Melting Pot Bubbles With Generosity
Sun Herald
Sunday June 24, 2007
A renewed city still bears the scars of the war, writes Lyn Drummond.
EDIS Kolar stands at the entrance of what is left of a secret tunnel which led from his family's house in Sarajevo to the UN-controlled airport during the Bosnia Herzegovina war. "We have kept the transport carts, the tools for digging, the bags in which people carried food, and turned it into a museum," he says.The museum is one of the attractions bringing tourists back to this once besieged city. The airport was located between Sarajevo and free territory. Bosnians who crossed this turf had to run the gauntlet of snipers just so they might take food to their families; often they were stopped and many were killed. Digging on the secret tunnel began in January 1993, following the handover of the Kolar family home to the Bosnian army. The tunnel's work areas were shelled but that didn't stop its construction. Food, oil, weapons, ammunition, the injured, even goats, were transported in the tunnel. Kolar estimates that 300,000 citizens survived because of the tunnel.His grandmother, Sida Kolar, was renowned for helping exhausted soldiers and giving food and warmth in her little room to people waiting to go into the tunnel. Edis Kolar, who was 18 at the time, and his father, Bajro, who run the tunnel museum, both served in the military forces.While Bosnia Herzegovina has not entirely recovered from the war, the reconstruction of Sarajevo from its new shops and offices to the Olympic Stadium where Torvill and Dean won gold in 1984, is remarkable.The history of this beautiful country stretches from Roman times to the reign of Bosnian kings, from the Ottoman period which ruled for four centuries to another four centuries of Austro-Hungarian rule and the Yugoslavian era with Marshal Tito as its leader.The countryside is a paradise for nature lovers, mountains beckon skiers, rivers invite rafting. And let's not forget the delicious food and the hospitality of the people.Do try cevapcici (grilled minced meat fingers) but if your appetite is slim don't follow my lead. On arrival in Sarajevo's old Turkish quarter, Bascarsija, I asked for a chicken sandwich. Just a small one, I said. What arrived was a huge, pizza-like dish filled with chicken and heaps of salad. I ate one quarter of it.One visitor was heard to remark that this area of rambling, cobblestone streets straddling the mosques and minarets was more Orient than Istanbul. The bazaars show the talents of Bosnia's gold, silver and copper workers. Here you will find their creative legacy to the war - shell casings and bullets fashioned into ballpoint pens.On a walking tour, the guide told me she was 10 during the war yet she still went to school every day. There are still signs of the war - a monument in the marketplace to citizens killed - but people have gone back to living their lives as before, side by side with many denominations and cultures.Be sure to visit the spot near the Latin Bridge where the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Franz Ferdinand, and his pregnant wife, Sophia, were assassinated, an event that triggered World War I.
© 2007 Sun Herald