Reading Sarajevo in Grand Rapids, Seeing Sarajevo With My Own Eyes

I sent out a group email to my book club about spending the weekend in Sarajevo.  About a year ago, the Neland Book Club read The Cellist of Sarajevo, and I wanted to share with them seeing the setting of the book come to life.  A number of them responded right away, so either I hit a nerve or a bunch of book club members have too much time on their hands!

Actually, I know none of these women are sitting around with nothing to do, so I'm going to take their responses as affirmation that what I shared with them might interest you, too.

This past weekend our family accompanied the Calvin students on a visit to Sarajevo and Mostar (another city in Bosnia-Herzegovina).  Truly amazing. 

I saw first-hand so many of the scenes of action in the book.  I went to and ate at the brewery where the character Kenan went to get water for his family and his grouchy neighbor.  I saw the city hall/library that was burned down, and is still being restored bit by bit as money allows.  I saw the old marketplace that dates from the time of the Ottoman empire and the place where the city changes from the Ottoman empire to the buildings of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and then the still more recent Soviet era (not very interesting to see, though people still appreciate the jobs and industry of that time).  I saw the place where the people standing in line for the bread were killed.   And lest you think I remember all this from reading the book about a year for book club, let me hasten to add that I re-read the book while I was there.

This is not a place I ever would have thought, "Oh, Sarajevo - got to go there," but it is very beautiful, despite the tragedy it has suffered.  Though many scars of war remain, much has been rebuilt and it seems impossible to imagine the horrors that occurred there even though the evidence is in front of your eyes.  The people seem to be very resilient and tolerant. One of the most striking things we did was to climb partway up one of the hills of the city (just walking on streets) and watch the sunset, see the city lights come on and listen to the 7 pm call to prayer rise from the mosques all over the city.  It is something I never gave a thought to before, but despite our differences with the Muslim faith, there is something very beautiful about the call of the faithful to prayer all at the same time and in such a public way.

I miss the abundant, easy access to books in my own language and being able to share them with you, that I have at home.  But this is a truly amazing experience and I am very grateful.

 "The Seher Cehaja is the most eastern of the bridges crossing the Miljacka, and using it will require a significant detour, almost doubling the distance of his trip...The end of the bridge is just ahead, and his foot catches on a cleft in the pavement.  It seems like he's going to fall, but he doesn't, somehow, and he recovers himself enough to stumble across the rest of the bridge to the protection of a small building to his left."  When I read this, I imagined the bridge(s) as much longer than they actually are.

 The old Turkish neighborhood of Bascarsija - "For half a millennium, it has served as the city's marketplace, its streets organized according to the type of trades conducted there.  But in recent years this strict discipline had broken down a bit, with more and more shops selling merchandise designed for tourists."  This is the copper workers' street.

 Another view of Bascarsija

 "'There is a man playing the cello in the street,' she says. 'Near the market. Where the people were killed lining up for bread.'"

 "Arrow crosses and sits in the spot where the mortar landed, the spot where, later today, the cellist will sit.  She knows that twenty-two people died here and a multitude were injured, will not walk or see or touch again.  Because they tried to buy bread.  A small decision."

 The eternal flame commemorating the military and civilian victims of WWII in Saravejo.  Our tour guide, Berina, was a 9-year-old girl during the war in the 90s.  Her memories are of being in the basement all the time.

 The plaque on this building reads, "The first casualty when war comes is truth."

 "His head turns to the southwest, where, if keeps going past the bakery and then down through Mojmilo to Dobrinja, the not-so-secret tunnel leads under the airport into unoccupied territory."

 "He's almost at the Princip Bridge.  It used to be called the Latin Bridge, but it's there that, in 1914, the First World War began...He has always been slightly ashamed that, for a generation, when the world thought of Sarajevo, it was as a place of murder.  It isn't clear to him how the world will think of the city now that thousands have been murdered."  I know  about 22 people, at least,  who think of it as the haunting and unforgettable home of courageous and determined people.

 "The brewery has been badly damaged and parts of it are no longer safe, but its springs are deep beneath the surface, and the basement of the building is impenetrable even to the men on the hills, though that hasn't stopped them from trying to level the bright-red building.  The brewery is situation in a vulnerable position, only a short distance from the occupied hills."  It may have been badly damaged then, but it looks beautiful now.  If I were going to work in a factory, this would be the one.  And they make some very fine beer.

 The Miljacka River

 "It is all Kenan can do to look up at what remains of the National Library.  Though the stone and brick structure still stands, its insides are completely consumed.  The fire has left sooty licks above each window, and the domed glass ceiling that stood proud atop the building for a century has shattered to the floor...It was one of his favorite places in the city, though he wasn't a great reader.  It was the most visible manifestation of a society he was proud of."  And it will be again.  There are very ambitious plans to build it exactly as it was, and some of the work has already been done.

 Sunset over Sarajevo

City lights come on, and the call to prayer rises from every quarter of the city.