with occasional visits by a crazy cat (he likes to lick people's arms...) and the young waiter disappearing and reappearing in incomprehensible speed helping his mother around the house. For the first time on this trip it actually gets a bit chilly. And after the nights spent in big and noisy cities I fall asleep at the rushing sound of the Guber this night.

On Saturday I visit the memorial in Potočari. I've seen many pictures of the lines of white marble gravestones extending up the hills, but being there is a different thing altogether. At the center there is a modern Islamic chapel without walls, an abstract fountain, a central memorial stone and, most impressive, a marble panorama listing the names and life dates of the 8373 victims of the genocide. There are quite some visitors, a school class or youth group, moşt of the girls veiled, some Central European visitors speaking French or Dutch to each other, and locals visiting graves of loved ones. It feels strange to know that on the one hand this is the memorial of the worst crime against humanity committed in Europe since WWII and one of the most shameful failures of the international community and thus a place of public interest, a place that must not be forgotten by anyone, but on the other hand it is the site of the last connection to their sons, husbands, brothers and fathers for many heavily traumatized survivors that needs to be protected and respected in its intimacy. Therefore I only take a few pictures. I feel like I need to take some, but at the same time it is weird...

On the other side of the road are the halls of the abandoned battery factory of Potočari where the Muslim boys and men were kept before they were taken away and killed. One of the halls holds a picture exhıbition describing the fall of Srebrenica and two half rooms with black walls added inside of it. One serves as a room for film presentations and as the school class arrives the documentary is started. Although I saw the same film only a few days before in Sarajevo I cry half of the time. I am not working here and thus not in a professional mode. Miloš had expressed his worries of me being some sort of shrink when I told hım I'm in med school, but even though I am half a shrink I am not here out of strictly professional interest (although it's hard to tell where that ends and begins) and so I can let things get to me.

I wander through the other halls, some still have some old equpment in them, one holds a big greeting to Comrade Tito,  reminding of still older days, and there are many graffiti by Dutch soldiers who were in charge of the base that was supposed to protect the Muslims of the area.
I return to the exhibition hall and read the short biographıes displayed in the other newly added room together with one photo of the killed boy or man and one item found with the remains of his body. Then I leave, after buying a pen at the tiny souvenir and flower shop.

I am quite emotionally exhausted when I get back. Miloš tells me where to find the mineral springs and the old town walls with nice views of the town and the valley. They are both at the other end of the main street so I get to walk through most of the town again, this time in daylight. Especially after the exhibition ın Sarajevo I had expected worse. Some houses still carry holes of gun fire, some windows of abandoned flats are still covered in UNHCR plastic. Other houses on the other hand are all prim and proper and the atmosphere is basically that of a friendly calm summer afternoon. A small Bosnian town. As everywhere in the country I see many little shops selling groceries and more or less everything, people sitting outside, children on bicycles, many taxis. And there is a church overlooking the town and several mosques. In spite of the changed composition of the population there was even a new mosque and Islamic cultural center opened only a few years ago. A way to say we are still here, although many Muslım families who lived in Srebrenica until 1995 are not anymore. In turn it became the new home to Serbs not welcome anymore in their hometowns in other parts of Bosnia. War doesn't leave much unchanged. 

The spa tourism infrastructure is largely abandoned, though there are attempts to rebuild it. After climbing the stairs to a former restaurant I am rewarded with a great view of both the town and what has probably changed least over the past decades: the very green and round, yet steep mountains around it. I have to take a lot of pictures before I climb down again and up another path to find the mineral springs. After passing the construction site of the lower new spa building I find the first ones, truly amazing! Every one has a different way of emerging from the stone and one of them even smells of iron, I take a sip of the water with strong metallic taste. Actually some of these spring waters should not be consumed without medical advice because of its high concentrations of metals. Darkness starts to fall and so I return without knowing if I saw all springs.

A long day ends with some hours of cheerful craziness in the garden including a hornet fight (or nearly so) and some escalations of weird Dutch, Serbian and maybe even German humor. Probably true, this town doesn't see so many mainstream guests...

Stories.

Very short post, but this trip makes me see it even more clearly than all by dealing with it before, be it professionally trying to help people make sense of their life stories, reading novels and biographies in my free time, sharing and exchanging perspectives on major and minor historical events, trying to open my students' eyes for them, it's really all about STORIES.

Be it in taking a photo or writing a scientific paper, be it in politics or medicine. It's about finding the story, that is, making it visible for others, share it, get it across. Hıstory and her story, our story and their story. Your stories! My stories!
As stories are condensed realities, tangible truths.

Big City Bosnia: Sarajevo

After a quite exhausting night bus trip - no air conditioning, exceptionally narrow seats, some drunk passangers - I just sit in the hall of the central bus station for a long while, have breakfast and finish my book. Eventually I feel up to findıng my tram and a ticket and the hostel rıght in the center of the city, just two streets off the river Miljacka and the bridge where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated 99 years ago. The hostel ıs called Residence Rooms and the height of the rooms is certainly residential. The atmosphere is cozy and welcoming, although it is quite big, another family run place. While waiting for my room I talk to the owner, a great lady fluent in many languages, about how there are still differences between the eastern and western parts of Germany - and how she thinks Yugoslavia was better before the change.

In the afternoon I find a small guide book in the living room and set out to explore the surroundings in the blazing sunlight that sometimes is even stronger than my sun-glasses. Although it is not as hot as in Mostar my ice-cream consumption peaks here (after preaching for weeks to the parents at the pediatrist's practice to only buy packaged ice-cream in warm climate... ;))

I instantly like Sarajevo, after having been in Mostar and some places in Kosovo which felt quite different, I think I can say there is something like a specific Bosnian atmosphere that I recognize also in this much bigger city. In the old town district of Baščaršija and its surroundings the Turkish influence mixing with Slavic and Austro-Hungarian elements is especially visible and I am looking forward to visiting Turkey itself quite soon. The Gazi Husrev-bey Mosque is one of the most beautiful mosques I know with a calm and happy atmosphere filling the yard with a magnificent fountain in the middle of the bustling old town.
Later I walk up to the Srvzo family's house, a museum displaying the taste and comfort of the Sarajevo upper class during Ottoman times. 

The main streets and tiny alleys between the low buildings bustle with visitors considering souvenirs, eating ice-cream and drinking Bosnian coffe in one of the small cafes. There are quite a lot of veiled women, but even more with sIeeveless tops. No pressure to restrain one's clothing in this Muslim country, very relaxing. For more relaxing after much walking in the sun I choose a yard cafe to have a Bosnian coffee - don't even mıss my black tea all that much. The main streets leading away from the old town get really busy only later in the evening when people in groups, pairs, families get out to enjoy the summer with less heat and sun, but as cheerfully as in the afternoon in Baščaršija.

On the next day I join the senior hostel owner's tour dealing mainly with more recent aspects of Sarajevo's history. At the center of the tour is the siege Sarajevo suffered for nearly four years. After we visited the Jewish cemetery he shows us a rock with a great view of the city in the valley, streching nto the hills. Handing us a pair of binoculars he adds, see, this was the view the snipers had, you can distinguish people down there in the street. Weird feeling. Once more this tour is a mix of history and personal story, in this case starting in WWII. I will need many more stories to get a 3D picture... 

Before we visit the museum of the tunel that served as a life support during the siege, we visit another building that could be called at least half a tunnel: The ruins of the olympic bob sleıgh run, now a kind of open air graffitti gallery in the forest that had to be demined in order to be used as a get away from the city again.

Together with three other guests from the hostel - two of them Americans - I finish the day at the soccer friendly Bosnia-Hercegovina against the USA. The tıckets cost five Euros, we take along a Bosnian flag, a Bosnian scarf - and a US jersey. Bosnia starts out well and apart from sıdeway glances no one mınds the obvıuos American. After a while, however, the game turns and so does the audıence's mood. People even start to leave before the game ıs over. Still, I enjoyed the fırst match of national teams I saw so far. And so did the Bosnıan-American grandson of the hostel owner.

Kosovo Again

Before taking the night bus back to Sarajevo I use the last half day to visit Gračanica, a monastery and vıllage outside of Prishtine. The monastery is an important example of Byzantıne architechture in the region, the village has more or less turned into a Serbian enclave, including an office issuing Serbian passports and the like. On the bus I talk to a man who learned his close to perfect German - he even translated for the German Police in Kosovo - solely by watching satellite TV. He tells the driver to stop at the monastery for me, not necessarily a welcome stop...

The monastery is beautiful and silent despite of quite a few visitors and tourists (I am the only one abiding by the 'no photos' signs...). It is quite dark inside and the nuns are friendly, but shy. A withdrawn place.

When I'm back ın the city I take a last walk to see some parts beyond the boulevard I haven't seen so far, so I enter the old town. As ın many other places there are mosques being restored by the Turkish government and also some other construction work going on. What I find most typical about this quarter, however, is the combination of European architecture with an oriental maze of winding paths and streets, everythıng, of course, once more covered in the spider web of electricity lines. I cross a grocery street market wıth mny old men wearing traditional white Albanian felt hats. And all of a sudden I am back at the main road again.
Time to get ready to leave.

People... 

...and government

Crazy Canyon: Macedonia

It was meant to be a relaxing weekend with two of my friend's colleagues, sharing activities like kayaking and swimming at some lake in a canyon in the Macedonian mountains, namely the lake Matka, formed by the hydroelectric dam Matka I. It did not work out quite that way, but still we are glad we came and there will be many things to remember about this trip. Having taken some food for the drive we create the term border-crossing cheese balls as we eat those while waiting at the check point. As expected, no problems here and yes, we are diplomatic!

The instructions how to reach the hotel are a bit enigmatic, but we finally make it. A small hotel directly at the lake, big terrace, great view from the rooms (when they are finally ready) and an Orthodox chapel right next door. But we already see the threat to our peaceful and quiet evening: The hotel is preparing for a wedding! Well. But it's only noon, so we get two two-seated plastic kayaks and set out up-stream, always chasing the answer to the question of what lies behind the next corner. The lake turns out to form an even curve, so it's new similar great views, the path on the rock some ten meters above on the one side and some huts on the more level other side. After some good kayaking (or drifting...) we are quite hungry and after being shown where we can and where we can't eat by some rather surly young waiter we enjoy big bowls of chopska, the local salad (chopped tomatoes - those alone are worth a trip! - and cucumbers covered in white cheese). The afternoon passes pleasantly with reading, talking about books and some wine.

When we start thinking about dinner, the first wedding guests arrive. The quite long and cobbled walk from the parking lot puts strain even on the most skilled owner of 10cm heels. We marvel at the brightly colored dresses and hair styles of some female guests (and the less than happy look on the face of the bride). While the surly young man serves us dinner the party on the main terrace starts. The DJ plays a mix of traditional songs and 80s and 90s (including 'Time to Say Goodbye'...), the bride's mood however seems to improve and so does the volume of the music.

Even with closed windows it's loud enough for a party in our rooms, someone didn't plan this too well. I fall asleep anyway, two of the others, however, don't and they don't feel all that diplomatic anymore, either.
In the morning we manage to get a deal granting all of us another free night and the possibility to use the showers once more after having checked out today, so we can do some more canyon activities. First we visit a recently discovered cave upstream. It is quite cold inside and there is a lake and many bats! On the way back the guide manages to explain that the huts along the lake belong to Tarzan and Jane - or maybe just to some fishermen... Later we climb up a very steep path to a small monastery looking quite exactly like the chapel next to the hotel on the opposite side of the canyon. When we get back and are handed the keys to one of the rooms to shower, it turns out the whole building is without water... Well, what can you do. The crew can use a fire hose to get water from the canyon to do at least some rough cleaning and nearly floods our bags. But just nearly.

We leave in an amused mood, passing giant flags and statues on our way through the outskirts of Skopje. At the border we meet a strange sight. While there is a quite modest Kosovo flag on top of the check point building, a tiny shop right behind it (on Kosovo side) flies a giant Albanian flag... For the first time we get thoroughly interrogated about everyone's reasons for being in Kosovo. Maybe a new guy... We slowly get back to Prishtine, once more trying to adapt to the somewhat erratic Kosovar driving style. Once a driver is talking on the phone or even only to his neighbor he seems to be unable to go faster than 50km/h. You never stop learning in a new place...

Culture Shock And Prizren: More Kosovo

After having been very sick on Bayram I set out to Prizren while my friend has a short Friday at the embassy to complete. The walk to the central bus station gives me the first culture shock on this trip. I am on my own again and quite different from Slovenian or Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian Albanian sounds - and looks - completely foreign, inevitably jumping at me in bold Latin writing from every direction. some bald display dummies in bright glittery dresses angrily stare at me from a shop window. I take refuge in one of the many bakeries filled with the delicious smell of soft fresh white bread and rolls filled with poppy seed or jam. I am already exhausted when I reach the bus. The bus ride, some food and blue berry lemonade, however, give me time to recollect myself and so I leave the bus in a cheerful mood in Prizren. The map in the guide book only roughly indicates the direction from the city center to the bus stop, so I take a look at the sun, at the flow of the traffic and soon find myself at the Lumbardhi (or Bistrica), the river that runs through the center of the city. A bunch of rather old and short German KFOR soldiers in camouflage, but clearly on a sightseeing trip tumble out of a bus at one of the main bridges. I take the walk around the old town as the guide book suggests it and Prizren really is the gem of Kosovo. Unfortunately quite some of the bautiful old buildings such as the old hammam are out of use and in need of restoration. In the case of mosques the Turkish government helps a lot.

I don't know if it is because it is still Bayram or because of the heat, in the evening the cafes around the central square will probably be bustling with young people, I see them getting ready when I am back on the bus later. As I continue my walk I learn something about the League of Prizren, an Albanian political organization fighting for Albanian autonomy in the late 19th century which is also referred to in many "1878" graffitti all over the city. Co-existence was never all that easy, not even in earlier days of wide-spread trilingualism.

When I walk up to the fortress the path leads past the relics of the last victims of inter-ethnic hatred: The former Serbain quarter was destroyed in 2004 and lies deserted in the blazing sun. Once more international troops were unable to keep the non-existent peace here...

On the bus ride back to Prishtine I notice for the first time the quite homogenous infrastructure along the roads: car washing, car repair, furniture, building material and, like in one street in Prizren solely dedicated to these shops, huge glittery wedding dresses. A young country.

When I return I am able to enjoy my walk back, happy not to constantly need a map anymore, knowing when to expect a smile and wave from Bill Clinton and even the bald dummies look more friendly than in the morning. For dinner we find a lovely vegetarian restaurant, that probably owes its existence mainly to the expat community and next to it a happily chaotic book shop worth coming back to - if one has space for more books to carry.

No to negotiations

HALF TIME

I know I am way behind with my posts, but hoping to catch up... Still I break the chronology for this post - and the change of the header photo - as I just realized that yesterday and today are the middle days of my trip, day 27 and 28 out of 54. It feels like I left Ahrensburg a really long time ago. So many new impressions, great people I am so glad to have met in every single place I stayed, so much I learned, about the place and about the world on the whole, so much time to just walk or sit, catching pictures and thoughts. When I was in Belgrade last week, I realized I couldn't yet take two night trains and hit the 15 million metropolis of "far-off, shining and terrible Stambul" as Ivo Andrić puts it in his Nobel Prize winning novel The Bridge on the Drina (more about that later), although I would probably replace "terrible" with "huge and noisy". My health was a bit down and my mind needed a break, too, so I returned to Srebrenica, even for four days which was definitely the right decision. Mosque and church towers and green mountains, the view of Srebrenica from the ascend to the old town wall is a nice wrap up of one of my main impressions from the Balkans and a picture from a place to recover in between visiting all the big cities.
So here I am after four weeks in what used to be Yugoslavia, back to Belgrade, bought the ticket for the first night train (from a friendly and competent officer fluent in at least three languages!) and ready for Istanbul, or so I think...

Getting to And Being In Kosovo

I really don't need books or anything for day-time travel in the Balkans - the view from the bus windows is nearly always worth trying to get a glance at it, even when everyone else rather closes the curtains against the sun. Coming from Northern Germany and having spent my childhood vacations at the North Sea I've never been much of a mountain person, but the Balkans actually intrigue me, wild and green with many turquoise rivers deep down in steep valleys cut into the stone. The way from Mostar to Sarajevo offers many spectacular views and numerous European villages each with a small mosque. So, what is this discussion if Islam belongs to Europe about anyway?

There is a four hours lay-over in Sarajevo, I am tired and spend it in the hall of the central bus station, reading. The room looks strangely fallen out of time, 1970s' architecture including dark wood panels, some abstract wall decoration and the Sarajevo '84 snowflake (emblem of the winter Olympics) and script prominently placed over the central clock. I am a bit worried about the night bus, but it turns out to be quite a family trip. And both Serbian and Kosovar border officials accept my ID card for crossing the border, so, no stamps, no trouble. After collecting the documents and taking them to their office for some time, the border policeman hands them back to the conductor who then calls out the passengers' names, always interesting if they call the foreigners by first or last name and if the English native speakers recognize themselves. I usually get some special German greeting...

After two borders and changing the bus during the night I am not exactly awake when I reach Prishtine at eight in the morning, but I manage to get a taxi to the German embassy and even get in there to meet my friend who works there. She lets me into her home and returns to work, so I have some time to get organized and relax until we meet for lunch in a nice restaurant close to the embassy. As Kosovo uses the Euro the in Western European eyes favorable prices are not even obscured by conversion. On the way back I am able to take in some more details of the surroundings. Many houses and apartments along the steep streets are for rent as diplomats are not longer restricted to live in this area. Electricity seems to be distributed by a pattern of cables that remind me of a thick version of a web made by a spider on speed (If you're interested: nerd link). Probably everyone who needs a new connection just adds a new line...

After she finishes working my friend gives me a quick tour of Prishtine city center and its peculiarities before we meet some colleagues on the roof terrace of a hotel. On the main boulevard, Nene Tereze (Mother Theresa, she was Albanian, possibly even from Kosovo), there are many people out for an evening stroll, the population is young, ice cream, popcorn, grilled corn, cotton candy and blinking toys are for sale. The architecture in this part of town is a most bizarre mix on a small area. apart from multi-storey blocks in various stages of modernization there is a half finished, abandoned Serbian cathedral, the gleaming golden cross on the top contrasting the barbed wire at the empty windows. No one will use it. But no one will take it down either. In spite of thiat a new cathedral in honor of Mother Theresa is being built at the end of the boulevard... Another remarkable building is happily ignorant of the recent conflict: The university library is probably the most bizarre construction I've ever seen. Basically a giant puzzle of giant Mercedes stars...

From the terrace of the hotel Sirius we have a nice view of the city, not exactly beautiful, but friendly. After the sun has set, we have dinner at a restaurant which has also been chosen by the prime minister and a high rank hodzha and their entourage for the last Iftar meal of this Ramandan. Given the KFOR, EULEX and UN presence and the various embassies and NGOs, the expat community in Prishtine is quite big and because of the general socioeconomic status of the population the foreigners either go to places where you find the Kosovo upper class or to their own places all together.

Especially for Germans there is virtually no language barrier in most situations as so many Kosovars have spent some time as guest workers or refugees in a German speaking country or at least have family there. Many of these so called Schatzis (German for darling, not completely clear if they got the name because they call each other Schatzi or because they come back to get married...) are visiting for the summer, I see many flashy new BMWs and Audis with Southern German number plates.

Shreds of Bosnian Truth: Mostar!

I set of to yet another country on the morning bus to Split. I actually managed to take one that goes along the coastal road, possibly slower, but even once more standing for most of the trip I enjoy the view of the turquoise sea, little bays and harbors, the rocky islands in rows off the shoreline, definitely worth it. 

 

In the bus to Mostar there is no standing and as tickets for the morning bus are already sold out I have to wait for some hours at the crowded bus station in Split. Finally on the creaking and roaring vehicle I enjoy both the view and talking to a Croatian-German going to Mostar to see family. At this point I am only mildly bemused that her answer to my ‘the central bus stop in Mostar is next to the train station, right?’ is ‘There is a train station?’

At the Bosnian border I need my passport for the first time on this trip. The Croatians didn’t bother with it although they haven’t joined Schengen yet. Majda’s Hostel is not far from the bus (and railway) station and both the warm atmosphere and that Mariella already told me so many good things about it make me instantly feel at home. Majda really makes us feel like guests in a home and this also stretches to the forming of a group from these randomly arrived travelers. In the evening around ten of us have dinner together at a much recommended restaurant, in addition to great amounts of great food it actually feels below 30 degrees on their terrace.

 

The rest of the evening and most of my next day I spend just wandering around criss-crossing in and out of the Old Town. After severe destruction, most painfully also of the Old Bridge that gives the town its name and coat of arms, the Old Town main street and the bridge is now primly rebuilt. It is beautiful, but close up the bridge looks so old and new at the same time, that I don’t know how often I would have to cross it until I don’t notice that silent paradox anymore. The liveliness both during the day and also in the late evening hours is what really completes the picture to be as lovely as it feels to me.

 Former six storey shopping center

Other streets carry less fine scars. The frontline ran right through this quarter, the whole town was a battlefield, bullet holes are still visible on many buildings and some formerly big buildings still are in destruction. And, of course, there are still other scars. The woman about my age who works in a  souvenir shop near the Old Bridge tells us she hasn’t been to the photo exhibition of Mostar during the war. She can’t, she doesn’t want to. As I climb the minaret of a mosque – the cupola has been restored by the Turkish government – I see a largely intact town bedded between dramatic hills and stretching along a river. There are considerably more minarets on one side of the Neretva and more church towers on the other. This is a hint at the segregation of the ethnic/religious groups in this town that had up to 70% of mixed marriages until the war. The vague “ethnic/religious” is me trying to fine tune the simple logic of civil war that was also reproduced by Central European media. What is actually ethnicity in this melting pot region with its only now artificially divided languages (Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian)? What was religion under communist rule? And how can these two be seen as one? I know the phenomenon from Germany where many people still have problems to see that someone can be German AND Muslim at the same time…

 

Much of the fine tuning of my picture of Bosnia was gained during Bata’s tour, he is Majda’s brother and throughout the hostel season he does a wildly energetic and diverse 12 hours tour on Mostar and Bosnia now and then, he insists we shouldn’t believe him and never forget that this is his perspective that, of course, cannot be neutral.

What can be neutral? I don’t want to blow his secrets, of course, as I hope that many of you will be able to take that tour themselves… So I’ll just say that it also made me understand why, on top of the generous openness and hospitability, I could instantly relate to Bosnia and Mostar. Situated at the corridor connecting Europe and the Orient different cultures, languages, religions, ways of seeing, shaping and structuring the world, goods and people, customs and dishes have been moved hence and forth and created a unique mix that ultimately holds a little bit of everything, and still is its own, unique, twisted and golden. And also pretty much on its own.

Groups perceiving themselves as ‘other’ obviously prefer to see what differs and not what is shared. This being true for both sides gives fuel to conflict and living close to each other sometimes results in a firestorm…

Another phenomenon apparently fuelled in this region is spirituality. In Bosnia there are many tekkes (houses of dervish orders) and the old Bosnians even had their own religion, they called themselves Bogumils, loved by God, did not have church houses or elaborate clerical hierarchies and like Sufism they were shunned as heretics by many teachers of their, let’s say, cousins in faith.

A modern example of spiritual impact is the neighboring Medugorje. After some children apparently (sic!) saw the Virgin Mary some 30 years ago, the tiny village has grown into a thriving center of pilgrimage business even though it is not approved of by the Vatican.

 

As the hostel staff is getting ready for Bajram, the Holiday of breaking the fast at the end of Ramadan, my first stay in Mostar is coming to an end. Megan, Catherine and I enjoy some coffee close to the bridge and soon it’s time to head back to the bus station. Not without dipping in the Neretva – much less than half as warm as the air and with unsurpassable current – or shaking hands with Bruce Lee, though!

Bata says, don’t say good-bye, wir sagen auf Wiedersehen.

So, see you, Mostar!

Some more pictures

Street art inside the Sniper building: And God saw...

Outside of Mostar:

The Places With The Names Of The Early Morning News

Can you relate these places to the war? I asked Jan when walking back to the hostel after the trip to Krka. I really couldn’t, I didn’t know enough about what happened in these exact places and there was no visible destruction left. He pointed out how some parts of the city we just passed had to be completely rebuilt. I already knew the connection would be different, closer, for me in some other places.

The Yugoslav Wars were what made me realize that war is not a phenomenon of the past. Grandpa had been in the war, I knew that as a little child already. But a war now, in Europe, a civil war at that (what does that mean, I asked my mother, how does that happen?), I had to process that. I don’t remember when exactly German Broadcasting stopped announcing every part of the news with the name of the city it came from. But they still did so in the 1990s and so I’ve been familiar with the names of many places in this region for some 20 years. In my primary school years both breakfast and dinner would be accompanied by “German Broadcasting, 6:30, the news. Sarajevo…. Zagreb…. Belgrad…. Banja Luka…. Tuzla…. Mostar…. Srebrenica….” Children from these places (and from Iraq, Somalia and Rwanda, Baghdad, Mogadishu and Kigali were often mentioned on the news, too) filled the preparatory classes in my school and small caravan refugee camps were erected in my town. Much later I’ve been working with traumatized refugees from the Balkans, many of them still in a precarious legal in-between situation. Apart from my interest in Slavic cultures, Europe and twisted histories in general, it is one aim of this trip to get, if only a tiny bit of it, a first-hand perspective of these countries and the places with the names I got to know such a long time ago. To try to understand some of the realities in this region of crossroads and to think of something else first when I hear the names in the future than of war news in 1993 and frustrating German immigration laws in 2013.

Because every place should be appreciated in its own right. Some of what I will remember first from now on when I hear these names is what you find here.