2022 in Bosnia (Sarajevo and Mostar)

October 3-4, 2022 : the Balkan sightseeing trip went from Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina, stopping in Sarajevo on the first day and Mostar the next day:

"background"

Bosnia and Herzegovina (most often Bosnia):

• has three "presidents", one for each of its main folk (ethnic) groups
  • the Croats (the mostly Catholics)
  • the Serbs (the mostly Orthodox)
  • the Bosniaks (the mostly Muslim)
• each of the three speak their own kind of Serbo-Croatian-Bosnian with slight tweaks in words (akin to British and American in English)
• has a sliver of land known as Republika Srpska
  • where mostly Serbs live
• has a southern third called Herzegovina
  • merely a name, with no ties to a folk group, as it does with Bosnia
  • all three groups live here
• has "convertible marks" (konvertibilna mark)
  • written as "KM", not to mix up "km" for "kilometres" (!)
  • once tied to the German mark (when Germany had the Deutschmark) after leaving the Yugoslav dinar
• has their seat in Sarajevo
  • lying almost right in the middle of Bosnia
  • was the home of the 1984 Olympic Winter Games

"into Bosnia"

came in from Serbia into the town of Loznica:

• crossed the river Drina into Šepak
• saw what looked like Russian flags but they were flags of Republika Srpska!

Sarajevo

got into Sarajevo where we saw:

• where Franz Ferdinand was killed
  • his killing became one of the drivers for World War I in 1914
• Sarajevo City Hall
• Gazi Husrev-beg Mosque
  • first time ever hearing an Islamic "call-to-prayer" from a minaret
• Baščaršija
  • Sarajevo's bazaar market
• Sarajevo Meeting of Cultures
  • where Sarajevo went from looking like Baghdad in the east with its mosques, to looking like Belgrade with its Serbian Orthodox churches

Mostar

next morning, we went along winding roads from Sarajevo to the town of Mostar:

• had once seen snapshots on a National Geographic in the 1990s fully shot up by firearms, with holes wrapped around buildings and its bridge out
  • seeing that, never thought in the wildest to ever come to Mostar!
• yet, in 2022, Mostar had sprung back to life
  • shops loud with buyers and sellers
  • the old bridge built back up
    • divers from around the world once again leaped into the river Neretva
• also saw a stone carving of Bruce Lee
  • those in Mostar could not see eye to eye with each other for anything for a stone carving in the park
  • so, they came up with something that had nothing to do with Mostar!

"Bosnia as its own thing"

almost thirty years after the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina:

• looks ready to go forward with its one-of-a-kind background
  • not letting its earlier days drag them down
    • Bosnia and Herzegovina will thrive!