Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzogovina

The train ride from Mostar to Sarajevo is supposed to be one of the most beautiful rail routes through the Balkans, connecting the two cities through the Glogosnica and Trascanica Valleys and the Neranta River. So I was excited when I boarded and found a seat to myself on the right hand side of the train facing West which seemed, at the time, unsuspectingly empty, and had me looking forward to a quiet, hypnotic three hour gaze-fest of much-hyped passing landscape. That is until the train started moving, and I realized that it is really the left side of the train facing East which summons the views, and so I was left to barely watch the scenery unfold, backwards, while cranking my neck and creepily peering through my neighbors window. I guess you can’t win em’ all.
Sarajevo is a fairly large city, connected by a tram line and divided by the Miljacka River, that packs some pretty significant historical events and, much like it’s neighbor Mostar, can’t quite shake the image of being a war torn pile of rubble. But this is far from the truth and while the story of Sarajevo during the war is one to make the hairs on your arm stand straight permanently, it also has a rich flipside filled with centuries of religious and cultural diversity and tolerance; a place where Churches, Mosques and Synagogue’s line an Old City brimming with traditional Cevapi restaurants, Turkish rug vendors, and tea shops.
I was lucky to immediately befriend and ex-pat from Northern California currently living in the Czech Republic, and it didn’t take us long to refreshingly fall into a sarcastic, point-of-reference-banter that only we could understand. After almost five months of foreign travel, trying to always understand everyone else, it was nice to have formed our secret society from which to explore this incredible city. I say incredible not because of the noteworthy architecture or a nightlife that will mark the map as a must-do, but rather for the collective strength and endurance the people of Sarajevo showed the world, who was largely ignoring them, during the Serbian invasion of their city, their home, in 1992. After the fall of Yugoslavia, Serbia, Sarajevo’s neighbor to the East, decided to flex it’s muscles and test the climate of international intervention policies by surrounding the entire city with heavily armed ground troops, tanks and land mines from the mountain range which encloses almost the entire perimeter and used this as a base to implement a strategic battle plan for a defeat they were planning would take about ten days. Caught off guard, without a military or counter plan, completely surrounded and cut off from water supply, electricity and just about everything else, watching as snipers started picking their friends and neighbors off bread lines, the Bosnians under attack started tying the laces of their sneakers, rounding up regular pistols and hunting guns, digging a tunnel with garden shovels for limited supplies, and then started fiercely defending their city with the sheer force of their loyalty and pride which proved to be a much mightier weapon than their enemies ever anticipated. With their children hidden in basements, their homes reduced to rubble, their wives and daughters dragged off to rape camps, these brave men held their city on empty stomachs for over three years until a peace agreement was finally signed and the fighting stopped. The only word that forms from my almost speechless mouth is simply – incredible.
On a lighter note though, Sarajevo is home to another famous historical event; the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 which is said to have started WWI. Here you can visit the actual spot where the shooting took place and visit a museum complete with wax figures of the Duke and his wife. But in speaking with the we-are-tired-of-answering-war-questions locals, it is rather the 1984 winter Olympic games held in their city that they are most eager and happy to discuss. You can see on the faces of even the most conditioned tour guides, who explain this event everyday, the ray of light behind their tired eyes when the memory of peace and international pride enters their mind.
In the search for my own strength and resilience after the personal war of losing both my parents at a young age, I found myself having a great affection for this city. Sarajevo became an example for me of just how much you can lose, and the conditions under which you must survive and fight for your life during the loss, and how, much like the tunnel they dug as a vital supply line during the war, that walking through the pipeline of loss and nearing the other side, it is possible for freedom from sadness to coexist with the sadness itself and to appreciate the simple beauty of, once again, hearing the hillsides filled with the sounds of the birds instead of the sounds of bullets.