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.