Around the Balkans in 20 Days - Part 12

After the busy day travelling around yesterday, we emerged from our sleep a lot later than I would have allowed, given we had more exploring to do. But we had been on a little adventure, so today’s activities could be somewhat more relaxed. It must have been close to midday before we left the hotel. Bright sunshine beckoned us when we did depart, but we soon shied away and walked down the narrow main thoroughfare to ease its gaze.

John suggested that we should go and visit the Tunnel Museum. I had been curious to see this previously, but was not brave enough then to make the journey there by myself. I kept to the familiarity of the old town, and down to the Parliament building area.  So I eagerly agreed.

We found a kiosk and bought a tram ticket to head to Ilidza. This was the opposite end of Sarajevo to the old town. John was excited for the tram journey, again. We boarded the shabby tram that proved to be rather busy. We immediately stamped our ticket, as we were pre-warned to do, for fear of getting a fine. The journey was along the whole length of the route, so I was pleased that after 3 or 4 stops I secured a seat, with John following a stop later. A nice breeze came through the open windows above, with the metal on metal rattle of the wheels and track below pouring through.

As we passed the car hire place from yesterday, we entered unknown territory. Rows of concrete blocks of housing kept appearing to our left until we reached a big elevated road junction reminiscent, one abstractly assumed from above, of the Olympic rings logo. After we passed under this, single-level, bungalow-style housing then emerged. And there was a reason for this.

Soon enough, to our left there appeared two rows of wired fencing running alongside us. An expanse opened up behind it, and complicated lighting arrangements emerged. We were at one end of the runway for Sarajevo Airport. I suppose it took me by surprise, although it should not have, given we were going to visit the Tunnel Museum that was dug underneath the airport!

60 seconds later we crossed through a roundabout, then pulled up to our final destination. We got off the tram, and appeared to be in a small shopping area. The tram could continue around a teardrop shaped track to face back towards the old town. All the shops were flat roofed and modern in a 1970s sense; many of the food ones having canopies and rattan seating. There was an air of market day about it, with shoppers casually ambling around with bags half full.

Ilidza formed part of the Bosnian Serb forces territory during the siege, but it was now within the Federation (not Republika Srpska) entity. But not by much. We decided to head straight to the museum. I couldn’t locate any information online about public transport to it, so assumed there wasn’t any. We set off on foot and meandered around a few municipal buildings. We arrived at a wide road that had industrial units on the side facing the airport, and what must have been a registry office on the other side, as a wedding party was gathering outside. We walked in an easterly direction without any trees for shade, and had failed to buy any water too. We did stumble upon a brown sign a few hundred yards down the road, indicating the direction of the museum. So we turned off the wide road into a rather well to do suburb. A small stream ran past us, bubbling in front of the small plots containing detached housing. It was all pretty serene. We passed a small shop, no bigger than kiosk, which apparently sold bread. I couldn’t tell if it had closed many years ago, or just sold bread on an ad hoc basis. It seemed rather worn out, and given that the area we were in was the front line, I’m not surprised.

We continued walking, mostly following the free GPS on my phone, in the general direction of the museum. We only saw one other sign for it. Then the houses disappeared, and all of a sudden we were walking on open grassland. The airport looked very exposed. There was no pavement here, so when a car approached, we had to get on to the grass. To be fair, this only happened twice. In all, it took us about 40 minutes of walking to get here. The only noise to break the silence were two aircraft taking off, sending a booming and vibrating blast across the wide valley floor. 

The house upon which the tunnel was built was easily identifiable.  It really did bear the brunt of enemy fire by being on the front line. With the amount of bullet holes in it, it was remarkable the thing hadn’t just collapsed. It was typical of the style we had just walked passed. A stirring resemblance to houses in ski resorts, only on a smaller scale, with two floors, balcony, and a classic apex roof. You entered the museum down a side alley to the house, where a little wooden hut was constructed, set from the house. We paid the equivalent of £4 each and entered the back yard. This stretched about 100 yards towards the airport, and was a couple of yards wider than the house itself. In the bottom right corner was a modern wooden building of one level. This was the video room. Attached along the 8 ft high metal garden fencing was a written, chronological story of the tunnel that you followed round.

The story was fascinating. The airport was agreed, between the parties, to be a ‘neutral zone’, which meant it cut off the Bosnian Serbs from fully encircling the city; but also from allowing the Bosnian Government access to the city from territory it held. The Bosnian Government wanted to secure access, so the idea of a tunnel emerged to shift people and supplies back and forth. The owner of the house was an old lady, who allowed for this to take place. I believe she lived there throughout. What a torment for someone to sustain for all those years, especially witnessing the devastation to her house. As I gazed at a map of the city under siege, I noticed that the Bosnian Serb territory, which was merely hundreds of meters away, now corresponds to the demarcated internal border of the two entities. Republika Srpska was a short walk away.

We wondered into the house that had an assortment of displays on about the siege. But as you were directed to the basement, you became aware that you were going to the start of the tunnel. They kept the entrance to it open, and stabilized 50 yards of it. It was extremely claustrophobic, but luckily we only walked through it for seconds. We then emerged in the middle of the backyard. I had wandered what the little hole in the ground was! We visited the video room, but only for a few minutes, as we had garnered enough knowledge about the siege as we needed. Also, we were becoming a bit dehydrated.

We decided to leave after 45 minutes, and follow our footsteps back to Ilidza. As we rejoined the main road with the industrial buildings on it, a convoy of cars drove slowly past tooting their horns and waving flags out of the windows. It seems that the wedding had now finished, and this was the custom. I had seen this in Slovenia a few years ago, but it was still a joyful thing to see. It really created a community vibe to the wedding. This went on for the whole length of the road we walked, as they seemed to be doing laps!

When we returned to the market area, we decided to have a drink. We were parched and also needed shade from the sun. We picked a bar at random, but it happened to be on a thoroughfare so we could people watch. The one thing we should have not have done, was take this rest as a bit of a session for drinking. After about 2 hours of chatting and ordering more beers, as we didn’t want to move, we became rather pissed. I recall paying, buying a tram ticket, and then boarding the tram. The journey was pretty fuzzy back to the old town. However, as we walked through the old town, I remembered that I needed to send my friend a postcard that he requested (read: demanded). So I bought one, found a small post office in one of the old town shop fronts, paid my stamp and borrowed a pen. I scribbled a message, which I could not recall moments later, and posted it. I believe the person received it after we returned from the trip.

As we staggered back to the hotel, I noticed the first floor of a building that looked out on to the square of the old town where the Sebilj was located. It had etched into its yellow plaster a Star of David, and a box with words including the date 1873. These sorts of finds really fascinate me. What was this buildings’ purpose? Was it a synagogue, or did it serve another function? Who occupied it? John tried Wikmapia to see if it had the answer, but alas it did not. We returned to the hotel and took a long nap.

We woke up rather hungry, so John inspected Trip Advisor again and found an Italian near the flame memorial. We walked the length of the pedestrian pathway through the old town and Austro-Hungarian section, to reach the flame. We then turned immediately left into a very Germanic courtyard. This seemed to be a hub of activity, with a restaurant in every corner, spilling out into the courtyard. Our Italian was on the left. We were given a table for two in the mezzanine level, unfortunately next to a teenager’s birthday party. It was all very loud! The food was nice, and the candlelight brought a romantic feel to the restaurant. We then departed and returned to the club from last night. Perhaps we will have more luck in spotting some gays this time.

We arrived at the door and presented ourselves with our secretive knock, the door giving way soon after. We paid the minimal charge and went down. Tonight was a lot busier, very much the club ‘feel’ I was expecting the first night. We bought a couple of beers, then perched on a tall table near the exposed brick back wall. Many people were dancing in the pit area near the door and DJ booth. After a while we notice another couple that had entered and looked as new as us. They must have been tourists and seen the same Internet reviews of this place as we did. John went to the bar and they began chatting. Once they came over and after we exchanged pleasantries, it turns out that they both have a London link. One guy was from Germany originally but lived in London. His partner is from London originally but now resides in New York.

The rest of the night consisted of us all discussing our time in Sarajevo, where we had been, and to where we were travelling. At one point we decided we did not like the club, so ventured out. There were still throngs of people emptying out of the various film festival events. We ended up at a trendy bar on one of the back streets, but it seemed that all the other film ‘luvvies’ were there too. After too many beers, we then left our new friends and returned to the hotel at god-knows what hour.

LGBTI Rights in the Western Balkans - ERA Conference 2018

In recent months I have taken on a new role on the board of an organisation known as Rainbow Rose. It is an umbrella organisation of all the LGBTI organisations associated to social democratic and labour parties across Europe. My appointment came on the back of my two and a half year co-chairpersonship of LGBT Labour. To those of you who have read my posts, my awareness of south-east Europe came to maturity thanks to my work with the Labour Party. The board want me to lead on a new working group on the Western Balkans; so it seems that the three interests of my life – Labour politics, LGBTI activism, and south-east Europe – have come together in a new and exciting challenge for me.

So the start of this work centred on my organising a delegation of activists to the Equal Rights Association (ERA) Conference for the Western Balkans and Turkey in Skopje, Macedonia. ERA emanates from civil society, so we were lending our support as social democrats in order to learn, share our knowledge and experiences, and to create networks for our new working group. Noting my affection for Macedonia, the week we visited happened to be when Macedonia had just held the referendum on its name change.

So I organised for a delegation of 11, 7 from the board, 3 activists, and one speaker. We arrived after a Ministerial meeting took place on the Thursday morning, and went straight to the plenary hall. I was with Jose, Secretary General of Rainbow Rose, who was introducing me to a few people in the room – an ILGA Europe representative, two representatives from the Commission, and Dragana from ERA. I also met Amarildo from ERA again, as I first met him three weeks previously in London, at a Western Balkans event in Lancaster House and then Speakers’ House. It was nice of him to stop and chat for 5 minutes, given he was organising the day and I’m sure had more things to be doing. The plenary then began.

We had a couple of opening speeches, one of who was by the SDUM Minister for Labor and Social Affairs, Mila Carovska. This was my first hint of the seriousness and commitment that the new SDUM-led Government had taken LGBTI rights, as well as neighbouring countries. Especially those from Macedonia, where you would have thought they could have used the excuse of the name referendum to withdraw from participating. Over the course of three panel events throughout the day, we heard from a mixture of Ministers, MPs, NGO activists, and individuals just living their lives in the countries of the region. The one particularly striking panel was on trans and non-binary rights, as it laid bare how uneven the legal rights of trans people were across the region, but also how much depended on the state having to recognise you in order to provide for you. Unknown to me that day was the SDUM MP Pavle Bogoevski, who sat on a panel on non-discrimination. Jose and I couldn’t grab him as he left, but I soon invited him to a dinner I had planned on Saturday night for the social democrats present at the conference. After our first day, we met more of the delegation who arrived in the evening, on the central square at Pelister restaurant.

On a side note, I was in my element having returned to Skopje after 2 years. On the Wednesday, I explored a little by myself as no one else had arrived. I walked through the eastern side of Karposh district, where the hotel was located, as I had not done so on previous visits. Once you turned into the residential area between two parallel east/west main boulevards, there was a hive of cafes and bars. One of them, Radiobar, was noted in the schedule of the conference as being a ‘liberal’ bar to drink at. I popped in for a beer on the way to food. On the Thursday night, I returned to the main square. It was a lot quieter that it was when I was here last, in the hot August nights of 2016. It was mid-week, I supposed. The hideous statues and building facades remained, but I noticed that the splattered paint had now gone. The traces of the Colourful Revolution may have gone, but their legacy was established within the political ones.

The Friday of the conference was the first of the two-day ‘Open Source Technology’ workshops. An innovative approach to decide what issues should be discussed, relying on what participants bring to the table and what they want to participate in. The speaker we brought over, Cllr Bev Craig from Manchester City Council and an old friend of mine, was going to pitch in to discuss how we can create LGBTI polices at the local government level. I was to present on how LGBTI people can organise within political parties, and Arturas from our delegation was to lead a discussion on whether pride is a celebration or a protest. As participants added their interest to the workshop board, I was proud that our sessions were going to be well attended.

Over the course of the two days, we had genuine interest and participation in our sessions. The one thing I wanted to avoid was a patronising tone to come from our contribution. I would be embarrassed if we were seen to have just turned up, delivered a speech on what was wrong and how our way was the best way to solve it, and then leave. Instead what we aimed to do was provide an overview of our journey, and then provide a few questions/statements in order for participants to share experiences and decide on the best action plans in each of their countries. Macedonian and Turkish participants eagerly attended Bev’s session, with many representatives of NGOs attending my own.

We on the board had to miss out on the Saturday proceedings, as we had to take the day to plan for our General Assembly that was taking place a few weeks later. The Friday evening saw us all congregate at RadioBar. This underlined the change in atmosphere that I felt whilst I was in Skopje. Although still very conservative, and LGBTI people could not be open, having a group of 100 odd LGBT people in a bar, out on the streets, felt liberating. Someone had even gone on well-known gay social networking apps to tell people that we were at this bar and to come and meet other LGBT people. A very novel and positive thing to do, I thought.

But before we arrived at the bar, 3 of the delegation were keen to see Skopje and I was more than happy to take them on a tour. Over the course of an hour and a half, I relayed my knowledge of the history of the country and the city, as I pointed out such buildings as the Government HQ, the old, brutalist Post Office and the Kale Fortress looming over the city, hidden behind those horrid buildings. We ventured into the old town, which was buzzing with a mainly younger crowd. This area has clearly seen investment as many of the shop fronts had been done up, and many of the bars and cafes had a hipster feel to it. It also seemed that this had not led to residents being pushed out, which is pleasant to see. We had a beer at one of the cafes, as I continued my history lesson. My only hope was that I didn’t bore my colleagues.

The Saturday night saw us host our social democrats dinner at La Terrazza, just off the main square. I arrived with a small number of our delegation, the rest following half an hour later. We had Julie Ward MEP, Pavle Bogoevski MP, Danijel Kalezic from Queer Montenegro, Antonio Mihajlov from Subversive Front, and Cllr Stamat Stamatovski from Skopje. Over the course of dinner, wine, and a few Rakija, we had a great discussion on the current state of politics in Macedonia, commitments to help our Montenegrin MPs set up an LGBTI working group in their parliament, as well as the great back story of Pavle.

He worked for the LGBTI Support Centre in Skopje, and it was this organisation that he said gave him a leg up in the world of work. It was his work for this organisation, too, that gave his cousin the courage to come out to his family. I was genuinely struck by how Pavle’s work and advocacy had helped his family member, and reminded me how small acts like this can help those closest to us. His activism then spread to become one of the leaders of the Colourful Revolution. I sort of knew this, having done a quick Google search of his name. But the stories he came out with were second to none. For example, in order to not be prosecuted by the authorities, instead of breaking windows by throwing objects, which was a criminal offence, they came up with using paint to merely mark the outside of buildings, as this was only a misdemeanour. This way they could make their point, without going to jail. But then the plans had to be expanded. As the police cordoned off buildings, they had farther to send their balloons of paint. So they made huge catapults in order to reach the buildings now a hundred or so yards away.  Despite getting elected to Parliament, and the paint being washed off the walls, he said that there is still a small patch of paint at the back of the Government building. When he takes guests on a tour, he proudly points out this reminder of recent political history of which he was a leading part.

That night, as we went to a bar where his cousin was actually leading a karaoke night, we rejoined the rest of the participants. The bar was packed, and Jose and I sang a rendition of Fuego. We met the Mayor of Skopje, and we thanked him for hosting the conference. I also let my guard down as, whilst I was in the queue to the toilet, I began chatting to a young woman, who asked why I was visiting Skopje. Perhaps the Rakija Pavle fed me made me lose my inhibitions, but I said I was here for an LGBTI conference. Her non-reaction to this news led on to a short conversation about why Macedonia needed to move forward on this issue. A sense of joy rose up within me.

The next day, I left Skopje full of hope. Pavle’s story and his continuing solidarity with us was a major factor in this. I look forward to his star rising. But the ERA conference really showed the power of collective action, with the participants sharing ideas and best practice, and then going away to accelerate the work they have already begun. From our perspective, it allowed for us to gain further knowledge of the situation in each of the countries and to develop our own strategy to support the LGBTI community in each country. The obvious channel is with those countries that have PES member parties in Government. But the role of our movement is not solely in getting the low hanging fruit, but to meet the challenges head on, especially when we are not in power.

Around the Balkans in 20 Days - Part 11

I had been looking forward to this day for sometime. On the one hand it was going to be a sombre day, as the places we were visiting had witnessed some of the most harrowing scenes of the Bosnian war. On the other, we were going outside the city and in into the countryside of one of the countries I have been fascinated by for a number of years.

We pre-booked the car for 9am, so woke up relatively early, skipping breakfast, in order to catch the tram to a destination half way across the city. We left with a backpack each of limited supplies and all the paperwork under the sun. We stopped at the bakery on the corner before purchasing our tram ticket from the kiosk at the tram stop. We hopped on to a busy tram, standing most of the 25-minute ride from Alipasino Polje, our stop for the car hire place. We jumped off at the central reservation of the road where the tram runs, and observed brutalist housing to our left and sparse land of former industrial buildings to our right. We walked back on ourselves for 5 minutes to get to the EuropeCar lot. 15 minutes after entering reception, including a meticulous check of the hire car, we departed.

John was in the driver seat first, as I was nervous about driving abroad anyway, and wanted to be out of the city before I attempted it. Lucky too, as the road was three lanes in each direction. He managed to navigate across the road, doing a u-turn on a side street, before getting back on to the main road, driving east. The sat nav was a real help to calm nerves, even though the road was straight. 15 minutes later we squeezed through the now narrowed road between the old town and the river, and were out of Sarajevo.

The effective division of the country soon hit us when we immediately saw the ‘Welcome to Republika Srpska’ sign a few minutes outside the city limits. The road was on the side of a ravine, the river below being the Miljaka. We climbed up rather steeply for a good 20 minutes before reaching our junction to turn north-east. The road was single lane each way and empty of traffic.

5 minutes after we turned we stopped at a lonely-looking petrol station. A couple of staff members were in the cramped shop as we bought crisps, sweets, gum and water; the cashier appeared unbothered with us being visitors as his oral exchange was rather muted. Back on the road we ascended some more for 25 minutes or so when we levelled out onto Romanija.

The scenery was beautiful. On the horizon were the tops of spiraling mountains, dominating the vista and almost taunting the green rolling hills in the foreground before us. This was very much like driving along the hinterland roads of north Wales – bleak yet pastoral. The sky was overcast somewhat, but the sun broke through in shards of light to further illuminate the green-yellow fields around us. We had still only seen individual homes dotted along the road, often at some distance between them. This was to last for 20km or so.

We had reached the edge of the plateau, arriving at the first of the mountains that were to make this journey all the more protracted. In addition, we were stuck a few cars behind an old, grinding agricultural truck – seemingly from the latter Tito-era.  We slowly drove up and over the mountain; one or two cars did the daring maneuver of over-taking on rather short bouts of road between the bends. We stayed firmly in line. After our descent, we drove through similar terrain as before, but this seemed to be covered more in forestry. We meandered in the direction of Podromanija, again having the road to ourselves. 

At this point, we came across a police car in a lay by to our right, with a police officer stood leaning against it. The next moment he is beckoning us to pull over. My heart leapt to my throat. John smoothly applied the brakes in order to slow down, and turned into the lay by behind the police car. I scrambled to get our papers from the glove box, so as not to seem inefficient. The officer began walking towards us as we slowed down to a stop, and approached my side of the car. I literally had no idea what to expect. Did he speak English? Was this a common occurrence? It was our first police sighting.

I wound down the window and, as he came to the door, I belted out “Doberdan. Hello”. It was with the second word that he must have immediately come to the decision to not bother with us. I offered the International Driving licenses, and had our UK licenses to hand, but he merely waved his hands to shoo our documents away, and then turned to walk away, waving his hands from behind for us to drive off. I wound my window back up; John checked his mirrors and then pulled out. Only once we passed out of view of the police officer, did we then speak – fearing he may hear, I assume – and shared our mutual fear of what we expected might have unfolded.

After continuing for 15 minutes or so, we turned off towards Sokolac. This town may have served as a market town in the past. Its main high street was on a one-way section of a gyratory road system. This must have been implemented in response to increased traffic through the town, given that the strategic south-west/north east and north west/south east roads passed through here. We drove past the usual array for convenience stores and café’s, and noted the Serb bent of symbols dotted around. The town seemed a bit tired, as if there was a decline in passing trade leading to a malaise in its people. We passed through and continued. For the next 80 minutes we followed the now monotonous country road heading north, then east from Vlasenica (another sizeable town with a seemingly mixed population), turning once again north at Milici, and then east on the road to Bratunac.

All along this route there was an increasing frequency of villages that we passed, and a noted oscillation of who lived there. As we drove through one, you would notice an Orthodox church in the centre (usually newly built) and a Republika Srpska flag nearby. Half a kilometer down the road we would then see a mosque at the centre of the village (again, usually newly built) with the Federal flag. The area we were now passing through evidently had a long established Muslim population, and I felt a natural bias towards the Bosnian Muslims as they were so far away from the Sarajevan sphere of influence. The fact that these communities still resided in Republika Srpska surprised me, as would Serb communities living in the Muslim-Croat entity. Thankfully, the ultimate goal of nationalist leaders on all sides had not come to fruition; although the point of our journey was to visit the place where some had tried, and had certainly erased a vast number of these communities.

As we drove into Bratunac, I noticed it possessed the same atmosphere as Sokolac. You could almost feel the resentment to outsiders, like most places that exist on the periphery of a state and experiencing economic and social neglect from larger urban centres. Here, you are as far away from Banja Luka as you are Belgrade, with Sarajevo not that much closer; which only compounds the sense of isolation and being left behind. I sensed that the border with Serbia, only a kilometer away, might be acting as a reminder that the Serb nationalists may have founded a separate republic in all but name, but failed in it being incorporated into a greater Serbia. It was at this point I pondered “Did people see the BiH number plate on our car and suspect we were only driving through to visit the Potocari memorial?” I noted that the car number plates here and for most of our drive were SRB.

Almost immediately were in a slim green valley and had arrived at Potocari. The sunshine was complementing the landscape, romanticizing it almost. Yet I felt that this betrayed the place where untold human suffering reached its zenith. We pulled up near to the front gates and got out. The temperature was a shock, as we had the air con on; the air outside was dry and still. I was apprehensive as we walked into the compound, not knowing how I would emotionally engage, as I had wanted to visit for a number of years.

A green-roofed, brick built open-air mosque stood at the centre of a plaza area yards away from the entrance. To our right was a small glass booth with a visitor’s book inside. I left a short message of condolence. A series of cream marble stones formed a crescent around the mosque, and had inscribed on them the names of those men and boys who had been buried here, including their dates of birth. The one that really stuck out for me was Mehmed Varnica who was born in 1981 – only 14 years old when he was murdered.

We walked along the crescent, and then up the incline of the valley’s hillside among the headstones. The valley was quiet, only the odd car passing by disturbed the peace. I then happened upon the only headstone that was of a Christian. I wondered what the story of this man was. Was he resisting the onslaught of the Serb forces, or was he caught up by accident? We walked back down the hillside towards the exit, and crossed over the road to one of the run-down industrial buildings occupying the east side of the valley.

The vast, echoing series of halls were where the Dutch UN Peacekeepers resided. Nothing really remained aside from a few large pieces of industrial machinery and graffiti on the walls. Some of it was rather disparaging to Bosnian women; those the UN were supposedly meant to protect whilst ‘keeping the peace’. It gave off the impression too that the soldiers didn’t really know why they were here.

In the middle of the largest hall was a small exhibition. It contained photos and belongings to 20+ men and boys who were murdered. Because the UN had inadvertently created a focal point for refugees to gather, at the industrial site, the Bosnian Serb Army had a concentrated population and could now action a plan to remove them. About the time that the buses came to remove them, along with the women and elderly, thousands of the men and boys took to the hills. Others were segregated for dealing with, once the women and children had gone. Thousands of men and boys were systematically murdered, or were teased out of the hillsides and killed on the spot, over the following hours and days.

A sense of suffocation came over me as I read these stories, as we were literally in the middle of nowhere, the journey here proving that. Tuzla, the main Bosniak-held town, was over 80km away. The various ways in which each individual tried to survive was heartbreaking.

I left the hall looking for John, finding him outside. We then returned to the car. I decided that we should go to Srebrenica itself, just up the road, and hopefully buy some food in a shop. We drove for 8 minutes and entered the town, parking up to the right on a fork in the road where a supermarket was located. It was then decided that I should drive for the next section. Fair do’s, John had been driving for three and a half hours.

We grabbed some bread, meat and cheese for sandwiches and some drinks. As we sat eating in the car, I looked around at the small town. I would say it was more like a village. The buildings were a mix on one hand of Austro-Hungarian style, painted in pastel colours; and the brutalist kind we were used to seeing.  The supermarket was housed in a more modern construction. Only a handful of the buildings looked war damaged. Not many people were about either.

After finishing our lunch, I then started up the car, reversing around so as to point in the direction of Potocari. It took me a good 30 minutes to get used to driving. I kept hitting the car door to my left when I wanted to change gears, forgetful that the stick was the other side. The sat nav was my best friend, especially as I came to the first turning at Bratunac. I handled the right turn well, perhaps revving off too quickly, as a car was approaching in the opposite direction.

I had soon settled in, and was rather enjoying the driving through the repeated scenery of where we had already driven. The drive back to Sokoloc was only eventful because a tractor had overturned and caused a bit of a traffic jam. Other than that, within two hours we were at the junction just south of Sokolac again, but this time turned left as we headed to Visegrad.

The initial drive was a long, straight road through flat, agricultural land. Easy-peasy. We then travelled alongside a river within a ravine, passing in and out of tunnels, all of which had names on sign as you entered them with the length in meters next to it. It then returned to familiar green rolling hills before we arrived at the only major settlement in the area, Rogatica. Driving through and taking in the town, it felt less forgotten than the towns we had just passed through. It felt as though it still functioned as a place to stay overnight before continuing with your onward journey – something now long gone in the UK since the advent of bypasses and motorways. Perhaps this town’s days are numbered, as a Belgrade to Sarajevo road is being proposed with the route via Visegrad being one of the two options. Its main road still had cafes and shops that were thriving, and a park and tree-lined walkways with benches full of people. With Rogatica behind us, travelling south then east, we then drove through one of the most dramatic landscapes I had come across yet.

We had now met the Drina River again, having done so as we crossed the border a few days before. But here, it had gathered into lakes of luminous turquoise. I felt like I was in a James Bond film, as the car drove level with the water, speeding in and out of tunnels that were dug through the hillsides jutting out into the lake. This would have been an ideal place to stay to hire a boat, and just paddle around exploring the shoreline. About 25 minutes before we reached our destination, the river began to descend. So we hurtled through evermore tunnels as we rushed alongside the narrowing and deepening river. The final descent into the town saw us high above the river, as it began to dominate the bottom of the widening gorge that opened up into the town. To our right, as we navigated north into the east side of the town, we saw the old bridge span the now emerald river.

We had to drive on and go over a new bridge, and back on ourselves to get into the old town. We found a parking spot, paid the fee, and marched immediately to the bridge. My need to visit here was only recently developed. I had just read Nobel Laureate Ivo Andric’s novel The Bridge on the Drina. His novel depicts the life of the residents of Visegrad over 400 years, all with a connection to the Mehmed Pasa Sokolovic bridge built in 1577 by the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. The bridge is the silent witness to the goings-on in the town. So to be here was to bring to reality the fiction that I had read.

We walked along the length of the bridge, appreciating the gushing river below and the widening valley and hillsides to the north. When we returned, we visited the nearby café so we could have a refreshing soft drink, and to take in the bridge structure some more. Bosnia would do well to advertise this hidden gem to international visitors. No sign of bus trips from Sarajevo (or Belgrade for that matter) as we travelled through, even! This would be an easy moneymaker.

We departed soon after, as we needed to get the car back by 7:30pm. I wanted to drive again, so I hopped into the driver seat. I think John was glad too because, 25 minutes later, he was fast asleep. I had wanted to go back via Gorazde and Pale – the former another of those “safe havens” of the past; the latter the wartime Serb capital – but got confused when I approached the junction, so I just returned on the route we arrived by. The hilly and mountainous terrain meant that even in the height of summer, from 6:30pm onwards, it started getting dark in the valleys and along the roads overshadowed by nearby looming summits. John woke up as we made our descent from Romanija into Sarajevo.

We darted through the busy old town and onward to Alipasino Polje. We parked in the car park, and a security guard in a small office came out to relieve us of the car. We hadn’t had time to put in petrol, and were late by 30 minutes, but it seemed later that they only charged us for the petrol at £20. Not bad. We walked over to the tram stop and noticed that some car accident had occurred in one of the lanes heading into the old town. We played the usual nosey onlooker until our tram came. A number of people on the tram were dressed up, ready for a night out. Although not necessarily tired, we were weary from the long drive, so we both had showers as soon as we got back to our room. Once changed, John wanted to see what Trip Advisor recommended for food, and after 10 minutes of scrolling decided upon a place called Dveri. We wondered out, and walked 3 minutes to its approximate location. Only for a photo on the app showing a board at a discreet doorway, we would never have found it.

We walked down a narrow, covered pathway before we hit upon a glass doorway. The décor was dark browns and greens accompanied by exposed brickwork, with plants descending from the roof. It was one of those places that gathered allsorts over the years and placed them everywhere. A guy welcomed us, and sat us near the door. We were in a gangway of 3 tables, similar in width to the alleyway we entered by, and two rooms came off the wings of this containing 4 tables in each; Very cosy and intimate. For my meal, I decided upon a form of battered sausage with peppers, tomatoes and a jacket potato. John had a meat and bean stew. The friendly waiter suggested a good bottle of red to go with it, which we obviously approved of, even if it could have possibly been rank. As it turned out, the red wine and the meal were delicious. We spent a good time there catching up on the day’s travelling, and made plans for the week until we finished the wine. We had to settle by cash, which hit the wallet a bit but was worth it, and left a sizeable tip for our attentive waiter.

We wanted to find this supposed ‘gay friendly’ club, so walked towards the river. As we did, a huge display of fireworks lit up the sky. We presumed that it was in honour of the annual Sarajevo Film Festival that was also taking place this week. After they finished, we carried on by turning right down a road that had a few pedestrians on it but was quieter than the parallel main shopping street. We thought we had now found the vague location of the building. We had the street, and the nearby property numbers. The building here, part of a row of buildings forming a block that was 500 yards in length, had a bit to the right that contained a door to go up to the apartments and a small shop. To the left was an open space that led to behind the building. We moved shakily through it. No one was about, and faint lights above us lit our way. Soon enough we were out at the back, in a semi public plaza area. I looked up and noticed that we happened upon the office of Oslobodenje, the city newspaper. As we circled around, we could not see any sign of a club. As we walked back I heard faint music. It seemed to come from beneath us. I noticed an unassuming door to my right. It had on it Podrom, the name of the club, and the street number we had been looking for. We rang a buzzer, and in seconds it buzzed out inviting us to open the door.

We descended into the basement, unsure what to expect. The one thing that did hit us was the cigarette smoke. Vile. We walked into a familiar basement bar set up, and walked over to the bar. No indication that any of the few patrons present were gay. But it seemed harmless enough. We ordered two beers and sat near the bar. We made conversation, all the while trying to eye the room looking for potential ‘gay signs’ of the venue or even for people who seemed cool. After a polite second beer and 45 minutes, we decided to leave. The day had by now taken its toll on us, so we went back and crashed.

Around the Balkans in 20 Days – Part 10

The luxury of a twin room is that one does not disturb the other when it comes to tossing and turning, or when one gets up. I think John was happy of this fact as I turned out of bed at a not too late a time, in order to get breakfast.

I sat in the jazzy reception area where breakfast was put on, alongside a family with two toddlers and two straight couples. I grabbed some coffee, cheese and bread, sat myself down, and then oscillated between looking up news on my phone and awkwardly smiling in appreciation when one of the toddlers became rambunctious. After my second cup of coffee, and fully briefed on world news, I returned to the room to wake a sleepy John and get ready for the day out. It must have been around 10:30am.

It was a grey day, so John wore jeans and a jumper. I stopped after adding a jacket, wanting to keep my shorts on, as it was still warm. We visited the small bakery at the T-junction yards from our B&B, so John could grab a pastry to eat as we walked. As we began to retrace our route yesterday, it decided to rain. So we ducked into the Produce Market on Mula Mustafe Bašeskije, the site of the mortar attacks that killed scored of people during the siege. In-between walking around the food stalls in search for one that sold umbrellas; we stopped and read the mural to those killed that took up the whole space of the back wall. Once we looped round and walked back to the road, we managed to locate a stand that sold allsorts and purchased an umbrella for 10KM (about £5).

We then carried on towards our destination, the railway station. We passed the memorial from yesterday, and now noted that the road we were walking along and the pedestrian road yesterday becomes Maršala Tita – Marshall Tito. The rain was dying down as we passed the modern BBI shopping centre to our left, and arrived at a large junction with Ali Pasha’s Mosque commanding a dominant position. We crossed over the road and at a fork, took a right, splitting off from the main east west road taking us direct to the station. Away from the traffic, we looked up and around us. The street was quiet, with the odd café having seated patrons outside. The brown-grey Austrian-style blocks that started off the street still had bullet holes on them, alongside more recent graffiti. These then opened up to more familiar 1960s high-rise blocks before the train station plaza and tram stop welcomed us.

The train station was built in the modernist style, reflecting that of Templehof airport in Berlin. Almost light yellow in colour with a hint of marble effect; the curved building seemed to hug the plaza area in front. Only a handful of people seemed to inhabit the plaza and cafés nestled under a canopy at the station entrance. The modern, glass mini skyscraper loomed over us to our right as we approached the main ticket hall. There was as much life in here as there was outside, and we were soon to find out the reason why.

I approached one of the two open ticket desks and asked if there was a train to Mostar in a few days time. She shook her head politely, to which I responded with a “No!?”. She then explained in simple terms that there were no trains south. The train line is closed. This now made sense, as research I did before the trip seemed to imply that there were no trains. But learning from my previous trip, I thought things might have been different when here. We were then directed to the bus station located next door. We walked around past a couple of newspaper kiosks and entered the rather dated building plastered in an array of adverts for a multitude of bus companies and routes. We walked in to a small, dark-wooded ticket hall, and joined the queue. We didn’t need to get the tickets today, but I wanted to check how much they would be and how frequent the service was. After greeting the ticket seller with “Dobar dan” I soon conversed in English to ask my key questions. The price was similar if not a little cheaper than the train, and there were around 7 buses a day. He gave me the times of them so we could consult. Prior to the journey, I had already booked a bus ticket from Dubrovnik to Split to get the flight home. They were a Croatian company, but had services from Croatian parts of Bosnia. I noticed that they had services from Mostar. Later on, I would marry up the Sarajevo-Mostar route, plan for a short stop over, and then book a ticket for the Mostar-Dubrovnik route.

John wanted a soft drink, so we went to one of the kiosks outside. After purchasing, we had an idea to visit the Historical Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina then the National Museum, which were located next to each other. So we walked south alongside the heavily fortified US Embassy, crossed the main road, and went in to the Historical Museum first. The building had still not been renovated since my last visit, and everything had a sort of ‘thrown together’ sort of feel to it. The display in the lobby area was different to before, with a wall of pictures juxtaposing photos of buildings in Sarajevo immediately after the siege with those recently.

We were directed to go downstairs with two other people for an English tour, led by a strapping young blonde lad in his 20s who was working in the archives. We descended a set of stairs in a small, glass-encased tower, and approached a doorway that had further steps beyond it and into a concrete bunker at the basement level. On our right, after the doorway, were two 1960s low-rise style black leather and silver framed chairs. The archivists’ opening speech focused on these with a story of the visit of the man himself, Tito. I felt that he was aching for us to be both amused and surprised to learn that Tito sat in one of these very chairs before us, so much so that he offered to take our picture in them. We politely declined. He seemed downbeat at our disinterest.

At the bottom of the stairs, and in the first of two sections in the bunker, was a display of Communist paraphernalia, which our guide talked us through with an air of having done this hundred of times. Batons, posters, badges, patches; you name it. We then wondered through a seriously thick metal security door. The room was encircled with militaristic metal shelving, which seemed to underscore a lot of what was on display in the damp and gloomy space. These items were from the Partisan struggle during WWII and contained many firearms and low-grade weapons. Some of the gorier items were clubs containing nails, or barbwire wrapped sticks. Again, there were other items from the period, which the guide talked us through.

When the tour ended 20 minutes later we ascended the glass staircase into the sunlight, continuing up to the second floor where the exhibition was. It came in three parts, the first part being new since my last visit. This was an examination of the material life of Yugoslav citizens since 1945, instantly drawing John and mine’s attention. A squared-off section of the main hall had within it a maze style layout that led us to move between themes. One theme looked at holidays and transportation, showcasing vintage posters of the national airline JAT and emphasizing the liberal migration policy Yugoslavia had in the form of ‘Gastarbeiters’, in deviation from other, Soviet dominated countries. Another theme looked at material life in the home. The 1970s chic outfit of a living room encouraged John to exclaim that it was an exact replica of ours back home. You couldn’t deny it. I fancied a couple of the pieces of furniture myself for the living room.

Once we made our way through this, we then went on to the second phase that looked at the siege. This was chronologically ordered and from a political angle, displaying items that the army or citizens used over the 5-year period. An example was a makeshift cooker that was used when the gas was turned off. I hurried around this part as I had seen it previously, but I still managed to give John the odd contextual explanation as he went around. The final section was post-Dayton looking at the settlement and subsequent governance of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

After this, and all the walking we had done up until now, we decided to go for a drink and a sit down. As we descended the stairs I noticed a cast iron life-sized statue of Tito in commanding pose out in an unkempt courtyard. This was a replica of the one in the grounds of the House of Flowers in Belgrade from a few days ago. I grabbed a snap and continued down the stairs. Tucked at basement level, at the back of the museum, was a café simply called “Caffe Tito”. If there was any evidence to suggest that Bosnians had a soft spot for Tito and Yugoslav nostalgia, then the last hour and half was proof enough. We slid past the patrons sat outside in the warmth, all young and student-like, and headed inside to cooler climes. Despite my aggravation from the heat, I ordered a hot coffee. Thinking ahead to the rest of the day, my third coffee before midday was a bit ambitious and could go either way. In between chatting and updating ourselves with social media banter, we admired the kitsch décor that had sparingly been placed on the walls in the dimly lit interior. The odd poster here and there from post WWII times, and a framed map of the now disintegrated country, was peppered amongst the Partisan and Pioneer memorabilia in the foreground of walls printed in bold patterns in the red, white and blue of the Socialist Yugoslav flag.

After finishing our drinks, we went to the neighbouring National Museum. This one featured archeological artifacts and a botanical garden in the courtyard. Having been before, I rushed around half re-reading signs on the displays. After a wonder around the gardens, we soon departed. We walked eastward to pass the dominant glass encrusted Parliament building on Trg Bosne I Hercegovine. The Holiday Inn loomed across the road as we walked on to a new shopping mall on this main axis of roads. We decided to eat here, visiting the food market section on the top floor, and chose to visit a restaurant that offered an array of food styles, mostly Western. I decided on a chicken, apple and hazelnut salad, which was delicious. Having rested our feet once again, we then walked back to the old town, taking in other side streets and buildings that we had not yet seen.  The most impressive was the Bezistan. This was the old, stone-built market hall in the centre of the old town. Now mostly full of shops selling rather tacky tourist stuff, the odd clothes shop or bag emporium stuck out. I imagined it to be mesmerizing when merchants sold textile or copper in the hall, the noises of production mixing with chatter and camaraderie, all for the shopper to see.

I knew the intense coffee intake earlier would now lead to a massive crash. In desperation, and with a renowned sweet tooth, we stopped at a café in the old town that had a vast selection of cakes on offer. I opted for a coffee and walnut cake that had layers of crushed meringue in it. It was divine! I also had a Bosnian coffee – why the hell not!

We decided to pay a visit to the Sarajevo Pivo Brewery, located on the south side of the river, not too far away. It had a museum too, so we decided it was worth our while. We crossed the river, admiring the town hall building once more, when I stumbled upon a street sign on a building that we were approaching. Below it was another sign with some explanatory text. The two newer signs were on the opposite side of a window to an older one. The newer street sign indicated the road to be called Ulica Obala Isa-Bega Ishakovica, named after the city’s founder. The older one was called Obala Pariske Komune, named to mark the 1871 revolutionary, socialist government in Paris. What the explanatory sign detailed was the history of name changing on this particular street. The Paris Commune connection is an obvious post WWII change. The newer name is a reflection of the Ottoman heritage that present day Bosniaks hold as part of their identity.

The whole issue of naming and re-naming is fascinating, and has been the site of common ideological and national struggles in South East Europe, particularly in the post-Communist era. The symbolic power that naming has, is a reflection of those who are in dominating positions at any one time. When you move beyond street names that come from geographic, topographical or commercial markers, such as Mostar Road, Mountain View, Copper Tin Alley for example; the act of naming then becomes political. This street in Ottoman times was named after two trades that existed on this side of the river when expansion of the city came along. When the Austro-Hungarians decided to regulate the river and create an embankment, they renamed it Careva Street, Careva being ‘Emperor’ in an obvious nod to their Monarch. In 1914, for 5 years, it was named after a sultan before returning to Careva Street then changing to Careva Obala, obala being ‘left bank’. It then changed to Francuska (French) Obala in 1927, then during a period of 4 years under the occupation of the Independent State of Croatia it held a different name before becoming Obala Pariske Komune. It changed to its current name in 1993. One can draw from this, that the last renaming was the attempt of Bosniak officials to lay down a marker that Sarajevo is a Muslim, Bosniak city, with a heritage that rests largely on its proud Ottoman history that will not be erased even when under siege.

We moved on and took a street that climbed up the hillside from the river. I noticed a number of Serbian registered cars here, so was unsure if this was a predominantly Serb area. We then reached the brewery. It was a dominant terracotta-bricked, gothic-styled building that seemed sort of out of place here and rather Bavarian. We passed the goods entrance and noticed a sign for the museum. We went in and noticed that it was literally a room that was 8 meters by 8 meters. The girl on reception said that we could pay something like £2 for the museum, or £3 for the museum and a free drink at the pub. We opted for the latter ticket. So we looked at the brewery themed objects on display and read a bit about the history. I noticed one piece that mentioned that this brewery had a connection with one in Petrovaradin Fortress in Novi Sad. What a coincidence.

We soon left and went to the pub. It was actually very impressive and very spacious. It almost had the style of a very well done Wetherspoons with added Germanic flair. Wood paneling dominated the décor; with a traditional bar almost spanning the whole left side of the pub. You also had a balconied area. We were only amongst a handful of patrons. Obviously too early for most, but I did notice that they had entertainment on at a more modest time of 8pm. We grabbed a seat and claimed our first pivo, fresh from the factory (or one would imagine). Having enjoyed the taste, we paid for another round before leaving.

We descended the hill back into the old town and ate somewhere non-descript. After that we attempted to find one of 3 places we believed to be LGBT friendly venues. After lurking around near the Orthodox Church and canton buildings, we gave up and returned to the B&B. Better that we didn’t drink any more, as we would be driving the next day.