Sarajevo
What a day.
We spent the morning on a three hour tour with a fifty year old Bosniak who spent his early twenties as a policeman in siege Sarajevo. We went to the white fort east of the city to get an overview of the geography. We drove along sniper alley, the main road exposed to shooters in Serbian-controlled apartment buildings across the river. And most incredibly, we visited the tunnel dug under the airport that served as the only connection between the city and the outside world for the longest siege in modern history. (Our guide had passed through the tunnel twice a week during the siege.)
The siege lasted 1,425 days. Over 11,000 Bosnians were killed. Another 50,000 were wounded, including our guide, who had shrapnel removed from his leg (without anesthesia). This in a city of only 300,000 or so at the time.
In every country we’ve visited this week, someone has mentioned Russia and Ukraine. It’s not hard to understand why. Serbia is this region’s Russia. Talking with someone who, in my lifetime, endured a siege of over three and a half years from the their neighbor, was chilling. No power, no water, few medical supplies, only 150 grams of rations per day delivered in from the UN. The scars of the war are still everywhere on the bodies and the buildings.
In the afternoon we took a gondola up one of the nearby peaks. At the top, the abandoned bobsled track of the 1984 Olympics, covered in moss and graffiti. Birds and crickets and a small cart selling fresh potato chips.
Tomorrow: Istanbul.
