“The Jerusalem of Europe”....”Where East meets West”.....”The most important Ottoman Empire city in Europe, second only to Constantinople in importance to the Ottoman Empire”.....”Olympic City”......”The City where the 20th Century started and ended” - these are just some of the epithets applied to the remarkable city of Sarajevo!



In a census carried out just before the outbreak of WWII, the population of Sarajevo was equally split - 25% Moslem, 25% Orthodox Christian, 25% Roman Catholic, 25% Jewish. The war changed that when the city’s Jewish population was mostly exterminated by the Nazis, but Sarajevo’s skyline is still dominated by the minarets of mosques and the steeples of Orthodox and Catholic cathedrals. Unfortunately, the Sephardi synagogue in Sarajevo’s old town is now mostly a museum and the Jewish Cemetery, the largest in Europe after Prague, hasn’t seen a burial since 1966 and has been badly desecrated and vandalized. 

But what really made Sarajevo standout during the 20th Century were three events, at least two of which could be rightly claimed to have changed world history. The least significant of the three was the 1984 Winter Olympics designed by Tito to showcase the modern Yugoslavia. He died in 1980 and by the time of the Olympics, the country was already staring to look shaky. 

The event that really put Sarajevo on the map “the start of the 20th Century”, occurred on June 28, 1914 - the day that a Serbian nationalist shot and killed the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, Sofia on a street corner just a few metres away from the hotel we’re staying in. That “shot heard around the world” was the spark that ignited the First World War and with it the final collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, the Ottoman and Russian empires



If that wasn’t enough, Sarajevo also contributed to “the end of the 20th Century” when the city was besieged for more than 1400 days (to be more precise: 3 years, 10 months, 3 weeks and 3 days) between 1992 and 1995 by Serbian forces led by a deranged psychiatrist, Ratko Mladic. 10,500 Sarajevans were killed and 50,000 wounded by Serbian shelling and snipers. Mladic was reported to have said “Shoot at slow intervals until I order you to stop. Shell them until they can’t sleep; don’t stop until they’re on the edge of madness”. Like Mostar which suffered similarly, Sarajevo lies in a valley surrounded by high hills from which Serbian forces had unobstructed views for their snipers and artillery

Initially, the only way in and out of the city for Sarajevans during the siege was a 400 metre dash across the airport runway to the area on the outskirts of the city still controlled by Bosnian forces. The airport was under UN control, but anyone making the dash was liable to be picked off by Serbian snipers. So the decision was made to build a tunnel under the airport runway which Bosnian engineers and soldiers duly did, from a house in a village on one side to a house in a village on the other. For much of the siege, the 800 metre-long tunnel was the city’s only lifeline. Eventually its existence and whereabouts became an open secret, although Serbian requests to the UN to close it down were met with the response “what tunnel”? The house on the free Bosnian side of the tunnel is now a very poignant museum

Much of Sarajevo was badly damaged or destroyed by the Serbian blockade and bombardment. The international community took little notice until the massacre at Srebrenica in July 1995 where the Serbs killed 8000 Muslim men and boys. The West stepped in, the siege of Sarajevo was lifted and this awful chapter in Yugoslavia’s break-up wars ended with the Dayton Peace Accord in December 1995

The destruction of Sarajevo and the massacre at Srebrenica were the most horrific events in Europe since the end of WWII, hence the ironic belief in Sarajevo that the city both started and ended the 20th Century. Although we see many shell, bullet and shrapnel scarred buildings in and around Sarajevo, the city including its ancient mosques and churches have largely been rebuilt. The old city is once again buzzing with tourists and locals. We’re there during Ramadan and even though most Bosnians practice a fairly relaxed version of Islam, the old city and its restaurants and cafes really come alive when the cannon is fired to mark the end of the day’s fast

Tolerance seems to be the name of the game now. Sarajevo’s brewery is just across the road from a Franciscan monastery with the city’s two largest mosques just a street or two away. We eat traditional Bosnian food in a restaurant close to the city’s oldest mosque which openly sells beer but will only sell wine in water tumblers - in front of a sign which says “No Alcohol”! An “East Meets West” line marks the very clear boundary between the old Ottoman section of the city and the old Austro-Hungarian side - very different styles of architecture and very different shops - copper smiths and carpet sellers on one side, Western designer brands and lingerie shops on the other!

So now if you really want to experience where east meets west forget Istanbul, formerly the Ottoman Empire’s first city and instead head to Sarajevo, it’s newly reborn second city.....