Sarajevo Sees a Brighter Future Part 1

 By Andy Jarosz

Five months into the Bosnian war, cellist Vedran Smailovic plays Strauss in the bombed-out National Library of Sarajevo. (Michael Evstafiev/AFP/Getty)

For me, the view over the sprawl of Sarajevo was stunning. For 28-year-old local Skender Hatibovic, however, the panorama we saw from Zlatiste hill, overlooking Sarajevo from the south, was not just pretty. At one point, it had been lethal. From here and other similar points on the surrounding hills, Serbian snipers besieged Sarajevo during the Bosnian War. Over the course of nearly four years, more than two million bombs and countless bullets rained on the Bosnia and Herzegovina capital, killing more than 10,000 residents and scarring the lives of tens of thousands more.

Hatibovic was eight years old when the siege of Sarajevo began in 1992. Until its end in 1996, he and his family lived in a basement for shelter from the constant bombardment. He described how his father, grandfather and uncle defended the city, forming groups to organise defence against the snipers. His home was hit by bombs three times. Still, Hatibovic was one of the lucky ones. He survived.

Bullets and bomb cases from the Bosnian War are sold at Sarajevo's market. (Sameena Jarosz)

Hatibovic now runs Sarajevo Funky Tours, a business he started almost by accident. His father opened a hostel in 2004, and as guests began asking for tours of the city, Hatibovic took on the task of showing them around. Despite the company’s light-hearted name, Hatibovic’s most popular tour, the Sarajevo Total Siege Tour, focuses on the sites connected to the siege, providing both a history and a deeply personal account of the city’s darkest years. He is one of a growing band of young people determined to make a brighter future in a city whose mix of Muslims, Christians and Jews once earned it the nickname the “Jerusalem of Europe”.

Sarajevo's Tunnel of Hope Museum. (Sameena Jarosz)

On our tour of siege sites, we stopped at the Tunnel of Hope Museum, located next to the international airport. From the outside, the museum looks like an ordinary house. Inside, though, visitors can enter the tunnel that was constructed under the runway by Sarajevo’s citizens to provide a critical lifeline to the city. Before the tunnel’s construction, men leaving Sarajevo on foot to fight the Serbian forces in the surrounding hills had to run across the runway in a perilous two-minute dash, carrying loads of supplies weighing up to 60kg – without any cover from gunmen. The tunnel let them cross in relative safety and enabled a reliable flow of arms, medical supplies and food into the city – including the occasional goat for its valuable milk and meat. According to Hatibovic, “In Sarajevo during the war, owning a goat was far better than having a Mercedes.”