Day 11

Total Siege Tour:
War Tunnel Museum
Mt. Trebevic
Olympic Bobsled Track
Jewish Cemetary
Sniper Alley

Bosnian Specialties:
Bureck
Bosnian Coffee

Shopping
Dinner
Bus Ticket Walk

     Today was our half-day tour of Sarajevo's war sites. Out tour guide was Ejub and he was a very knowledgeable guide. We have found the Bosnians to be very passionate and proud of their country.  We learned so much about the history of the area and also the current state of affairs. There were 8 of us on this tour, 2 Australians, one of which was actually born in Bosnia. Her family left when she was 14, just before the war started but she did have a lot of family in Bosnia and Serbia that lived through the war. She was very interesting to have on the tour and she became quite emotional in parts. There was also 3 other women, 1 from Norway, 1 from the USA, and 1 from Brazil. A very worldly group!

     Our first stop was the War Tunnel. This was the tunnel that ran under the Sarajevo airport and it was the only way to get supplies to the people during the siege of Sarajevo. It took 4 months to build the tunnel. We learned about what life was like during the siege. Food and water were the most pressing concerns. There was also no electricity so they used candles. They were ingenious in how they managed to get by with what they had. The only power was used for things like hospitals. We saw a generator they had made out of  a fiat motor. The only water was found a the brewery which had its own spring. People had to make a dangerous journey carrying water jugs back and forth from their homes. Often they had to contend with sniper fire from the hills - hence the name 'sniper alley'. Sarajevo sits in a bit of a bowl and they were surrounded by Bosnian Serbs in the hills who would shoot down upon them. The brewery is still there and there is a museum attached to it. Mark and Joe went to tour it but it was closed.

     A family who lived in a house at the entrance to the tunnel helped to preserve it after the war. We got to enter a short portion of it. They had numerous photos and exhibits explaining the siege. We also watched some video of what it was like moving through the tunnel. It was 1 metre wide, 1.6 metres tall, and 800 metres long. They had a railroad track so they could push cars of supplies through the tunnel. We saw another Sarajevo rose and a shell embedded in the ground.

     Next we drove through east Sarajevo which is mainly Bosnian Serb. What really struck me was how divided the country still is. The Dayton Peace Accords which ended the war set up an incredibly complex political system. As Ejub explained to us, they have an ethnic constitution meaning certain groups aren't recognized as valid ethnicities so they can't run for political office. This includes Jews and Romas. The country is divided into 13 semi-independent areas. They country has 3 presidents. A Bosnian, a Serb, and a Croat. According to Ejub, the bureaucracy seriously hampers economic improvement in the country. People pay taxes to one of the 13 administrative areas but then need to access services there or they have to pay. So, if they are closer to a hospital in a neighboring area, they will drive for hours to the hospital in the area they pay taxes to otherwise they have to pay. He also told us there is still a lack of acknowledgement from the Bosnian Serb community of events of the war. Some don't acknowledge the siege or the Srebrenica genocide which makes moving forward as a country difficult. Just a few months ago Bosnian Serb Radovan Karadzic lost his war crime genocide appeal. In East Sarajevo a billboard went up proclaiming him a war hero, not a war criminal. Ejub said it was ripped down after a short time. It is really not hard to imagine that hostilities could break out again in this area. Apparently there are some from each group that reach out to each other, including politicians but then they are labeled bad 'Serbs' or bad 'Bosnians'.

     Next we went up Mt. Trebevic which is the 'Olympic' mountain. We go to see incredible views of the city of Sarajevo and see the abandoned bobsled track which is now covered in some pretty impressive graffiti. There is an abandoned hotel that was used during the Olympics but now it is a shelled out empty building. We also stopped at the Jewish Cemetery. This cemetery was use by the Bosnian Serb forces during the siege. They used the gravestones to rest their guns on when firing down into the city. Ejub told us that during the siege, they used the soccer stadiums as cemeteries. Interestingly, Ejub said that today, while the army is unified, they are mostly separated into ethnic regiments.....Bosnian Serb, Bosniak (Bosnian muslims),and Croat. Again, still a separated country. From the cemetery we were able to look down onto sniper alley. Our tour with Ejub ended with him speaking about his love and hope for his country. What a great experience this was for us.

     When we finished the tour we went in search of some lunch which today was the Bosnian specialty 'burek'. Burek is a pastry that can be filled with meat, spinach, cheese, or potato. We went to a place that was supposed to have the best and it did not disappoint. We all had meat burek, Joe and I had sour cream on ours. They were delicious.Then we went for one more Bosnian specialty....Bosnian coffee. It is very strong, you don't put cream in it but I quite liked it. It was quite smooth. You keep a sugar cube in your mouth or take little nibbles then sip the coffee. We had the coffee with some baklava.

     After this we separated, Joe and Mark went looking for souvenirs and I went clothes shopping. We were each successful. Joe got a little plane made out of bullets and I got a new dress. We met up back at the hotel and napped and read before heading out for dinner. We went back to the restaurant we had gone to on our first night for another meat platter. We also tried Klepe which is a meat ravioli. The picture showed it with a dollop of sour cream on top but it came swimming in cream sauce so Mark couldn't have any. After dinner we went on a very long walk to the bus station. We wanted to see where it was and buy our bus tickets to Mostar for the morning. We were originally going to take a very scenic train but it only runs twice per day, both at very inconvenient times. It was interesting to see some areas outside the old town. We got our tickets, got our bearings, and came back to bed.