Our Grand Tour of the Mostar Area..... AMAZING!!!

We had the most INCREDIBLE day on our tour yesterday - probably one of my best days EVER for travel!!  We had a wonderful, kind, knowledgeable, hospitable tour guide who had LOADS of information and personality! Pam and I wandered through the Old Town about 10 am to get to our starting point (on the other side of the bridge), but got a bit disoriented as to where the office was (even though we had just been there the day before to book the tour) because there were so few people wandering through the streets!! Apparently, the day before when it had been so crowded was May 1st (a BIG celebration and National Holiday that started with a band parading through the streets and past our apartment at 6:30 am!!), resulting in many Bosnians visiting Mostar on Monday! Little did we know that the crowds would have been much smaller had we waited a couple days! Oh well - it's all about the authentic experience, and I'm sure the crowds would have been just as thick on Market Day during medieval times!!

We met with Emir (the tour guide) and 4 other travelers. He told us that with larger groups they use a van, but since it was just the 6 of us, we had 3 in each car (and he chose US to be in his car because his fiance had told him we are "his kind of guests" who ask all sorts of questions, etc.)!! I was in absolute HEAVEN!!! I asked at least 100 questions and he happily answered all of them - and seemed willing to answer 100 more if we would've had time!! His English is impeccable, and he has traveled all around the former Yugoslavian countries trying to gain a well-rounded perspective on the history, the Balkan War, and all the cultural nuances of different places that were formerly part of Yugoslavia. One of the guests said he should write a book, and he shyly smiled and said that he's working on it, but he has to wait a bit longer until he is married and has children so he can get that "last piece of experience" of being a husband and father to "fully understand why people do/did what they have done throughout history." WOW!! This guy was like my dream-come-true for thoughtful, meaningful conversations and answering all my questions!!

So.....let me see if I can remember some of what he told us (he literally talked for almost 9 hours straight, so that's a LOT of information - no wonder I was GIDDY with delight)!! He first took us to a bunker not far from town that had housed 30 fighter jets in a tunnel built into a mountain just across the road from the Mostar airport. During the Cold War, Tito was always concerned that there was going to be a nuclear attack from Russia, so everything he did was to prevent the devastation of the country and protect the leaders (and hopefully some of the people)!! They were hidden so well that the local people didn't even know the tunnels and fighter jets existed until 1991 when Milosevic came and removed them (and later used them in the Bosnian War against the people he had "retrieved" them from not long before the war started)!!

Apparently, Tito had built 4 of these "anti-nuclear" tunnels at a cost of billions, but only 2 of them are still under the protection of the Bosnian military. The other two have fallen into disrepair and are only visited by tourists and sometimes local sheep herders in the heat of summer since it is at least 20 degrees cooler inside the dark tunnels!! Emir (and many others that I have spoken to since I arrived) definitely felt like life under Tito wasn't as bad as we in the Western world believed. 

From listening to various perspectives since I've arrived, it seems Yugoslavia was more of a Socialist country with a "firm-handed" autocratic leader (not our choice of leader in a capitalist democracy, but they had free healthcare, free housing and jobs to keep the economy running). Tito ordered a multitude of executions and his Secret Police used horrible tactics, but in the eyes of the Yugoslavian people these were traitors from WW II as well as terrorists (and Americans know how out-of-hand things can get in the name of "safety against terrorists")!! So Tito was obviously not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he was able to hold the country together and build a fairly strong economy based on Communist/Socialist principles.

The question of WHY the country seemed to fall apart after Tito died was asked, and it was the same answer I've heard from a few people here....greed, desire for power and land, and nobody stepped forward with the same vision as Tito to hold Yugoslavia together. I was telling Pam that post-Tito Yugoslavia reminds me of children who are raised with in a very autocratic system where they are basically just TOLD what to do ("because I say so") with no freedom to make decisions about their own lives until they are away from home (going to college, etc.)....and then all hell breaks loose because they didn't have the guidance to learn to make decisions for themselves and mature into responsible, caring adults along the way. Because these children have no decision-making freedom about setting boundaries prior to leaving home, they have no internal boundaries or guidance system and often end up just doing whatever feels good to them in the moment without forethought of how their actions might impact others!! 

In the same way (it seems to me), once Tito died and there wasn't a "father figure" around to keep everyone in line, so a small percentage of the people decided they wanted to get rich, own more land, be in power, take things from other people so they could HAVE MORE - kinda like a two-year-old or a teenager!! And so, sadly, people were slaughtered and displaced because so many "teenagers without internal boundaries" were allowed to run amuk and take what they wanted!! (I realize it is a MUCH more complicated issue than this, but I find this insight into the psychology of some of the people in power following Tito's death fascinating)!! It wasn't JUST Tito's death that caused Yugoslavia to fall apart into the various Balkan countries, but the loss of his "firm hand" was definitely a factor into why it happened when it did!!

According to one source I read, Mostar was the most heavily-bombed city in the Bosnian War, with especially heavy losses in 1993 (which matches the dates on ALL those gravestones just a couple blocks from our apartment)!! I asked Emir about the building next door to our apartment... whether the damage was due to bombs or if it was just an old building. He said it was built during the time when the Austro-Hungarians Empire was ruling here (late-1800s to World War I.... after the 400-year rule of the Ottoman Empire). This building and many others have stood as a reminder - a broken piece of history - for almost 25 years after this beautiful village was bombed by over 700 mortar shells in the early years of the Bosnian War!! SEVEN HUNDRED - can you even imagine what it must have been like to experience that day-in and day-out for years on end?!?!? Emir said he remembers as a 5-year-old that he was helping take care of his baby brothers and always felt he had to protect them from the "noises" outside (never knowing if this bomb was going to be the one that hit his house)!! 

He talked about the long-term effects of the War - not only the 300,000 lives that were lost and the countless more that were injured, but the over one million people who were displaced because someone was willing to kill them for the land that had been part of their family heritage for generations!! Many Bosnians took advantage of the offer from the US, Canada, New Zealand, etc. that would allow families with children under the age of 5 to emigrate into these countries, but many people didn't want to give up their homes or their country that was so deeply-embedded into their psyches. It wasn't just the "brick and mortar" homes they didn't want to leave behind, it was the "homes of their heart" - the place, the land, the people who were buried deep in their souls as a part of their identity! 

I'm not sure as an American I can understand this concept because I don't feel a connection to the land (or community) that way - well, especially being the wanderer that I am!! - but there was something deep and soulful about the way Emir talked about his homeland and described why his parents chose to stay. It is such a different perspective from my own, and I have a hard time wrapping my mind around their choice to stay where they knew they would be in danger, but there's a deep community, heart-centered feeling around all of it so I can FEEL and appreciate it from that level.

Emir also talked about the young people he has met recently whose parents are from Bosnia but chose to move to another country to save their lives and the lives of their children. Many of the children are returning to visit and are finding they feel a deep connection with this area - almost like a piece of their soul finally feels complete now that they are "home" since wherever they emigrated to hasn't ever felt quite like home. And then there is the older generation who were displaced - those who experienced the "good days" of Yugoslavia and can't stand to come back and see what has happened to their beloved country during the war. Many still have generational homes that were bombed out - and some of them have chosen to have them fixed and made liveable again just in case the younger generation want to return to their home! 

We visited one community that was basically like that - almost every single person from that village left, and most of them have never returned! Pocitelj is a fortified medieval town established in 1383 by King Stjepan Tvrtko I. The walled city evolved through the 16th-18th centuries and showcases both Ottoman and medieval influences in its architecture. Unfortunately, many great Islamic works of art and architecture were completely destroyed and most of the village's inhabitants were completely displaced! 

Thankfully, in 1996 the World Monuments Watch named Pocitelj as one of the 100 most endangered cultural sites. Then in 2000, the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina finally placed the site under permanent protection. The protection is ongoing and focuses on the restoration of the town, continued preservation, and encouraging the former population to return. To this day, only a handful of people have returned to Pocitelj, but many have paid to have their homes repaired for the generations-to-come who may want to settle there once again!!

The other two places we visited on our tour were Blagag Tekke - one of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s most holy and ancient sites built as a Dervish Monastery to host gatherings of the Sufi Brotherhood, followed by a visit to Kravice Waterfalls: 80-foot high falls cascading into a beautiful emerald-colored lake!! According to some research I've done, the Monastery was erected around 1520, and reflects Ottoman and Mediterranean styles of architecture. Miraculously, this mystical place remained untouched during the Bosnian war, despite so much death and destruction happening nearby. The buildings rest beside the fast-flowing blue-green Buna River, which spills out of a darkened cliff-cave (which we got to enjoy listening to during our freshly-caught-from-the-river trout lunch)!! 

The last thing we did before saying goodbye to our wonderful new friend, Emir, and his fiance (who takes care of all the "administrative things" while he's out chatting with the guests and sharing his wealth of knowledge), is learn how to make authentic Bosnian coffee!! (I kept saying "it's like Turkish coffee, right?" and was reminded a few times that it's very different)! 

It is made in a similar way with the same little coffee pot they use to make Turkish coffee, but apparently they put the sugar IN the coffee when making the Turkish coffee and drink more of the grounds - whereas with Bosnian coffee, you put a sugar cube in the bottom of the cup and wait a bit until the grounds have dropped to the bottom, so it's "easier on your stomach and you can drink as much as you want" according to Emir!!

There's something about the PROCESS of making the coffee that is part of the connection.....you have to wait a bit for it to be complete, so that's when you sit and chat with your friends and family (a "requirement" at least once a day, according to Emir)!! He talked about how important the coffee ritual is to the community-based connection with friends and family. It's all about sitting, chatting, relaxing and enjoying life!! I can see why I fell so in love with this place from the moment I arrived because THAT is my idea of a perfect day.....good coffee, meaningful conversation and deep connection!! We are off to Dubrovnik for more adventures, but I feel my life has been impacted deeply by experiencing Mostar and the wonderful, hospitable, unique people I've met while here!!