With the Adriatic sea reflected in the rear-view mirror – gleaming blue in the sunlight, as it was on the morning we left the Croatian riviera – we drove inland and entered Bosnia and Herzegovina again. We were bound to Sarajevo, where we were to spend two days before heading back to Tuzla, where the weekly Wizzair connection with Stockholm Skavsta would take us back to Sweden. On our way to the Bosnian capital, we made a stopover in the most famous city in Herzegovina, Mostar, to see one of the country’s most iconic landmarks.
It’s hard to forget what happened in the ’90s over there, anyway; the city still bears so many scars from the war. Although the old town has been for the most part restored, it still features some buildings displaying shell holes. The more one ventures out of the historical centre, the more visible the scars get. Just off the touristic path and into the actual city where the locals live, the number of shelled buildings is still very high. Some are just damaged on the outside but are still functional, others are just destroyed skeletons still standing.
Mostar made a great impression on me. Twenty years are two thirds of my life and to me they feel like an eternity, but it’s definitely not a long enough time to fully recover from a war. But life went on, and Mostar got its bridge standing once again. As I was taking in the sharp contrasts of what’s gone forward and what seems frozen in time, I started wondering how rightful it is to get rid of all the atrocious testimonies of the war. I couldn’t shake off the shame I was feeling for being so attracted by those destroyed buildings, and deep down I wished that the people of Mostar had always had their original bridge standing and had never had to endure that terrible war. But that’s not how things went: the war happened, then Mostar stood up again and it now looks towards a brighter future. All the crumbled buildings are the scars of that near past. Removing them completely would be unfair, would make memory fade, would betray the intention to never forget ’93.
In terms of reconstruction, one can tell that much more effort was put into the capital city. After leaving Mostar, we reached Sarajevo and allowed ourselves more time to explore it. Although still visible here and there, scarred and destroyed buildings are definitely outnumbered by whole and renewed or brand new constructions. Of course, even Sarajevo has its share of mementos, and its landscape is patched with what to me was the most shocking testimony from the war: the number and size of its cemeteries. Graveyards in Sarajevo have literally been fitted wherever there was an area clear of buildings. I think I have never seen a city with more cemeteries than Sarajevo.
One thing I didn’t get to see in Sarajevo was the remains of the facilities that had hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984. We tried to locate them, but we were short on time and got lost trying, so we gave up. I guess that this will be the reason why I will one day go back to Sarajevo. This, and one more portion of ćevapčići, please.
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