Plenty of smoke without fire
If you've now become a person that finds it actually unpleasant to be in a room with someone smoking, then approach Bosnia and Herzegovina with extreme caution. Perhaps it's the price of the cigarettes or maybe there's a Golden Ticket hidden in 5 packs and the search is on, but it's very hard to walk far in Bosnia without being in someone's line of fire. It's crazy actually. I know people who smoke love to have a cigarette after a meal but these guys seemed to have a cigarette after a cigarette. Nowhere seems to be sacred in fact; stations, restaurants, bars and yes, I'm sure you've guessed it, inside train compartments. Well, at least I didn't have a 10 hour train journey to Sarajevo today with a bunch of Bosnian smokers. Oh no, that's right, I did. Still, I did manage to find an empty compartment but like it was a little bit like a chimney on wheels.
A different tack today in that the day was almost entirely this train journey so rather than comment on the fading blueish embroidery of the train seat opposite, I thought I would impart with why this city is woefully undermentioned as a city that played such a big part in defining 20th century Europe. So much so in fact that some commentators feel it's Sarajevo specifically that bookends 1900's European history being the venue of both the incident that started the Great War, and the target of the century's last notable ethnic cleansing. Sorry chaps, a short history lesson today but it's a fascinating city we should all know more about so deal with it. Less gags - you're going to learn stuff today.
Bosnia and Herzegovina is part of former Yugoslavia and fell under Austro-Hungarian rule in 1878 but tensions mounted in the early part of the 20th century and it was in Sarajevo, its capital, that a young revolutionary by the name of Princip shot Arch Duke Ferdinand which lead Austro-Hungary to invade Serbia and begin The Great War which subsequently became known as World War One. Princip was a Bosnian Serb who was part of a group of revolutionaries that wanted Yugoslavia to be free from Austro-Hungarian rule. On the day that its heir, Ferdinand, was parading the city, Princip leapt out from the crowd and shot him and his wife. Princip and his accomplices were arrested and implicated by several members of the Serbian military, leading Austria-Hungary to issue a démarche to Serbia known as the July Ultimatum. This was used as pretext for Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia, which then led to World War I.
At the other end of the century beginning in 1992 and ending in 1996 (the so called 1400 days of bombing), Sarajevo came under siege from The Serbian Army who were set on enlarging Serbia to include Bosnia at the time when Yugoslavia was breaking up. Certain countries like Slovenia had exited Yugoslavia peacefully, but Bosnia's problem was that ethnically it was so mixed. Slobodan Milosevic was the President of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and it was under his rule and direction that the Serbs, a name used to describe both the nationals of Serbia and an ethnicity, invaded Bosnia, Kosovo and Croatia in an attempt to take control of them and they killed and tortured anyone who would stand in his way; in Bosnia, this turned out to be mainly Muslims as they were the ethnicity most keen for the country to remain independent and not fall under Serbian rule.
The view the Bosnians Serbs might have had from the hills surrounding the city
It was on the 5th April 1992 that an army of 13,000 Bosnian Serbs surrounded and blockaded Sarajevo beginning the longest siege of a city in recent memory. 13,952 people died and ten of thousands more were injured as hundreds of bombs were fired in from the surrounding hills and a weak local Government army did it's best to resist the onslaught. Many did get away through tunnels and via the relatively unmanned airport but many tried and failed too. This was a city were nothing went in or out for 3 years, 10 months, 3 weeks and 3 days. Can you imagine it?
I arrived at Sarajevo train station where getting a taxi to the hotel was not only easy but fun. My taxi driver was called Ado and he was someone who just had such a positive take on life. A large man that chuckled incessantly, he had not only taught himself English but he drove like a magician. Ado told me all about his life but I just couldn't take my eyes off his pedal work and gear stick maneuvering skills. This was fast becoming my most enjoyable taxi ride of the trip; not only was I being driven by a Bosnian rally car professional but one that so amusingly relayed his life growing up. Yes he had lost family and friends in the war but he felt no hardship. Ado is Muslim but had me in stitches as he described how soft a Muslim he is. 'Yes I am fat and soft but so too my religion. I smoke, I drink and much better than that I have sex with woman out of wedlock, ha ha ha ha. No problem. I'm the softest Muslim I know.' I checked in for the night and went to bed. I wished all religious people could be as soft as Ado. I think the world would be a far more pleasant place if they were.