Oath to Sarajevo, oath to Bosnia and Herzegovina

The first time I came to Sarajevo was in 1992, to the famous Mt. Jahorina for skiing. I was 9 years old and my dad was teaching me how to ski.

A week after we arrived, the war started. We left that day.

Our holiday was turning into a nightmare.

The next time I came to Sarajevo was in 1996 for holidays. We had just moved from the UK to Turkey and came to Bosnia to visit some of my dad’s relatives.

We came 3 years in a row. Every summer; stayed for a week or two. It was nice, for holidays.

Since the 4-year war ended only in 1995 you can only imagine the state of the country in 1996.

The buildings were destroyed, there was still no water, electricity or sewage control in a lot of the buildings. The shells has caused so much damage to the pipe lines inside the houses that rats, cockroaches and other different creatures were very familiar for those who has not put new isolation material in their apartments.

Sarajevo had lost the charm it had in 1992. It looked very sad to me; very poor, vulnerable. It was crying.

I moved to Bosnia and Herzegovina in April 1999.

The transition was tough. Moving to a city which (at the time) had no shopping malls, still used Deutch Mark at national currency and was filled with cemeteries was torture.

It has been more than 7 years since then.

I was walking through the old Turkish quarter today. Everything is repaired. The wood has been changed, the red rooftops have been carefully replaced, the stones have been washed and polished, religious objects have all been reconstructed…

That part of the city is an official candidate to become an UNESCO protected site.

I walk past the Austro-Hungarian quarter, where all the buildings look like something from the 19^th century movie. Pink and yellow, blue and red, very fancy architectural designs, statues, high ceilings and beautiful doorways. Now that I look at it, it seems hard to believe what I had seen in 1996, as a result of 3.000 shells falling onto the city daily (in average).

Only here and there, you can see the red blots on the pavement. Holes in a shape of a rose, filled with red rubber, emphasizing spots where people were killed by shells thrown from enemy positions.

Here and there you see the never ending cemeteries of people who had been buried quickly, during the nights so the enemies wouldn’t shoot during burial rituals.

I look around and it hits me. Almost everything has been reconstructed. The buildings, the schools, the hospitals, bridges, roads, railways…

Almost 5,3 billion USD have been invested into B&H since 1995.

I can see where the money has gone. I have been watching international help being invested into infrastructure for the last 7 years.

Today I have officially picked my final university thesis and the topic is:

“Reconstruction of Infrastructure in Bosnia and Herzegovina

from 1996 to 2006 from The World Bank aspect”.

It will be fun to do research about tangible things and I feel as if I owe it to Bosnia to make a summary of what has been ‘healed’ in this beautiful country which cries no more.