Bosnia and Herzegovina: Where Empires Left Their Marks on Every Street
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Sarajevo is the only European capital to have been besieged in the 20th century. The siege from 1992 to 1996 โ the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare โ left physical and psychological marks that are impossible to miss: rose-shaped scars in the pavement where mortar shells landed and were later filled with red resin to mark where people died. But Sarajevo is also the city where four major civilisations โ Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Byzantine, and Yugoslav โ left their architecture on streets that run into each other within walking distance.
Bosnian coffee is not Turkish coffee. Bosnians are clear about this and will explain it if given the opportunity. The coffee arrives in a small copper pot โ a dลพezva โ alongside an empty small cup, a cube of sugar, and a piece of Turkish delight. You pour the coffee yourself, a little at a time, letting the grounds settle. You hold the sugar cube between your teeth and drink the coffee through it. You do not rush. The process is the social act.
The Old Bridge โ Stari Most โ at Mostar is among the most beautiful single spans in the world: a 16th-century Ottoman arch of cut limestone that crosses the Neretva river in a single graceful curve. It was destroyed by artillery in 1993 and rebuilt in 2004 using original techniques and stone from the same quarry. Standing on it now, looking down at the divers who plunge from its apex for tips in the summer, it is both ancient and new in a way that captures something essential about Bosnia.
