One of 10 remaining mosques
War damage with halted reconstruction
Site of future synagogue
Reconstructed Stari MostThough he coughed all night, Charlie insisted he was up for touring. After a nice breakfast in the cheery breakfast room, which we had to ourselves, we set out. The day was mild and sunny!
We came to Mostar because I thought it had an interesting back story and sounded different than the Croatian coastal towns. So a little background on Mostar (with all due credit to Rick Steves) might fit in here. Bosnia-Herzegovina was originally Slavic, like Croatia. In the 15th century Turks from the Ottoman Empire showed up and many Bosnians were converted to Islam. When the Ottomans were forced out in 1878 it became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the 20th century it became Yugoslavia, under Tito. All this time, the Muslims (called Bosniaks), the Serbs (mostly Eastern Orthodox) and the Croats (Roman Catholics) got along well and Mostar was the poster child for living together in amity.
The blending of the cultures had made Mostar a cosmopolitan little city, with a Turkish flavor. It sits on a plain between two mountain ranges, with a beautiful river running through it. What is now the Stari Grad (Old Town) was pretty much the whole town until after WWII. It became an industrial city during the Communist regime. So the new parts of the city are not very interesting architecturally or historically.
But Yugoslavia started to break up in 1991, when Croatia and Serbia each declared independence. When Bosnia - Herzegovina did the same, it didn’t sit well with the Serbian population of Mostar. When the Serb-dominated Yugoslavian Army came in, the Croats and the Bosniaks (Catholics and Muslims) joined together to fight the Serbs. Before the war was over the Croats and Bosniaks were fighting each other too. No wonder then, that in the early 1990s when Bosnia was so much in the news, I couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad. Now having seen the appalling damage, I still can’t tell.
We did our walking tour in installments because Charlie’s energy flagged late morning. But walk we did.
We started at the Catholic Church, which is brand new. Everything in the center of town is either new since 1995, or reconstructed since 1995, under construction, or a ruin. Most of the “new” construction sites are sitting idle and unfinished. Anyway, the Church has built it’s tower to be higher than the highest minaret. The actual church is just a shell, still unfinished. Right across the street is an empty lot, with menorahs on the fence around it and a sign designating it as the future home of the synagogue. Apparently the Jews acted as mediators between the Catholic Croats and the Muslim Bosniaks, and the city gave the Jews the land. Since there are only a handful of Jews here, that capital campaign may take a while.
From there we went into the Old Town, which has been almost totally reconstructed in the old style. There are still a few shells of buildings, but this is the tourist area, with all the requisite souvenir shops, like a Turkish bazaar I toy with the idea of buying another scarf to replace the one I bought in Assisi and lost in Dubrovnik, but the day is so nice I’m hoping I won’t need one again.
We cross the famous bridge -- once a symbol of bridging the cultures. It was totally destroyed in the war, and rebuilt with UNESCO funds. It was done with the same stone from the same quarry in the same manner of construction as the original, but it took longer in the 21st century than it did in 1557! We saw photos of the Old Town as the 1991 war was progressing and were able to see the incremental damage.
After morning nap we went back to where we left off (the advantage of staying close in) and had lunch. All the restaurants have great views of the river or the tributaries that feed into the river and we ate outdoors on the patio. Not bad. We continued through the old town visiting a mosque (very interesting) and a Turkish home (opened to the public.) We left the cobbled streets for “real life” and visited two Moslem cemeteries. Virtually everyone buried there had died in 1992 -1995. If someone had lived to his mid-forties, he seemed old. Really hit home the toll of war.
We walked down the main street of cafes and shops. No Max Mara and Esprit here. Shops look like 99 Cent stores. Everywhere we’ve been we see people sitting out in cafes, smoking, drinking Turkish coffee, and talking or playing backgammon. Don’t know what the unemployment rate is here, but I’d say pretty high. We come back to our hotel a new route across yet another bridge, rest before dinner, and set out to a place recommended by our B & B manager -- out of the tourist area. It’s almost empty at 7:30 as we found last night. But when we asked if we were too early or too late we were told there just isn’t much business in the off season. We still don’t know when the Bosnians eat. Anyway, in spite of sitting as far away from the few customers there, everyone of them smoked non-stop and I reek of cigarettes smoke. Don’t they know I have only one sweater and I wear it every day (different tee shirt under, however)?
Anyway, Charlie was a really good sport today, in spite of having a full blown (ha, ha) cold.
P.S. CNN TV just showed our guy from the restaurant in Rome standing right next to Berlusconi!
17,130 steps (in three installments)
No comments:
Post a Comment