Fall Break in the Balkans: entry #2: Bosnia

Balkan Review

One of the realities of travel is that you spend a lot of time walking on other people’s bones. Everyplace you wander, landscapes are rich with history and its attendant layers of joy and tragedy. In some places this sense is closer to the surface than others, and the Balkans is one of these places.

Since we were already in Northeast Croatia at Plitvicka, a quick look at a map shows you how close Bosnia is. "Bosnia" as a word is laden with associations for those cognizant during the 1990's, most of them bad. Yet this war was over 20 years ago and, we thought, perhaps the place was worth a look. Tourism, which was never a big industry for Bosnia, is still in a nascent stage of development. This means that while certain infrastructure is not available, the travel experiences are probably more interesting than other places.

There is no discussion of Bosnia without stepping into the larger topic of the war that broke up the former Yugoslav Federation. In order to provide some sort of context for this part of the trip, we shall now step in it...

Backgrounder!

After WWI the various Balkan provinces of Serbia, Solvenia, Croatia, Bosnia/Hercegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia were fused together to create an early version of “Yugoslavia.” Some boundary shuffling occurred at the conclusion of WWII, but the map remained largely the same. Drawn into the Soviet orbit during the Cold War, Yugoslavia was held together by the charismatic Josep Broz Tito, who gained his popularity by leading the partisan movement against the Nazis during the War.

Tito was able to keep all the various factions happy (somehow) for over thirty years after WWII. This was no easy task as the Federation, a collection of provinces of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, had little homogeneity. Religious and ethnic fault lines criss-crossed the geographies in a confusing mosiac. Empires can keep a lid on this situation through sheer force, but that never lasts for long.

The individual Yugoslavian states were also afflicted by the tinge of history in that each nursed a strong connection with their former geographic borders obtained during past times of their widest territorial expansion. These memories stretched back to campaigns from the Middle Ages. There were also religious undertones since the area was Southern Europe’s prime battleground between the Muslim Ottoman Turks from the east and elements of the Byzantine Orthodox Catholic Church on the Northwest.

The various groups had largely lived together peacefully since the end of WWI, with nationalities and religions intertwining robustly in commerce, art and statecraft. But this lost its prime support leg when Tito died in 1980.

For the next decade the place was drifting aimlessly until the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the USSR. With former Soviet republics declaring their independence everywhere, the Balkan states joined in.

1991.

Due to the makeup of Yugoslavia and Tito’s influence, the power base rested in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Serbs held most of the dominant positions in Yugoslavia's military forces and saw the Soviet break up as an opportunity to use this opportunity to expand the borders of Greater Serbia. But some states beat them to the punch as they (Slovenia, Croatia) suddenly held referendums to leave Yugoslavia.

The ethnic and religious fault lines as of 1991.

Slovenia was the first to withdraw. The Yugoslav Army followed with a ten day mini-war in a half-hearted attempt to keep them in the Federation. But there were few Serbs who lived in Slovenia and culturally the province was more similar to Northern Italy and Austria, the states that enveloped it on two sides. The Serbs let them go.

Croatia was a different matter, since it had areas of Serb concentrations (see the Purple splotches in the above map) whose allegiance was to Belgrade. These groups had no interest in being part of a new Croatian State and The Serbs in Belgrade did not want to lose its influence over all that territory either. The first skirmish happened at Plitvica Lakes when Serbs fired on a bus convoy of Croat policemen. Then the Serbs invaded Eastern Croatia at Vukovar and the war started.

Bosnia then declared its independence from Belgrade. The picture there was even more confusing than in Croatia, since the population was mixed with Catholic and Muslim areas and striated with both Serb and Croat enclaves. The Croats and Serbs living there envisioned taking their chunks of Bosnia to add to their own states. 

Making matters more confusing was the sudden formation of a new breakaway Serb republic called Krajina Serpska on land that was mostly on Croatian soil. These were Serbs who happened to live in these areas of Croatia, which straddled the Bosnian-Croat border from Northeast of Plitvica Lakes National Park down to Zadar on Croatia’s coast. (The left Red area chunk in the below map).

The end result of all of this was simultaneous invasions, encirclements and ethnic cleansing actions by the former Yugoslav army elements, who were mostly Serbs. The Croats and Bosniaks had little weapons and were either slaughtered outright or pushed quickly off their homes into refugee situations. Some Croats were able to overrun Yugoslav Army depots at the beginning of the conflict and secure weapons this way, but they were constantly at a material disadvantage against the Yugoslav army.

For the next three years the wars here between the breakaway provinces ebbed and flowed based on local advantage and momentum. The Croats and Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) were always outgunned by the Serbs since the Serbs controlled most of the former Yugoslav military assets. Many Bosniak towns were surrounded and held under multi-year sieges, one of the higher-profile aspects of the conflict to reach international ears.

At length news began to leak out about ethnic cleansing, atrocities and concentration camps. The UN became involved. The city sieges and ethnic-cleansing operations continued. Atrocities mounted on both sides. 

In August 1995, a mortar shell landed in the middle of a street market in downtown Sarejevo, killing 43 people and wounding 75. The Bosnian capital had been under siege since 1992 from Serbian artillery surrounding the town in the hills overlooking it. The outrage caused by this one event pushed NATO to finally go after the Serbs and over the course of two weeks flew over 3,500 sorties against Serb positions and supply lines. 

This broke the Serb’s back and with the simultaneous fall of the Krajina Serpska in the West, the balance of power shifted back to the Bosnian Government Army (mostly Muslim). The Croats also regained the momentum in the West and retook all of the former Krajina Serpska areas in addition to territory it lost in Eastern Slavonia to the Serbs around Vukovar in the early days of the war.

The final chapter to it all was the Serbian loss in 1999 of the largely-Muslim Kosovo province in the South. The Serbs had hoped to drive all the Muslims out and claim the area for Greater Serbia but NATO intervened again when it became obvious the Serbs were again conducting ethnic cleansing operations on unarmed civilians and violating aspects of the 1995 Dayton Peace accords.

Today the warring groups are largely segregated into their own provinces since the original inhabitants of the ethnically-cleansed landscapes did not return. Bosnia-Herzogovina is the only exception as it is split into a Muslim-administered section and a Serbian Orthodox section. 

Our Trip.

The late-40’s and affable waiter at the breezy café on top of a gentle ridgeline near Plitvicka pointed at a church tower several kilometers away, sticking up from a jumble of white washed buildings across a green valley.

“I was 100 meters away from the church when the airstrike hit the town. The church fell down but I wasn’t hurt, luckily. Every building in this valley was bombed.” He was describing a Serbian air offensive against the Croats to drive them out of the newly-formed “Kranjina Serpska.”

He said today it is not strange between Croats and Serbs. “Young people go to Belgrade to party, it is not a big thing between us now.” He was incredibly upbeat considering what he’d gone through, the experience of being hunted and undergoing combat.

The Bosnian border lies roughly 20 minutes outside of Plitvicka. Just beyond the border lies the pretty town of Bihač. It sits on the Una River, so named by Roman soldiers who first established an outpost here. We found an Airbnb a couple nights before arriving and booked two nights to check out the area.

Bihač was a Muslim enclave during the war that sustained a siege for nearly three years and the effects of it are evident everywhere. The town is still over 90% Muslim. Many apartment buildings still are scarred with shell splinter holes and the occasional machine-gun pock marks. Our host related how during the siege they lived only in the basement since going outside during the day was too dangerous. Next door to their house was a Bosnian Army administrative building, which was a frequent target of the Krajina Serpska artillery that surrounded the town. This made it extra risky to head out since shells were frequently falling on it, however she said that their house was never actually hit directly.

Bihač sits attractively on the floodplain of the Una river, surrounded by low mountain ranges. Downtown there is a pedestrian promenade with sidewalk bars full of people smoking and drinking. A 700 year-old Mosque sits at one end of the street and the ancient city walls curve attractively around the smoothly-coursing Una river. Fall sunlight streamed through trees on a big park where the kids found a playground and we watched them play with the locals, as we sat on benches alongside women in head scarves texting on their smartphones. 

But visible at the edge of the park was a half-constructed hotel, victim of the shelling during the siege, which now sits on prime river front real estate. It is a jumble of graffiti tags, rusting I-beams and half-finished rooms.

The half-finished hotel. The exposed stairwell sections are a popular hangout for young people since it gives a decent view across the river to the town.

Kids in front of the 700 year-old Mosque. It started out as a Byzantine Church, then changed into a Mosque when the Turks took over. This makes it fairly unique in the region.

The central park that cuts through the middle of Bihač

A tributary canal cut through the middle of town.

Some war evidence next to a car park.

Downtown pedestrian zone.

Colorful bikes in front of a shot-up statue of a mother holding a baby

We always check out cemeteries in the places we travel. But we'd never seen a 100% Muslim cemetery, so this was interesting.

If you look around, you will see the pockmarks everywhere.

A bastion sitting on top of the old city wall.

Another sunrise. Bihač was really a beautiful spot that we were not expecting.

The old City Wall.

Downtown shops and some Bosnian script.

Here we have the kids putting our postcards into what we thought was the mail slot. It turned out to be a suggestion box for the post office.

The river flowed right by our accommodation, providing lots of diversion for the kids.

The next day we hiked outside of town into the Una National Park. The leaves had mostly fallen, so we missed the height of the colors but the trail was all ours. The trail started out as a jeep road then dwindled to a ramble between bushes. Luckily someone had painted blazes on the trees, giving us some idea of the direction to go. I had asked at the park office if we had to worry about landmines, since the front line passed near the park, but was assured we had nothing to worry about.

The guy at the national park office in Bihač had indicated that we could see wolves and probably wild hogs up here. This part of Bosnia also had a bear population, but they were skittish. I kept my eyes open, but with the noise we made going up this trail it is no wonder we saw little wildlife since the kids were creating a cacophony of noises. 

It wasn’t very different from deciduous forest in Ohio for example, but it was Bosnia, and there were likely wolves nearby. Exciting.

It has been quite awhile since we have driven a car to a trailhead! Not something that happens much in Berlin.

Mid-trail viewpoint and snack stop.

The kids stayed down with the dogs while Cass and I went higher up to the viewpoint. Which was named this fun word! 

The hike topped out at a lookout that offered a vantage point over the Una River valley and rumpled green mountains rising behind it. We could see a small band of highway threading South and the post at the Croatian border, a small clearing of distant white buildings in the forest. Nearby our lookout spot was the remains of some sort of dugout, which was likely used as a military observation point. Old wooden boxes with metal corners mouldered half-hidden in the leaves, indicating that at some point someone had brought supplies up here.

Just off the summit was the remains of a camp with some heavy duty-looking boxes.

Sailing back down the mountain. By rights it should have been cold and miserable but we caught Bihač and the park on a beautiful fall weekend by sheer luck.

I shall pick up every stick in this forest.

Saying bye to our companions, who faithfully followed us all the way up the road from the guardhouse to the top of the hike. The kids named them, Raichu, Hundemunde and Fluffy.

Bosnian Coffee. 

On the way back from the hike we stopped at a riverside restaurant to watch the sun set over the mountains and listen to the flow of the nearby Una. Big, stout tables with thick benches, uneven flagstones on the patios leading down to the water. In the summer times they have these dedicated dinner boats, where they serve you dinner on the skiff. Everyone sits around a table in the center of the shallow-draft boat, then they let out the line and you sway out to the middle of the river in the gentle current for your evening meal. When you are done they reel you back in.

Street signs that you usually don't see anywhere except on CNN.

It was too late in the season for such extravagance, so we just grabbed a table on land and ordered dinner. The kids ran off to play in a makeshift playground that featured some homemade climbing structures, a small hut and a very exciting cat who was slinking around the area. A brilliant sunset was obscured by sudden clouds, which then brought rain, forcing everyone inside. Inside, all nature of much-used farm equipment and local objects adorned the walls. Bad taxidermy was also present, including a very ferocious and dried-out river fish with large fangs.

After dinner we ordered Bosnian coffee, because we’d never had it before. It comes in a small burnished copper beaker with a long straight handle that you use to pour into your mug on top of a sugarcube. The idea is to stop pouring towards the end to keep the sludge in the beaker and not in your mug. Water and small biscuits are served with it, which comes on a small tray for everything. It seemed like the Turkish coffee we’ve seen other places, but soon learned that the two are quite different.

Additional research revealed a world of things to learn about the differences between Bosnian and Turkish coffee varieties. Mostly, it is in the preparation and the process of when you boil the grinds, how you add the sugar, and what equipment is used. At a store later we purchased a Serbian-made coffee beaker with the trademark designs and long thin handle, with the idea to experiment in making our own Bosnian coffee.

On the last day I got up early and walked over the river to explore the other side of town. I had a humorous conversation with a shop attendant while searching for a Borek (pastry that comes either with meat or fruit). They had no fruit boreks in the display but after I charaded a story about wanting the fruit kind, she ran in back and produced one from the kitchen. She was very excited that I wanted a borek. I'd never actually had a borek before, but was determined to try one since we were here.

With my borek and a coffee in hand I walked out along the river to a on a high diving platform (that had lost its diving board) and climbed up to watch the Una roll by. There were ducks. And silence.


FORGETTING THE IPAD

We decided to drive south out of Bihač so we could see some more of Bosnia on our way down to the Croatian coastal town of Split. The M5 highway rose out of Bihač over the Vrtoce pass between the peaks and crossed a rural landscape of small farms and villages. Many houses along that road were damaged in the war and the owners never came back, so the ruins sit. When we reached the pass there were more, clustered in groups that before the war probably were a ski resort and its support buildings.

Ruins on the pass.

A rest stop to let Jasper out for some fresh air. 

In Bosnia the minefields are always clearly marked.

Exactly the point, a few kms from the Croatian border, when we realized we forgot the iPad back in Bihač. So we got to see western Bosnia all over again as we returned to Bihač for it! We then drove over the border in the north and came down the coastal highway to Split, arriving around 8:30 that night.

Bosnian Afterword:

I want to go to Sarajevo now.