Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnia-Herzegovina

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The birth of this city is not blurred by stories and myths - nor is it fogged by epics. Both the founder of Sarajevo Isa-bey Isakovic and the great benefactor, who gave this city its recognizable contours, Gazi Husrev-bey, are known of. Those two did not waste their wisdom and fortune on trivia but built bridges and mills, baths and waterworks, mosques and tekkes, hans and caravan-sarays instead. All this with a clear intention of building a city. At the time when Europe was experiencing the divine ascent of Renaissance, there were only three or four villages nesting in the valley between Hum and Mt Trebevic, then called Zlatni Do. The West was advancing in tidal waves of orthodoxy and hatred towards heretics, and in glimmering books written by universal geniuses of the time, in an odd Venetian mirror or two, textile, Murano glasses, German baljemez cannons, reliable Dutch and English goods. All this never reached the people, but decorated the castles of the Bosnian aristocracy...

For some reasons known only to them, gulls sometimes draw pale and insufficient drawings of summer above the Miljacka in wintertime. Rare cypresses and their herbal kin brought from the coast are freezing in the parks. There are also a few wild fig-trees by Alipasha's mosque and Vrbanja bridge. Sarajevo peasants sell mimosas, not second but third hand, in February. Only mimosas, those ill-fated yellow slaves from Herceg-Novi, know the pain of their destiny. Ficus trees, philodendra and rosebays, all tucked up and warm in their pots, sleep on staircases and in hallways. Spoilt dracaena and diphenbachiae give the illusion of the south inside. Only the mythical fruits of pomegranate, sitting on old closets together with quinces and apples, emanate something warm and homely. If one disregards their plainness, there is something of the south in the art of filigree of Sarajevo goldsmiths. This noble craftwork originates on the coast, the town of Dubrovnik above all. There is some of the south in books and documents, in musical motifs, as well as images - something of a memory, nostalgia or dream. This is where sides of the world clashed and, I could well bet on it, this is where they will make peace with each other once and for all

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