[Demosthenes]

Now if we can just raise Marshall Tito...

I've been there Muslimanka, I've been there...

I've been in Screbenica too....years ago....

O' Rly?

[Muslimanka]

It's interesting also what these two types of architecture reflect about the cultures that created them. I read an article, pieces from the journal of an Austro-Hungarian soldier. He wrote about how the Austro-Hungarians wanted to enforce a sort of European organization to what was an entirely haphazard Ottoman city. I remember his quote was something like, "Where once there was a footpath, they made a horsepath. Where once there was a horsepath, they put a cobbled street. The streets snake down from the hills and meet at the valley four, five, six at a time. With the exception of the nobility, all of whom have small estates with walled gardens, the people live in houses piled one on top of the other. So difficult is it to get around they prefer to bury their dead in the nearest garden or park." Of course, to us it was just a natural way of living. The city grew slowly - so our streets were, of course, based on old ways of travel. We buried our dead near us because we didn't have such a separation between life and death. Our houses were built on top of each other because we had very close-knit neighborhoods and, even when there was no more room to build, no one wanted their children to live in another neighborhood. But the Austro-Hungarian architecture was accepted. Romantically, I'm sure people preferred their own - and the Ottoman areas are the most popular with tourists today - but functionally... if we didn't have these Austro-Hungarian districts, my God. You'd have to park in Belgrade to walk to work.

[Aekos]

Muslimanka continues to portray Sarajevo as a homogeneously Muslim city...

[Stipe]

In terms of architecture, it was. Same was true of Belgrade.

[Aekos]

I meant this -

Romantically, I'm sure people preferred their own - and the Ottoman areas

Some people weren't traitors and found Ottoman things foreign

[Stipe]

I don't find it problematic. And what you are rejecting as foreign was, to the people who lived in these cities irrespective of their confession, their hometown and the site of their memories.

[MB.]

The Austro-Hungarian Empire was a fascinating political institution. I really love the then and now photographs, Muslimanka.

[Demosthenes]

Jeez...sour grapes everywhere!

Who cares? It's a nice place, full of history, full of strangely hospitable, yet also somewhat dark (at times) people.

I should tell about the Serb policeman I met while fishing here sometime.

Or my old Bosniak boss at the hotel I used to work at.

The only Croat I know is Stipe, I'm not sure if that counts or not.

Either way, if I get to Europe, I will visit.

[Cookie Monster]

It has beautiful nature and artitecture and a good cuisine, but too bad it's a region filled with petite nationalism.

[Mazhi]

Nice pics, Muslimanka.

Cookie, sure, there's nationalists, but I think you're exaggerating a bit.

[Cookie Monster]

Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro are ok. But Bosnia & Herzegovina and Serbia (Kosovo) will become conflict zones if Nato/EU withdraw permanently.

[Mazhi]

Well, let's hope the upcoming Western Balkans Conference produces something positive...If it will even take place, that is. Kosovo and Serbia have issues regarding it.

[Cartertonian]

Great pics, Muslimanka.

I have albums full of pics of Bosnia/ Croatia from 10 - 12 yrs ago, but none in electronic format...and my scanner's down.

It is a somewhat bizarre region, contrasting as it does some spectacular landscape and architecture with grim, concrete, Communist-era constructions, bullet- and mortar-holes and makeshift fortifications.

I was in Sarajevo about eighteen months ago, and we dined in a wonderful restaurant, on a picturesque, tree-lined boulevard flanked by huge, expensive-looking houses, and yet literally fifty yards away were ruined buildings, their walls pockmarked with bullet-holes, facing onto open ground that had been disfigured by infantry entrenchments...

[Doomhammer]

Hell yeah it's correct, Muhammadan feet never set foot in Serbian Sparta (Cetinje) and escaped

What is up with that? Seriously. The Greeks had Maniots, you guys had Cetinje (it sounds like "Çetince", "with fortitude") and the Romans the village of indomitable Gauls. Is there a historical meme here?

[noemon]

There was also an Albanian equivalent.

I think it has to do with the geopolitical setting of these areas, isolated villages inside the mountain tops. Made it hard for invaders to send army, hard for the people who lived there to make any money due to the terrain, so this cocktail created skin-hard poor people living under primitive social conditions such as the vendetta's and stuff.

[Mikolaj]

The first one appears to have been reproduced from a cracked lantern slide.

[Doomhammer]

I think it has to do with the geopolitical setting of these areas, isolated villages inside the mountain tops. Made it hard for invaders to send army, hard for the people who lived there to make any money due to the terrain, so this cocktail created skin-hard poor people living under primitive social conditions such as the vendetta's and stuff.

Or maybe they concocted a magic potion...

[Jackal]

Excellent pictures.

Thank you for this.

[Muslimanka]

That's not my intention, Aekos - the city is not religiously homogeneous but it is culturally homogeneous. I think this quote, though I disagree with it somewhat, explains it best: "In this city, four of the world's major religions grew together into a single one - yet each kept something of its character and remained recognizable for what it was."

We share each other's holidays - less now in certain ways than before the war (before, we actually went to each other's places of worship - now that's less common, we generally just visit each other's homes). I never miss a Passover (this is symbolically the most important holiday for non-Jews here - it's meaning is perfect for us, these days, and since Jews are the smallest in number, it doesn't appear as crossing over to the other side to celebrate their holidays - and then, of course, the national pride in our famous hagada), I never miss a Christmas (obviously, even if I wanted to - haha).

So culturally homogeneous, we all live the same way and we're all more similar to each other than we are to people of our same religion from neighboring countries - but not religiously homogeneous. You can twist the statistics and say 85% or more are Muslim - but that's not fair. Of that number, the amount who are religiously active, devout Muslims is very, very small. The amount who are the Muslim equivalent of "Easter and Christmas-only Christians" in Western Europe accounts for a majority, and then you have a big minority of people who are consciously atheist. If you exclude refugees from rural areas who arrived during the war, the number of religiously active people is even less. It was... a sign of good mental health, superiority, to be only casually religious before the war. It was one of the things about ourselves we used to look at the rest of our country, and the neighboring countries, and feel superior. Like at the start - I mentioned this before, but I love this story because it explains it so perfectly. Someone spray-painted "THIS IS SERBIA!" on the post office downtown. Later, someone else spray-painted the reply, "No, this is a post office, you hick!"

Religion doesn't really come into it in the way you're implying - except in that the Ottoman heritage is associated with Islam, and the Austro-Hungarian heritage is associated with Catholicism. That's the two dominant styles - excluding communist era buildings, and Olympic era buildings. Most of which are hideous. And now, of course, modern architecture, that sort of thing.

[Igor Antunov]

Very interesting, and it's cool how those landmarks and signature streets and alleyways haven't changed in over 100 years.