Day 68: Jerusalem of Europe - Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina

(Him: Charlie)(Him: Charlie)
Sarajevo is truly a place where “east meets west”. It is called Jerusalem of Europe because of the three dominant religions in the City (as well as the whole country) – Catholic, Orthodox, and Islam. And what do you think of when you hear Jerusalem? Trouble! And trouble indeed.  Religion was one of the biggest contributing factors to the Bosnian War in the early 90s.

Visiting Sarajevo means seeing the melting pot of religions – you can see mosques, orthodox and catholic churches, all located a stone-throw away of each other. Just imagine the orchestra of bells from orthodox and catholic churches and call-for-prayers from mosques all at the exact same moment.

Catholic Church

Mosque and Minaret

Orthodox Church

Visiting the city also means traveling through the history of Sarajevo in a matter of minutes. From the old town centre walking eastward, mosques and Ottoman style buildings first crowd the surrounding, but seconds later, you are into the Austrian-Hungarian world with western style buildings. And then before you know it, you are among concrete block buildings from the Communist era. I guess the commonality of all these areas are the scars left behind from the 1992-1995 war. i.e., ubiquitous bullet holes that remind us of the war.

Sarajevo caught the world’s attention from 3 events in the history. The first one was the 1914 assassination of the Austrian-Hungarian heir of throne, which triggered the WWI. The second one was the 1984 Winter Olympics. And the most recent one was the infamous Siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995 – the longest siege in modern warfare, at 3 years and 10 months. That was a dark period in Sarajevo history. The entire city was locked out by Bosnian-Serbs. Sarajevans had virtually no food, no water, or any other basic needs. In addition, there were constant shelling and sniper shootings. Over 10,000 civilians, including 1,500 children, were killed in this siege.

Like the conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria today, the Bosnian War was on the news all the time when I was little, but I simply couldn’t relate to it because it seemed so elusive. Just from the brief daily news shows, I could hardly figure out the conflict was taking place, let alone understanding the complex issues. So the more I heard about them on news, the more insensitive I became.

Coming to Bosnia, all the vivid proofs in Sarajevo, especially coloured video footages (not black and white!!) and bullet holes on buildings, remind me again that wars are still happening in this world (and very recently too!!) and they are more than just the news clips that we see on TV. People suffering in the conflicting zones, especially civilians, deserve more attention from international communities and better (more decisive and efficient) conflict resolution and humanitarian aids.


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Bizarre things happen in Bosnia:

• Bosnia has 3 presidents, one representing each ethnic group, but they rotate every 8 months to be "president" of the presidents. Among other things, this avoids sending more than one president to a diplomatic trip.
• The number of stars on the Bosnian flag does not represent anything, so according to locals, a bigger flag may have more stars.
• The official language of Bosnia is Bosnian-Serbian-Croatian in a single word. These three languages are essentially the same, but it has to be named this way to please all three ethnicity.