Mostar – October 2nd

A few quick words about Mostar. Unfortunatley, still no photo as I only replaced the batteries in Sarajevo (next post!). Blahblahblah, this city used to be a nice melting pot of the three ethnies of the country, until the war came. Then, massacres and forced population moves built a line, splitting the city in a muslim half and a Croatian half. That's it for the history lecture, I don't want to turn my website into some sort of Wikipedia suburb.

Thus, Mostar. When I first reached it from Stolac, what stroke me was the huge valley that unfolds after a last turn. Green, fertile, I get to embrace the gigantic landscape from the top of a 400m or so cliff, right before the road dives into the fields in a multiple-kilometer long slope. After all the walking in the steppes of the edges and plateaus, I feel like I am reaching paradise. That does not last unfortunately, as the green fields are quickly replaced by industrial ???(sludge), more or less in ruins, a land of crumbling roofs and rusty steel. Hard to guess which of the war and the weakened economy is the culprit behind each rotting building. After a few kilometers of this depressing landscape, I suddenly enter the heart of the city.

Mostar is a strange place with a striking contrast. On one hand, the very center, typical and touristic, not to mention the most expensive place of the whole country, has been completely rebuilt. It is even hard to believe the pictures displayed there and there, showing the place without a single wall standing 20 years ago. No problem though, as believing them is as easy as taking a few turns, and in less than one minute, one can be out of the tourist trapping web, back in the normal city with its occasional ruins and automatic gun impacts. Some of them have been filled, with either cement or filler.

Now, once the tourists leave, Mostar is mostly a dead town, excluding 2, maybe 3 bars in the Croatian district and another 2, maybe 3 coffee shops in the muslim district. Locals there grab a pack of six or twelve, and head to the river, under the bridge, where they can enjoy the view and the calm with no tourist. Well, almost none anyway, I say to myself as the surprise quickly spreads while I walk down the stairs leading there. Enough surprise for a few nice hours of chatting, before an old bosnian guy wandering around tells me his story of the war in the city. After which he will advise me not to go to Serbia. Turns out each new encounter get me a new hint of the rivalties and hatred that still plague the Balklands. I know I keep writing this, but I really ought to make a post on this very topic.

Anyway, that was Mostar. Next will be Sarajevo, a city that has somewhat of a legend status to me.