Welcome to Sarajevo in Bosnia a gorgeous city that's often
called the Jerusalem of Europe and in this post we're going to
explore one of the more interesting cities in the world.
Behind me is this place called tashlihan which I'm
hoping I'm pronouncing right and this was one of the very first inns that
was built to accommodate for the merchants that came here to the old
town of Sarajevo. It's where they stayed with their horses and
everything. You can see the remains from the outside sort of but if you go
downstairs there's still a market underneath where people are still selling
stuff and this market was intentionally sort of built below the ground. so
it didn't get as hot as the surrounding city and the spices did not get
spoiled. I'm in the bazaar of the old town of Sarajevo and I've
never been to a place outside of Turkey that
looks so much like Turkey. Back in the day this whole
bazaar was where people came to sell all their goods and there was
basically an alley dedicated for every kind of goods. So that kind
of market doesn't really exist anymore and you'll mostly find cafes and
other little shops in the bazaar, except for this one alley called
coppersmiths alley where people are still selling copper goods the same way
they have been for the last 500 years. Mainly more for tourists
these days than for people trying to buy copper as a necessity but it's
still a really cool place and probably my favorite alley in the
whole bazaar the old town of Sarajevo.
In other places pljeskavica and cevapi would
definitely have some pork in it. but today I'm eating this thing
called Sarma.. the plate is hot.. which is like this stuffed meat wrapped
in cabbage and it's great to have with some mashed potatoes on the
side. Pretty much like everywhere in the region you usually get
bread on the side different kinds of bread too.This is so good. I'm gonna
stop talking for the next few minutes and just enjoy my meal
so right now I'm in a café in Bosnia drinking some
Bosnian coffee and coffee culture is huge in this country. Bosnians are
some of the highest consumers of coffee per capita in the world and
the way they usually do it is they come to these cafes and have a
coffee for 30 minutes and this is pretty strong coffee so this is more
like two or three cups of coffee, not one. And usually they just
come here sit with friends and smoke a lot of cigarettes because Bosnians
smoke a lot of cigarettes this is um very similar to the way Turkish
coffee is prepared but not exactly the same.
There are some distinct differences and there's
definitely a difference in the taste but it's still pretty decent. I
definitely still prefer my americano but this is also good behind me is
the Gazi Huzrev Beg mosque which was built by the ottomans here in the
16th century pretty much in the middle of old town in Sarajevo. this
is still the largest historic mosque in Bosnia-Herzegovina so worth
a visit. you probably can't go inside this one. there's strict dress
codes and all that. but yeah on to the next one.
so after approximately 400 years of ottoman rule, in
1878 all the superpowers of Europe got together and signed the Treaty of
Berlin which handed power over Sarajevo and Bosnia from the Ottomans
which was a basically a dying empire at this point to the Austro-Hungarians
for the next 30 years. People kind of have mixed feelings to this
day about that period because yes on one hand it was a foreign power
occupying the place but on the other hand they made some massive
massive massive leaps in technology or just advancements in general in
those
next 30 years. They spent a lot of money on infrastructure
and architecture ,as you can probably tell from the architecture of
every single building behind me and the country basically went from being
a feudal system that was run by the ottomans to a more advanced technological
place. one thing that I find really interesting is that on this very
street there's this point maybe like 100 meters that way called the
meeting point of cultures .where there's basically a line and on one
side of the line everything is Austrian. architecture on the other side
everything is more like the old ottoman architecture. it's a such a
weird mix that you pretty much don't see anywhere else in any city in the
world
so fun fact to remember, if you're walking past the
river and see some trams going next to you, Sarajevo actually has the
oldest tram network or electric tram network in all of Europe and
the second oldest in the world after San Francisco. These things
have been around since the 1870s
so right now I'm in this intersection next to the
Latin bridge in the center of Sarajevo and this is probably one of the
most historical spots in the world. So remember how the
Austro-Hungarian empire got control of Sarajevo and Bosnia
essentially and then they were supposed to leave after 30 years and
Bosnians were sort of hoping for some independence .but they ended
up never leaving so there was a lot of anti-Austro-Hungarian sentiments
sort of brewing in the region, especially from the Serbians who were
right next door and had their own independent kingdom at this point and
were not a fan of Austro-Hungarians trying to take over territory
around them or their own territory.
So there was this extreme right-wing group that
were willing to do whatever was necessary to remove the
Austro-Hungarians from power and they recruited essentially kids between
the age of 17 to 23 to try to assassinate Archduke Franz Ferdinand
who was next in line to come to power to rule the Austro-Hungarian
empire. So on 28th June 1914.
Archduke Franz Ferdinand came to Sarajevo to visit his
subjects and then while he was driving around there was a big
assassination attempt that was botched at several points but he was
still driving around the place and then his car which looks a lot
like this car behind me, this is a replica was not the original one,
was making a turn right here in this bridge
when this 19 year old assassin called Princip came out
with his gun, fired it several times, killed Franz Ferdinand and his wife
Sophia. When it was found out that rebels were essentially trained
or linked to being trained by Serbia (and they) were it was behind this
assassination, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. Serbia was
allied with Russia so Russia declared war on the Austro-Hungarian empire
and then Germany and France, there was like conflicts in that region
too
they started war with each other too and essentially
world war one started because of this one bullet that was fired
here. Crazy stuff behind me is this Roman catholic cathedral that was
built in the 19th century. it's a pretty cool building but I think what is
a lot more interesting is what is in front of this building. if you
just take a few more steps outside of the main gate you'll come across
this fragmented block of concrete with red paint inside it and it
looks fractured and there's about 200 of these blocks throughout the
cities and these are called Sarajevo Roses .
These are spots where the concrete was
essentially destroyed from bombings during the siege of Sarajevo that
lasted three years and 11 months in the 90s. Unfortunately world war
one and world war ii was not the last time this part of the world
saw violence and warfare. The Yugoslav wars broke out after the
Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia sort of broke apart in the
90s and it was a bloody conflict which claimed the lives of more
than 130 000 people and no city was probably as adversely affected by
this like Sarajevo which was under siege from all sides for almost
four years, was being constantly bombed by shells and mortar.
Civilians were constantly being targeted by snipers
hiding up on the hills of Sarajevo and this bloodshed continued for a long
long time. The craziest part about this is this is not even that
long ago. Everyone in the city who's my age or older remembers this very
very well. That's something I guess you should be very mindful of
and very respectful of if you ever get the chance to visit Sarajevo. I'm
probably going to talk more about the conflict in the Balkans and Bosnia
in a different post but if you want to know more about it
please do look up the history of this place
okay right now I'm at the yellow fortress which is
right off the side of Sarajevo a little bit uphill ,but it is without a
doubt my favorite sunset spot in the whole city. You just get the most
amazing views ever from this place. Great place to grab a beer too
if you're into that.
I think I'm gonna end the blog here if you like this post don't forget to hit
the like button, if you want to see more post from the Balkans and everywhere
else around the world feel free to follow my blog and if you want to
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more real-time basis there
alright I'll catch you guys on the next one...
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