One of the reasons I wanted to come to the Balkans is the history, where about every fifty years the various nationalities seem to need to start killing each other for a while. I remember watching TV during the 1990s Balkan wars and seeing people who looked like us being bombed and shot at, when usually it was somewhere African or Asian and thinking why do they have to do that. I have read a fair bit about it and understand the basics but going on a tour yesterday in Sarajevo called Times of Misfortunes was a rather chilling experience.
The guide who owns the business was 18 when the siege of Sarajevo started in 1992 and it ended in 1996. He fought in it and has a scary scar on his thigh from shrapnel as a souvenir. He told us he would only tell us his experiences and not go into the political complexities, but that is impossible and there was plenty of political stuff. The one thing he repeatedly referred to is that Sarajevo has always been and still is a mixture of orthodox (Serbs), moslems (Bosnians and the majority), catholics (Croats), Jews, and few others that have all existed together. When the war started and the city divided itself into armed zones between the first two it wasn’t just a religious and ethnic divide but families divided as well. I found this tour very moving and it has certainly left an impression on me. A few illustrations follow.
Sarajevo is basically in a valley surrounded by high hills and when all the fighting started the Yugoslavian army became the Serbian forces and they had plenty of heavy artillery and sat up in the hills and tried to destroy what was below them – anything of cultural significance to the Bosnians and the people. When you stand on the high ground at the end of town and look how close the guns must have been it is scary.
There are cemeteries all through Sarajevo and the ones from the siege are in unusual places because they had to have somewhere to bury people while the war was going on. One is where a football stadium was. One contains 11,000 plus Bosnian soldiers (Serbs lost about 1600) and the leader of the time whose grave is now guarded because some “terrorists” blew it up a while ago.
The guide was continually pointing out places that were no man’s land as the lines came into the city itself. There are still lots of holes and explosion marks on buildings.
During the siege the airport was controlled by Nato and the Bosnians controlled either side of it, with one side being the only route they had out of the area to Croatia (which changed sides twice during the conflict) where all food, weapons, and supplies of every type had to come from. The problem was the only way into Sarajevo was across the airport runway, about 1000 metres and initially this was done by guys running across with packs. 800 deaths later there was a tunnel built secretly which the Serbs knew about but didn’t know exactly where. We went to what is left of it
Going down Sniper Alley and seeing how close the action was bought to life a couple of novels I have read.
One doesn’t want to be boring so let’s just say the Serbians’ actions branded them as a rather undesirable lot and it’s a pity the leaders that have been dragged to the International Court can’t get the death penalty. And the Bosnians will never forget or forgive and I certainly don’t disagree with them. One wonders about the future of their country which is a federation with just under a half of it populated by Serbs who politically don’t show much desire to be part of it.
Going back to when I was in Serbia, I occasionally got to ask carefully about the 1990s and the answers generally expressed puzzlement about the politics and why it all happened. When I was in a lovely small town outside Novi Sad famous for making orthodox priests and wine I met a 25 year old law student who summarised her position more clearly – she hated what her country had done and was desperate to leave. As a tourist Belgrade and Nov Sad are excellent places to visit with nice old town centres, plenty to see and it is a really cheap country to visit. There are still a few bits of evidence of the war – I walked across the Danube in Novi Sad to visit a fortress and there was a small plaque on a rock that said the bridge was destroyed by Nato in 1999 and gave the name of a man unlucky enough to have been on it and killed. I recall thinking that 1999 wasn’t so long ago. Of course no mention was made of why Nato was bombing Serbia then.
Everyone smokes, or so it seems, and someone told me that is because Balkan people need danger in their lives. A smoke free restaurant is very rare. Bus drivers smoke. Graffiti is nearly everywhere, some includes two short Anglo-Saxon words. The Cryllic script is also everywhere which makes sorting out where you are and reading menus fun, but in the main centres English is spoken widely. It is different in small places and getting information at bus terminals there is a challenge. One small town I went to in Serbia was proving impossible until I found a taxi driver who spoke just enough English so I hired him on the spot and his last job after visiting the sights was to sort out what time the next bus left town.
I have taken one train journey and before we left was delighted to see two men with long handled hammers tapping all the wheels on the train. Very reassuring. The train was punctual, old and scruffy which is to be expected because everything owned by the Serbian state is like that. It is a poor place, not third world, but also not the first. The average monthly wage is about 350 euros. I saw mostly the northern part of it which is a big plain and the agriculture is small scale with lots of maize, sunflowers and Massey Ferguson rules. Getting up into the hills into Bosnia, farming looks almost subsistence stuff with little conical hay stacks, and Maurice will like to know that big tasty water melons are for sale beside the road for about 15 cents each.
As an ageing male on his own I have to admit that there is one delight to sitting around in the busy nice parts of Serbian towns and because I don’t want to openly admit to political incorrectness I shall cunningly tell you that Anna Ivanovic twins are everywhere.
The drive to Bosnia had everything possible except a ferry crossing – motorways, average roads, bad roads, switchbacks, mountain passes, viaducts, two border crossings, lots of stops, about twenty tunnels, and abandoned and bullet holed houses just over the border in Bosnia. This is in the Serbian populated part and apparently left over from ethnic cleansing. The best parts of getting to Sarajevo after ten hours of travel were twofold: firstly, I had had been to sleep for a while early on and after that was using the bus clock to work out how long things were taking, and when we finally got to the terminal I found out it was two hours earlier than the clock said; and the road in from the east goes up over a pass and you are in the city, just like that. No nasty industrial suburbs. The less nice part is that things cost more in Bosnia despite the wages and high unemployment rates being the same as Serbia.
The last word is about local wine – after lots of testing I can tell you the whites are boring and the reds can be ok. So far.
Dennis.