Visit to Bosnia

Last week Liv and I went to Bosnia for a week and a half for my friend's wedding.

Travel

We were a little scared that there might be some problems going through Istanbul because of the protests, but everything was fine. Although I wish there had been some way to show solidarity.

We were a little worried about navigating round Bosnia whilst not speaking the language at all, but we managed. We got a taxi from the airport all the way to the town we were staying in, which was expensive, but probably better than trying to immediately negotiate buses. A lot of the time my friend was there to help.

Countryside

The countryside is unsurprisingly amazing. We spent a couple of days in the small town near where my friend's wife grew up. It was small enough there obviously weren't many tourists, so often had to negotiate with almost no words in common, but everyone was exceptionally tolerant and helpful.

Most places we went hadn't a lot of specifically vegetarian food, but normally had one or two things, which were usually very nice. The menus helpfully have pictures on :)

Phone reception

Both hotels and some other places had wifi, which was lovely. I like the future a lot.

I said I'd try to pick up a local sim card, and I wish I'd tried harder; being able to make calls without worrying about the cost, and if possible having google maps, would have been really useful.

For some reason, I couldn't connect to any of the mobile telephone networks for more than a few seconds. My friend on giffgaff has the same problem. I'm not sure what was wrong.

Wedding

My friends were already legally married, but hadn't had a proper wedding. It was a catholic wedding in a beautiful airy church in the village his wife grew up in.

The wedding was mostly in Croatian, but with the vows in English, and the readings translated into English. Unfortunately, I'd assumed the priest or someone was managing the wedding, but apparently he was just ploughing ahead with a usual service, and expecting the awkward English guests to jump in if possible at the appropriate point, which was rather difficult, though it turned out ok.

When I'd not been given any text to read, I'd assumed my friend was just being too busy, and there would obviously be a text to read from during the service. But apparently not, I was just supposed to know by osmosis what to read.

But very fortunately, I'd been asked to read the appropriate passage from the bible about God making woman from a rib, and hence man leaving his parents and cleaving to his wife, and when you look at it, it's fairly obvious which bit makes a nice complete reading for a wedding, beginning after "god created the earth" part and ending before the "and then they were naked" part.

I'd looked it up in the hotel room wifi, and hadn't expected to need to whip my smartphone out in the middle of the service, but it was the only option. Unfortunately, my phone decided it needed to reload the page right then, and switched to saying "cannot load page". So with mild trepidation, since most people who spoke any English were people I knew well, I apologised and gave as much as I could remember, which turned out ok.

But, well, I guess giving an unscheduled speech from memory in the middle of a wedding is a good introduction to public speaking.

Afterwards there's a big reception, with much drinking of locally distilled spirits, and 80s dancing.

Sarajevo

Afterwards we spent a few days in Sarajevo, where we didn't have anyone who could speak Bosnian, but people are geared up for international tourists.

Sarajevo is a beautiful city, littered with street cafes, blending Turkish, Austrian, Soviet and Mediterranean culture. It sits in a river valley, surrounded by hills on all sides. The river itself is shallow but wide and lively, with a bridge every few hundred metres.

Recommendations

The hotel Marat Zepce (just outside Zepce) and Pension Harmony (in Sarajevo) were both very helpful. I don't have anything to compare them to, but I would consider going there again if I were visiting.

History of Bosnia (before the Yugoslav War)

History

The area was settled by Slavic tribes some time in the last thousand years. For much of the last 500 years it was part of the Turkish Empire, then briefly part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This means it has an eastern/mediterranean, but with a lot of Turkish influence. The touristy old bit of Sarajevo is the old town, with many mosques and amenities first built by a famous ottoman ruler. And when we were parched for tea, we went to one of the little cafes to find turkish tea.

Ethnic composition

There are traditionally Croats, who are Catholic, Serbs, who are Eastern Orthodox, and Bosniaks, who are Muslim. I think they all come from very similar stock, so the differences are mostly cultural, but quite distinct.

Multiculturalism

Bosnia has been proudly multicultural for a long time (despite recent awful happenings). It's somewhere where there historic mosques, catholic churches and eastern orthodox churches all coexisting. And two synagogues, one in active use, mostly Sephardi, though Ashkenazi too.

The multiculturalism is the first thing people mention, and it's really nice to see somewhere actively proud of it. We didn't share much common language with the taxi driver on the first night, but when he described London, the first complement he gave was "multicultural".

Even when people are describing war crimes by serbian forces, they immediately stress that many important Bosnian Serbs defected from the Yugoslavian/Serbian army to defend Bosnia.

Although, while positive, this sometimes doesn't leave room for anyone who doesn't fit neatly into the three boxes.

Recent History of Bosnia

Language

In the region, but especially in Bosnia, there are three languages, Bosnian, Croatian, and Serbian, but it's generally described as like British English and American English, perfectly inter-intelligible, with some variation. Croatian and Bosnian are written with the roman alphabet, and Serbian with the cyrillic alphabet.

But obviously, even if you can make yourself understood, use the right name for the language!

World War I

Embarrassingly, I'd remembered that Arch-Duke Ferdinand had been shot somewhere in the Austro-Hungarian empire, but completely forgot where. It was in Sarajevo. He was shot by Gavrilo Princep, who wanted a Serbia independent of the Austro-Hungarian empire. I'm not sure how he's seen now -- I think at the time, he was seen as a terrorist, but since has come to be more of a tragic hero.

The next is a lot of this is things I should know by watching the TV news as a teenager, but I didn't really pick up until I went there. And is incredibly simplistic, but is a sort of description of some of the things that happened, even though it's incredibly vague :(

( Breakup of Yugoslavia and War Crimes )