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Report from Bosnia4/5/2008 (Balkanalysis.com)Nicky Gardner, editor of hidden europe magazine (www.hiddeneurope.co.uk) reports from Pocitelj in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The photo, this week’s Photo of the Week (’Geometries’, Pocitelj, Bosnia) is the work of Susanne Kries. The international community has always looked for good news from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Like Bush beleaguered in Iraq, ever-looking for any glimmer of peace, so with Bosnia: every indication of reconciliation is fêted as evidence of how post-Dayton Bosnia has evolved into a credible multi-cultural state. Dayton was a great way to end a war. Whether it was a good start to building peace is quite another matter. Whatever the reality, audiences in western Europe and the USA delight at images of the rebuilt Mostar bridge, forever citing it as representing a new mood in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Many pundits see the bridge over the Neretva gorge as somehow bridging the divide between Islam and Christendom, though whether the bridge’s architects ever intended it to bear the weight of such an awesome responsibility is quite another matter. But it is a fine ideal and in 2005 UNESCO inscribed the bridge and the surrounding complex of Ottoman and post-Ottoman buildings onto its World Heritage List. A little further down the Neretva towards the Adriatic is another site that has World Heritage aspirations. The Bosnian government has been pushing the case for inscribing Pocitelj on the UNESCO List. This fortified township with mediaeval and Ottoman elements is a fabulous spot, clinging to a sheltered hillside overlooking the Neretva. There is an exquisite mosque, a madrasa, hammam baths, an imaret (soup-kitchen) and a sahat-kula (Islamic clock tower). In the housing that tumbles down the hillside, Mediterranean and Oriental influences collide: a medley of hipped and gabled roofs on stone buildings with oriel windows that look out onto little courtyards that shelter fig trees. Already well known among travellers in Herzegovina, for it sits right beside the main road from Dubrovnik to Mostar and Sarajevo, Pocitelj is well aware of its potential appeal to tourists. If it makes it onto the UNESCO List, the crowds will surely come. And Pocitelj, like Mostar before it, will be cited as evidence that Dayton was, after all, no bad thing. You can read more on the Balkan region in every issue of hidden europe magazine. Recent issues have included essays on sworn virgins in northern Albania, on the Vrbas valley in Bosnia and on the Prespa lake region of Macedonia (this latter piece by Chris Deliso of Balkanalysis.com). The May 2008 issue of hidden europe includes articles on the Prokletije Mountains of Montenegro, on Pécs in southern Hungary and on the Bosnian town of Brcko.
Archived in Bosnia
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