In Sarajevo, we spend two days full of impressions. Several days later, when I am no longer able to postpone the writing process, I realize that, just like five years ago, when I was here for the first time, before the doctorate, before Corona and especially before the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, I find it difficult to put my impressions into words. Perhaps it is the knowledge of the country’s tragic history, which is unmistakably imprinted on the cityscape here. At the same time, however, there is also a fascination for the unexpected fusion of Western European and Eastern Oriental elements in the city. The Ottoman influence is clearly recognizable in the old market Baščaršija with the Sebilj water tower in the old town, or in the many mosques such as the Gazi Husrev-Beg Mosque and the nearby Madrasa or the old caravanserai, while a street corner further on the old Moorish-style town hall or the Imperial Bridge, near which the assassination of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand triggered the First World War, reveal the long rule of the Habsburg monarchy.
The more recent history of the city can be witnessed from the Trebević Bobsleigh not far away from our camping site, which was built for the 1984 Winter Olympics, only few years before the war started. Despite all the splendor, the many restaurants, cafés and touristy junk stores, the poverty in this city cannot be overlooked. We were able to get an impression yesterday on the way into the city, but even closer to the city center there are many houses whose dilapidation is obvious, and on whose facades the bullet holes from the fragmentation grenades are a striking reminder of the time of the siege of the city in 1992-1996.