I am writing from a cafe in the newest capital of the newest country in Europe- Pristina, Kosovo. It has been an amazing and interesting journey to get here and this blog is going to be long and history heavy! (Might want to skip this one Sands :-)).
After Dubrovnik we were quite happy to get the bus over the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina where we were sure there would be fewer tourists. We wanted to stop over in a small town near the border called Trebinje but we couldn't really find any hostels there. So we took our first foray into the world of AirBnB- people advertise their spare room or their second home etc. for people to stay in. We arranged to stay with a family whose son was working in China. He said his parents would be waiting for us at the bus. When we got there we were greeted by the huge smiles of a Cher look-a-like and her husband. We quickly realised they didn't have a word of English between them so the drive home comprised of the lady getting very excited about the farm animals and me telling her the English words. It was such a warm welcome we knew we were in for a great experience.
We arrived at their home in the countryside outside of the town which had a large garden growing potatoes, onions, tomatoes, limes, oranges, kiwis, grapes, courgettes.......They also had two cats and two very cute kittens who were to become our very close friends over the next couple of days. Through Google translate and a call to their son in China, we arranged from them to take us to the town and pick us up later so we could look around. The town is very small with a tiny walled centre that was the original settlement. It was nice weather so we trundled round and sat by the river before grabbing some dinner. When we got back to the house the lovely lady ushered us into their kitchen and poured us shots- luckily I got a coffee flavoured one from a labelled bottle- Yonna however got some home made rocket fuel! The next day they took us to the Orthodox monastery, a church overlooking the city and their famous bridge, taking constant photos of us for their facebook collection, before dropping us off at a winery for drinks and dinner. The winery offered a tasting price for each wine so we tried 6 between us and had some great food.
The next morning it was time to say goodbye and head to Mostar. The lady wrote a long message in Google Translate that basically came out as that they had loved having us, they didn't want us to leave and that they love us! They were lovely people and, as we were to find out, just one example of the hospitality we could expect from the rest of Bosnia. Mostar was a short drive away and we found our hostel very easily to be greeted by another lovely man speaking fluent German. Lots of people there can speak German and most assume that's where we're from anywhere. We got the gist of what he was saying and headed out to explore. The Ottoman empire really left its stamp on Mostar so it is a beautiful mixture of Eastern and European architecture and cultures. Unfortunately the other thing that has left its stamp is the war in the 90's- you can see skeletons of huge buildings that once were and scars left by bombs on many buildings. Perhaps that's a good intersection to talk about the war.....
It is hugely complex and I am 100% sure I won't have everything correct or in the right order but I will give it a go. Before Tito died, the apparently much loved leader of the Socialist state of Yugoslavia, he amended the constitution to say that if one state within Yugoslavia wanted independence and their people agreed through a vote, they could have it. When he died the separate nations were represented in a kind of parliament. It seems that the wealthier states in Yugoslavia could see the way it was crumbling and wanted their independence before it was too late. Another factor appears to be that Milosevic, the leader of Serbia, was gaining more and more power which the other states didn't like either. Slovenia was the first to breakaway and sparked a 10 day war between them and the Yugoslav People's Army (YPA). The army, by this point was dominated by ethnic Serbs (part of Milosevic's grand plan which I will come on to) and as there weren't many Serbs in Slovenia, they let that go relatively easily. The next was Croatia- it's difficult to learn much about war there as modern tourism seems to have covered over the cracks. Bosnia and Herzegovina came next but Croatia had signed an agreement with Milosevic to split the country and the West part would become part of Croatia. Bosnia wasn't going to retain its newly declared and globally recognised independence, without a fight. This is where Mostar's fate unfolded.....
We sat having lunch on our first day in Mostar, overlooking the river on a terrace with the very beautiful, famous Stari Most (old bridge) in our sights. We watched as a tourist paid a young guy to jump off the top into the water- a very scary drop of 22m but a local tradition! The fact is that the bridge he jumped off isn't really 'old' at all. In 1992 the YPA started shelling the town from one side of the bridge, backed by the Croats. By 1993 they had totally destroyed the town's symbol, the old bridge- a needless act of spite and an attempt to break the will of the resistance fighters defending their town and independence. We watched a video of the gradual destruction of the town and the bridge and the eventual rebuilding of the bridge once the war was over. So what stands now is a modern symbol of triumph and resistance- it would be nice to think it represented peace and forgiveness but there are signs that say 'never forget '93' everywhere and we were to learn later that things aren't quite as unified as they might appear.
The rest of our day was spent wandering the little cobbled streets with covered bazaars and we climbed a minaret to get a panoramic view of the town. It is a really lovely place. The next day, the hostel owner's son took us on a tour of some nearby sights. We visited an original Dervish house dating from the Ottoman times set in a gorge, a hill town with a 16th century fort at the top and beautiful waterfalls. After a great couple of days there we moved on to Sarajevo- a name we recognised as being troubled but really knew nothing about it.
The hostel in Sarajevo was great and they immediately gave us loads of tips to do in the city- even before we left the hostel we'd booked an extra night! Sarajevo is an even more striking mix of East and West. There is one street in the centre that in one direction echoes their Austro-Hungarian past and if you turn 180 degrees you are looking at the low, wooden framed buildings of Turkish bazaars. It is proud of its history as a multi-cultural place where Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox and Jewish people have lived happily shoulder to shoulder for centuries. We took another free walking tour and saw the very spot that Franz Ferdinand and his wife were shot by an ethnic Serb, who disagreed with the empire-expanding Austro-Hungarians, sparking WW1. It was on this tour that we got our first bits of information about the recent and very sad history of the city. Shamefully, I knew nothing of what happened in Sarajevo.
As I wrote earlier, Milosevic was the most powerful Yugoslav leader as it was breaking up, and controlled the army. However, he wasn't deploying troops to fight multiple wars to keep the nation together; he had a much more sinister plan. He wanted to build a Great Nation of Serbia that would combine much of the land of former Yugoslavia under it, however his plan didn't include anyone but ethnic Serbs making up its population. Having promised the West part of Bosnia to Croatia, he wanted to ingest the East. Sarajevo, being the capital, was obviously then an important city for him to have but first he needed to carry out 'ethnic cleansing' (a term coined by himself) of the Bosniaks.
Unfortunately for the city it is situated in a valley, flanked by hills at all sides. In the months leading up to the outbreak of war, the Yugoslav army had confiscated all the weapons in Bosnia under the guise of cleaning them and maintenance- the Bosnian government believed them. The YPA started occupying the flanking hills around the city and when asked why, they said they were practising military maneuvers- the Bosnian government believed them. After a YPA sniper shot and killed two young girls crossing a bridge in Sarajevo in 1992, it slowly transpired that they were infact aggressors. The people of Sarajevo took to the streets to protest against war and declared that they would not fight their brothers, they wanted peace. The city was still a mixture of all the above religions which went hand in hand with the ethnic groups of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. They were convinced they would stand together against war. Unfortunately, they underestimated the aggressor who started to fire on the peaceful demonstration; the city was surrounded under siege by Milosevic's army, with no army and no weapons to defend itself.
We took a brilliant tour that lasted almost all day which explained what it was like during the 4 years of the siege. The lucky ones with money managed to get out of the city and fled to countries offering asylum. Many people weren't so lucky. Bombs fell on the city every 15 minutes for 1425 days, 70% of buildings were totally destroyed and 90% were damaged. The most remarkable thing is the way people survived, their resilience was the most moving thing. The enemy cut off all water supplies, all electricity, all exits and entrances into the city- they were trying to starve them of everything you need to survive. The local brewery was the only place you could get water as they had a natural spring so women, men and children- old and young- took missions to collect water for their family. The enemy lined the routes with snipers who shot at them. They shot to injure, only to draw more people into their sights trying to help the injured and then would shoot to kill as many people as possible. The YPA lined the now famous 'snipers alley', a long wide boulevard in Sarajevo and a vital link between neighbourhoods, friends and families. We watched footage of people sprinting across the alley, risking their life, just to visit a friend. After a while it all became normal, no-one in the international community had come to help, the people thought this would be their reality forever- they adjusted and tried to carry on their lives. Schools kept running in cellars, nightclubs existed, the symphony orchestra put shows on, the now famous Sarajevo international film festival was started during war time, there was even a Miss Sarajevo beauty pageant!
Some hope was restored when a Serbian commander who was from Sarajevo defected and started to build an army within the city. This army dug a tunnel of 800 metres long, by hand, which gave a vital lifeline leading to the Bosnian held area just 10km from Sarajevo. They were able to smuggle soldiers, arms and food through the tunnel, bringing the black market costs down for the people. Eventually UN troops entered the area but their presence brought very little consolation to the people. As peace- keeping troops only they are mandated to not use force however the stories we heard about their crimes were sickening. If people did try and escape the city and make a run for it across the airport landing strip, some UN forces used a massive spotlight to follow them for just long enough for the YPA snipers to shoot them from the hills, instead of assisting young girls at the mercy of sex traffickers some UN soldiers took a cut of the proceeds in return for warning the traffickers about raids, there is also evidence that they assisted in moving girls around for the sex trade.....there is much more which I won't continue about.
The resistance army managed to push the YPA troops back enough and eventually a peace treaty was signed. Over 11,000 people were killed and over 1000 of them were children. The main generals are currently being tried for war crimes but of course Milosevic died of (what we've been told was a suspicious) heart attack during his trial.
Sadly the heartbreaking history didn't stop there. We went on to the Srebrenica exhibition where 8000 Muslim men and boys were massacred by Serb forces. Again the stories of survivors and images of mass graves and grieving mothers was horrific enough without the abhorrent actions of the UN soldiers being revealed as well. Dutch forces evicted families seeking refuge in the safe area and delivered them directly into the hands of the Serb forces. In the buildings of the safe areas the UN soldiers left evidence of their real thoughts about those they were sent there to protect.
Despite all of this, the Bosnian people are the happiest most welcoming people we have come across yet. Their country is beautiful and we loved Sarajevo- it has taken the spot as our favourite place so far on the trip and I highly recommend people to go and check it out. The country is just about to go through Presidential and Parliamentary elections- they have 3 Presidents to represent all the ethnicities and in fact there is an area of Bosnia which is called the Republic of Srpska, a Serb dominated area and I suppose an offering to Serbia during the peace negotiations. So it is not quite a united nation but one of the most interesting places I've ever been.
It was hard to then enter Serbia without feeling a little bit biased although I am certain both sides did bad things. We took the bus to Belgrade, a huge busy city in direct contrast to where we'd come from. We took another free walking tour and very little mention was made of the war. They were bombed in 1999 by NATO forces for their actions in Kosovo but this was brushed over too. And then, the most important day of this trip, it was Yonna's big 3 0 birthday!! We had found out about something called the 'Escape Game' which had peaked Yonna's interest. We rocked up to a grey, high tower block and took a rickety elevator up to the 6th floor. I was a little wary to say the least....we found the apartment in the instructions and a nice smiley, young girl answered the door which put me more at ease. Basically we were locked in a room for one hour and had to find our way out through solving clues and finding keys to unlock padlocks.....we failed, we were close, but we failed! It was good fun and afterwards we headed to the Bohemian area to have dinner at a traditional Kavana where a band of an accordion, double bass and acoustic guitars go round the tables and play to the diners. It was a great experience and an unforgettable birthday :-)
So after all that we are finally in Kosovo, which I will write about next time, where we spend a couple of days before crossing to Montenegro.
After Dubrovnik we were quite happy to get the bus over the border to Bosnia and Herzegovina where we were sure there would be fewer tourists. We wanted to stop over in a small town near the border called Trebinje but we couldn't really find any hostels there. So we took our first foray into the world of AirBnB- people advertise their spare room or their second home etc. for people to stay in. We arranged to stay with a family whose son was working in China. He said his parents would be waiting for us at the bus. When we got there we were greeted by the huge smiles of a Cher look-a-like and her husband. We quickly realised they didn't have a word of English between them so the drive home comprised of the lady getting very excited about the farm animals and me telling her the English words. It was such a warm welcome we knew we were in for a great experience.
We arrived at their home in the countryside outside of the town which had a large garden growing potatoes, onions, tomatoes, limes, oranges, kiwis, grapes, courgettes.......They also had two cats and two very cute kittens who were to become our very close friends over the next couple of days. Through Google translate and a call to their son in China, we arranged from them to take us to the town and pick us up later so we could look around. The town is very small with a tiny walled centre that was the original settlement. It was nice weather so we trundled round and sat by the river before grabbing some dinner. When we got back to the house the lovely lady ushered us into their kitchen and poured us shots- luckily I got a coffee flavoured one from a labelled bottle- Yonna however got some home made rocket fuel! The next day they took us to the Orthodox monastery, a church overlooking the city and their famous bridge, taking constant photos of us for their facebook collection, before dropping us off at a winery for drinks and dinner. The winery offered a tasting price for each wine so we tried 6 between us and had some great food.
The next morning it was time to say goodbye and head to Mostar. The lady wrote a long message in Google Translate that basically came out as that they had loved having us, they didn't want us to leave and that they love us! They were lovely people and, as we were to find out, just one example of the hospitality we could expect from the rest of Bosnia. Mostar was a short drive away and we found our hostel very easily to be greeted by another lovely man speaking fluent German. Lots of people there can speak German and most assume that's where we're from anywhere. We got the gist of what he was saying and headed out to explore. The Ottoman empire really left its stamp on Mostar so it is a beautiful mixture of Eastern and European architecture and cultures. Unfortunately the other thing that has left its stamp is the war in the 90's- you can see skeletons of huge buildings that once were and scars left by bombs on many buildings. Perhaps that's a good intersection to talk about the war.....
It is hugely complex and I am 100% sure I won't have everything correct or in the right order but I will give it a go. Before Tito died, the apparently much loved leader of the Socialist state of Yugoslavia, he amended the constitution to say that if one state within Yugoslavia wanted independence and their people agreed through a vote, they could have it. When he died the separate nations were represented in a kind of parliament. It seems that the wealthier states in Yugoslavia could see the way it was crumbling and wanted their independence before it was too late. Another factor appears to be that Milosevic, the leader of Serbia, was gaining more and more power which the other states didn't like either. Slovenia was the first to breakaway and sparked a 10 day war between them and the Yugoslav People's Army (YPA). The army, by this point was dominated by ethnic Serbs (part of Milosevic's grand plan which I will come on to) and as there weren't many Serbs in Slovenia, they let that go relatively easily. The next was Croatia- it's difficult to learn much about war there as modern tourism seems to have covered over the cracks. Bosnia and Herzegovina came next but Croatia had signed an agreement with Milosevic to split the country and the West part would become part of Croatia. Bosnia wasn't going to retain its newly declared and globally recognised independence, without a fight. This is where Mostar's fate unfolded.....
We sat having lunch on our first day in Mostar, overlooking the river on a terrace with the very beautiful, famous Stari Most (old bridge) in our sights. We watched as a tourist paid a young guy to jump off the top into the water- a very scary drop of 22m but a local tradition! The fact is that the bridge he jumped off isn't really 'old' at all. In 1992 the YPA started shelling the town from one side of the bridge, backed by the Croats. By 1993 they had totally destroyed the town's symbol, the old bridge- a needless act of spite and an attempt to break the will of the resistance fighters defending their town and independence. We watched a video of the gradual destruction of the town and the bridge and the eventual rebuilding of the bridge once the war was over. So what stands now is a modern symbol of triumph and resistance- it would be nice to think it represented peace and forgiveness but there are signs that say 'never forget '93' everywhere and we were to learn later that things aren't quite as unified as they might appear.
The rest of our day was spent wandering the little cobbled streets with covered bazaars and we climbed a minaret to get a panoramic view of the town. It is a really lovely place. The next day, the hostel owner's son took us on a tour of some nearby sights. We visited an original Dervish house dating from the Ottoman times set in a gorge, a hill town with a 16th century fort at the top and beautiful waterfalls. After a great couple of days there we moved on to Sarajevo- a name we recognised as being troubled but really knew nothing about it.
The hostel in Sarajevo was great and they immediately gave us loads of tips to do in the city- even before we left the hostel we'd booked an extra night! Sarajevo is an even more striking mix of East and West. There is one street in the centre that in one direction echoes their Austro-Hungarian past and if you turn 180 degrees you are looking at the low, wooden framed buildings of Turkish bazaars. It is proud of its history as a multi-cultural place where Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox and Jewish people have lived happily shoulder to shoulder for centuries. We took another free walking tour and saw the very spot that Franz Ferdinand and his wife were shot by an ethnic Serb, who disagreed with the empire-expanding Austro-Hungarians, sparking WW1. It was on this tour that we got our first bits of information about the recent and very sad history of the city. Shamefully, I knew nothing of what happened in Sarajevo.
As I wrote earlier, Milosevic was the most powerful Yugoslav leader as it was breaking up, and controlled the army. However, he wasn't deploying troops to fight multiple wars to keep the nation together; he had a much more sinister plan. He wanted to build a Great Nation of Serbia that would combine much of the land of former Yugoslavia under it, however his plan didn't include anyone but ethnic Serbs making up its population. Having promised the West part of Bosnia to Croatia, he wanted to ingest the East. Sarajevo, being the capital, was obviously then an important city for him to have but first he needed to carry out 'ethnic cleansing' (a term coined by himself) of the Bosniaks.
Unfortunately for the city it is situated in a valley, flanked by hills at all sides. In the months leading up to the outbreak of war, the Yugoslav army had confiscated all the weapons in Bosnia under the guise of cleaning them and maintenance- the Bosnian government believed them. The YPA started occupying the flanking hills around the city and when asked why, they said they were practising military maneuvers- the Bosnian government believed them. After a YPA sniper shot and killed two young girls crossing a bridge in Sarajevo in 1992, it slowly transpired that they were infact aggressors. The people of Sarajevo took to the streets to protest against war and declared that they would not fight their brothers, they wanted peace. The city was still a mixture of all the above religions which went hand in hand with the ethnic groups of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks. They were convinced they would stand together against war. Unfortunately, they underestimated the aggressor who started to fire on the peaceful demonstration; the city was surrounded under siege by Milosevic's army, with no army and no weapons to defend itself.
We took a brilliant tour that lasted almost all day which explained what it was like during the 4 years of the siege. The lucky ones with money managed to get out of the city and fled to countries offering asylum. Many people weren't so lucky. Bombs fell on the city every 15 minutes for 1425 days, 70% of buildings were totally destroyed and 90% were damaged. The most remarkable thing is the way people survived, their resilience was the most moving thing. The enemy cut off all water supplies, all electricity, all exits and entrances into the city- they were trying to starve them of everything you need to survive. The local brewery was the only place you could get water as they had a natural spring so women, men and children- old and young- took missions to collect water for their family. The enemy lined the routes with snipers who shot at them. They shot to injure, only to draw more people into their sights trying to help the injured and then would shoot to kill as many people as possible. The YPA lined the now famous 'snipers alley', a long wide boulevard in Sarajevo and a vital link between neighbourhoods, friends and families. We watched footage of people sprinting across the alley, risking their life, just to visit a friend. After a while it all became normal, no-one in the international community had come to help, the people thought this would be their reality forever- they adjusted and tried to carry on their lives. Schools kept running in cellars, nightclubs existed, the symphony orchestra put shows on, the now famous Sarajevo international film festival was started during war time, there was even a Miss Sarajevo beauty pageant!
Some hope was restored when a Serbian commander who was from Sarajevo defected and started to build an army within the city. This army dug a tunnel of 800 metres long, by hand, which gave a vital lifeline leading to the Bosnian held area just 10km from Sarajevo. They were able to smuggle soldiers, arms and food through the tunnel, bringing the black market costs down for the people. Eventually UN troops entered the area but their presence brought very little consolation to the people. As peace- keeping troops only they are mandated to not use force however the stories we heard about their crimes were sickening. If people did try and escape the city and make a run for it across the airport landing strip, some UN forces used a massive spotlight to follow them for just long enough for the YPA snipers to shoot them from the hills, instead of assisting young girls at the mercy of sex traffickers some UN soldiers took a cut of the proceeds in return for warning the traffickers about raids, there is also evidence that they assisted in moving girls around for the sex trade.....there is much more which I won't continue about.
The resistance army managed to push the YPA troops back enough and eventually a peace treaty was signed. Over 11,000 people were killed and over 1000 of them were children. The main generals are currently being tried for war crimes but of course Milosevic died of (what we've been told was a suspicious) heart attack during his trial.
Sadly the heartbreaking history didn't stop there. We went on to the Srebrenica exhibition where 8000 Muslim men and boys were massacred by Serb forces. Again the stories of survivors and images of mass graves and grieving mothers was horrific enough without the abhorrent actions of the UN soldiers being revealed as well. Dutch forces evicted families seeking refuge in the safe area and delivered them directly into the hands of the Serb forces. In the buildings of the safe areas the UN soldiers left evidence of their real thoughts about those they were sent there to protect.
Despite all of this, the Bosnian people are the happiest most welcoming people we have come across yet. Their country is beautiful and we loved Sarajevo- it has taken the spot as our favourite place so far on the trip and I highly recommend people to go and check it out. The country is just about to go through Presidential and Parliamentary elections- they have 3 Presidents to represent all the ethnicities and in fact there is an area of Bosnia which is called the Republic of Srpska, a Serb dominated area and I suppose an offering to Serbia during the peace negotiations. So it is not quite a united nation but one of the most interesting places I've ever been.
It was hard to then enter Serbia without feeling a little bit biased although I am certain both sides did bad things. We took the bus to Belgrade, a huge busy city in direct contrast to where we'd come from. We took another free walking tour and very little mention was made of the war. They were bombed in 1999 by NATO forces for their actions in Kosovo but this was brushed over too. And then, the most important day of this trip, it was Yonna's big 3 0 birthday!! We had found out about something called the 'Escape Game' which had peaked Yonna's interest. We rocked up to a grey, high tower block and took a rickety elevator up to the 6th floor. I was a little wary to say the least....we found the apartment in the instructions and a nice smiley, young girl answered the door which put me more at ease. Basically we were locked in a room for one hour and had to find our way out through solving clues and finding keys to unlock padlocks.....we failed, we were close, but we failed! It was good fun and afterwards we headed to the Bohemian area to have dinner at a traditional Kavana where a band of an accordion, double bass and acoustic guitars go round the tables and play to the diners. It was a great experience and an unforgettable birthday :-)
So after all that we are finally in Kosovo, which I will write about next time, where we spend a couple of days before crossing to Montenegro.
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