2022 in Bosnia (Republika Srpska - Trebinje)

October 4, 2022 : the Balkan sightseeing trip came to Trebinje, in Republika Srpska, within Bosnia and Herzegovina:

"Republic Srpska"

riding into Republika Srpska, the "Serb-filled share of Bosnia and Herzegovina":

• writing everywhere in Cyrillic-carved Serbian
• things seemed more "European" than "Middle Eastern" here
• felt more like Serbia than Bosnia, with more of the "red-blue-white" flag than the "blue-and-yellow"

"Trebinje"

stayed in Trebinje not so much for sightseeing, but only to stay at the guesthouse, at which we had two nights:

• the group did not lead us while in this time (only to show us where we were to sleep), so we each had to look around on our own (if we wanted to)
• a marker, made up of the word, "Требиње" (Trebinje in Latin Serbian) gave me that "sense of here"
• walked into a park which, like most Eastern European towns, had water springs and markers of old fightings:
  • many names of young people who died in the early 1990s were made known here

"small towns"

small towns give so much more to see than the big "boroughs":

• they like to "do their own things"
• they look more closely at those "near and dear" to them
• they don't want to look like "any other spot in the world"

"why I loved Trebinje"

• I had known about "Republika Srpska" only through Wikipedia
• I would sometimes talk about RS with a friend, who had some knowledge about this far-flung side of the world; we would find this such a knotted up, tangled land
  • ...and yet, here I was!