Association des Etats Généraux des Etudiants de l'Europe

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In Sarajevo anything is possible...
April, 1996

By John Stienen


the trip

On Wednesday 3 April 1996 my trip started. I thought to go to Zagreb for Easter, but had no real plans yet. Hitch-hiking through Germany was difficult because of the harsh weather conditions. Finally by dusk I reached the border at Salzburg. I put my usual sign Hrvatska that should bring me to Zagreb. Within minutes a car stopped with a German license. The guy told me that he didn't have a clue what my sign meant, but the HR made him think I wanted to go to Croatia. I was lucky, he said he would go through Croatia. When I got into the car I understood what he meant, he told me he was going to Mostar. Since I had no clear plans, and since AEGEE had just started a new contact in Sarajevo, I decided to travel on with him.

After 20 hours in the car, and some 1,000 km. further, mostly along the beautiful Croatian Adria, we arrived at Mostar in the afternoon the next day. Unfortunately the evening bus to Sarajevo was cancelled. I hitch-hiked on to a small town called Jablanica, at 65 km. from Sarajevo. From there I couldn't go on, so I slept at a house of a local man, which was shown to me by a taxi-driver.

Sarajevo

In the morning I contacted Gorana, my internet friend, with whom I have been in contact since August 1995, but whom I until then never met. By now she was also the the president of the new AEGEE contact. We agreed on meeting on the station. Because exactly four years earlier, on 5 April 1992 the war had started, there were memorials of that all over town. The tram was not running, and... my bus didn't stop at the station, but in front of the National Theatre, only two blocks away from Gorana's flat. By the time she found out about that, I had already been drinking coffee and talking to her relatives for some two hours. What happened in the next few days is hard to describe.

Of course we did the somehwat obligatory sight-seeing, including Miljacka river, several mosques, the old Turkish quarter Bascarsija, the fully destroyed National Library, the shopping district, and more things alike. The picture above was taken from the former Habsburg barracks on a hill just outside Sarajevo, with a full view over the town. Needless to say what kind of impression seeing all that destruction gave to me...

surroundings

After seeing most of down-town Sarajevo we also visited some previously Serb-held areas. Already when I entered Sarajevo the first time, I had passed over Mount Igman and through Ilidza, which could be seen burning only weeks before on CNN. When we were walking along the Miljacka, we crossed into Grbavica. At first I didn't see it, but when we returned I saw that quite a big mine-field was supposed to keep people from trespassing or claiming the houses that used to be theirs...

One of the last days we also visited Ilidza, the somewhat richer suburb of Sarajevo before the war. The tram only went on to the damaged Oslobodenje building, and from there we had to continue on foot. When we passed the used-to-be schoolyard, even though our friend Alma who grew up there described us, it was still not possible to imagine what it had looked like before...

culture, going out

Of course not all impressions were negative. Also a lot of optimism came my way. We visited a concert by Aziza Mustafa Zadeh, a gifted Azeri piano-player and vocalist. The last day we visited the World Press Photo exhibition which had just opened. On Easter I had the chance to visit the Sarajevo cathedral, under high IFOR surveillance. The French officer who guarded the door returned my bon soir in a somewhat surprised way.

Despite the curfew, there are still plenty ways of spending free-time. In day-time, when the sun is shining, lots of people can be found walking in the centre, for the first time in four years. The strolling continues also in night-time, after which several cafes are visited. Unfortunately we didn't find the time to visit a movie. A big problem while going out are the prices, which are at German level (and, very appropriate, also set in Deutschmark which seems to be the only real currency in Bosnia, despite the attempts of the Bosnian Government to launch the BH Dinara as official Bosnian currency). There are still plenty of typical Bosnian places, where one can drink genuine Bosnian (Turkish) Kahva or eat Cevapcici.

leaving

Partir, c'est mourir un peu. (French proverb)

Though maybe not the most approriate way of describing my last hours in Sarajevo, leaving it was one of the saddest things in my trip. First I had planned to stay only three days, then four, but after five days I really had to leave, because of obligations in the Netherlands. A night bus brought me to Zagreb, the train to Ljubljana and hitch-hiking through Germany...

epilogue

This article does not even intend to give you all my impressions, because that is simply impossible. The only way to find out what I mean here, is by going there yourself. If you intend to do so, please try to find a purpose for going there, Sarajevo is not really a nice place for tourism - and besides that, nobody is waiting for that (in case you do want to be a tourist anyway: Holiday Inn at Sniper Alley offers rooms at DEM 300 per night).

But when you visit Sarajevo with the right attitude, you'll find out yourself:

'In Sarajevo anything is possible!'.