Sarajevo was the site of the 1984 Winter Olympics. Then a part of Yugoslavia, the city was the first communist host of the Winter games. By all accounts, the games were a success: disabled skiing was included as a demonstration sport for the first time, Katerina Witt won her first gold medal, and Torvill and Dean earned the only perfect scores in ice dancing. Eight years later, the city was a war zone.
Not that Sarajevo is a stranger to wars. Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914, an event that precipitated World War I.
The former Yugoslavia was made up of 6 autonomous republics: Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Montenegro, plus the province of Kosovo. In the early 90s, Slovenia and Croatia decided to secede from Yugoslavia. Slovenia managed that easily enough, but Croatia endured quite a bit of fighting in its quest for independence. Bosnia and Herzegovina, however, had it much worse.
I won’t pretend to know the ins and outs of what happened. I may have gotten this totally wrong, but this is what I gathered. Basically, there are 3 main ethnic groups, which are also religious groups: Bosniaks (Muslims), Croats (Catholics) and Serbs (Orthodox Christians).
When Yugoslavia began to break up, Serbia was not happy about losing the Serb population (or land) in the other countries. After Bosnia and Herzegovina declared her independence in 1992, Bosnian Serbs, with unofficial funding from Serbia, laid siege to Sarajevo. The Serbs took control of the mountains around the city for 4 years, cutting Sarajevo off from the rest of the world, which is the longest siege of a capital city in modern times.
Completely surrounded, the Bosnians dug a tunnel under the airport runway, to facilitate movement of vital medication, food, and arms. The Tunnel of Hope, as it was named, was dug entirely by hand (dynamite could have caused the runway to collapse), in 4 months and 4 days.
Both sides planted landmines in the hills around the city. Unfortunately, the locations of these mines were never noted, and many still exist. The Olympic bobsled course is located in one of these hills, Mt Trebevic. During the war, it was used to store arms and ammunition. Less than a decade after being the location of a competition between athletes for gold, it was the site of another clash, but this one was for control of the city.
Paul wanted to visit the bobsled course. 20 years after the war, the track is totally abandoned and covered in graffiti. It snakes its way through the overgrown forest, a sad symbol of the past. Getting there isn’t straightforward, as there is no public transportation to the area. We considered walking, but were advised to go only with a local, as it’s easy to get lost, and landmines are still a very real risk. Plus, a slew of muggings have occurred recently, so we didn’t want to go alone.
In the end, we hired a cab to drive us there, and wait while we explored the area. We didn’t encounter any problems. Standing on a bobsled track that was used in the Olympics, admiring the graffiti that still mars it, in the middle of a very still, quiet forest with yellow “caution” tape warning about landmines is a very eerie experience.
After the Serbs began mass killings of Bosnian muslims in acts of ethnic cleansing, NATO initiated air strikes. In late 1995, the countries had come to an agreement, though the siege technically didn’t end until early 1996. Despite this seeming like a religious war on the surface, many are adamant that this was not a religious war. In addition to Bosnians (Muslims) and Croats (Catholics), Serbs (Orthodox Christians) were also under siege, as all three religious groups harmoniously lived in Sarajevo. All three groups suffered casualties in the city, and persons of all religions were killed by Serb snipers, making this seem more like a war for territory.
Today, the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina is divided into the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Repubika Srpska. There are 3 presidents: one to represent each major religious group; however, many say that nothing ever gets accomplished because the three cannot agree on anything. Perhaps this partially accounts for the 45% unemployment rate. But, Sarajevo is slowly recovering. Tourism is increasing dramatically, which is bringing money to the area. The first McDonalds opened in 2010, and now other international brands are investing. While reminders of the horrific war are everywhere, citizens seem cautiously optimistic.
Beer of Choice: Mustache beer at Cafe de Paris