I had vowed to escape my confinement in the flat bottom of the Miljacka valley almost as soon as I arrived in Sarajevo, but trivialities kept me apartment-bound on my second day: waiting for the cable company to install my internet, waiting for my landlord to fix my gas, waiting for the gas company to fix my gas when my landlord failed to, stocking up on kitchen supplies, and other things too banal to mention.
On Saturday, though, I headed for the hills with all the enthusiasm a rest day can bring. Heading through the baščaršija and across the river, the city suddenly opened up: the left bank of the Miljacka at this point is mostly one-storey, residential buildings, and the hills behind them slope gently southwards to about 1,000m. The impression is altogether less constrictive than on the right bank, where the numerous hills jut steeply upwards and where the buildings are packed more densely, though the height of the southern portion of the valley is just as high as its northern counterpart.
I headed east along the river for a while, towards the small waterfall that marks the easternmost point of the city centre, before diverging from it and heading up a steep hill. I was aiming for the Alifakovac cemetery: partly for its significance as a centuries-old Islamic burial site, but also for its marvelous views of the city centre.
Taking a more scenic route, I wound through hidden alleys and staircases, between houses that seemed to be built into and on top of each other, their builders clamouring—understandably, I suppose—for any available level ground on which to build. My only company seemed to be the local cats, who seemed confused to see me: not a soul stirred on the streets or in the houses until I returned to the main road upon reaching the cemetery.
Looking upwards at it, the cemetery gives the impression of limitlessness, extending as it does over the hill’s horizon. The sea of white headstones spreads across the whole hillside, save for a narrow road that bifurcates the hill neatly in the middle; it is a most impressive sight, and a somewhat humbling memento mori.
Making my way eventually to the top of the hill, I was rewarded with panoramic views of the entire city, from Ilidža in the far west right to the Stari Grad beneath me. I could make out the graceful, modern blue glass of the Avaz Twist Tower; the countless minarets that dot the city; the yellow-and-black of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Turning around, I could see further upstream on the Miljacka’s course, towards its beginnings in the mountains near Pale; it cuts a deep gorge here to the east of the city, creating tall cliffs, and on top of one on the right bank sits both the castle of Eugene of Savoy, and an earlier, medieval fortress. I could have sat there all day.
Walking back through the Stari Grad, I chanced upon a coach painted dark green. Stepping off it as I passed were several armed soldiers, their jackets adorned with EUFOR patches and Austrian flags. My curiosity piqued, I followed them as they unloaded huge boxes from the back of the coach: was this some training exercise, or worse? Why here, in the city centre?
Their mission, it turned out, couldn’t have been more benign. A corporal in the Austrian EUFOR contingent had—perhaps in a fit of homesickness—invited a brass band from his hometown to come and play in front of the Catholic cathedral. Forty or so band members sat patiently and silently outside the front doors of the cathedral, decked from head to toe in traditional Austrian garb: wide-brimmed, black felt hats, red waistcoats underneath bright green blazers, black breeches over long, grey, woollen socks, tucked into black boots.
It was a surreal picture, one of the last things I expected to see in this Slavic, mostly Muslim city. I stuck around, though, and was treated to a beautiful concert of marches, contemporary music, and a few pieces from the Austrian classical repertoire. As twilight fell and the lights went up on the cathedral’s beautiful frontispiece, with the horns reverberating around the square, it was a most beautiful experience. The Sarajevans in the audience, most of whom had looked as bemused as I was in the beginning, were soon enraptured with me: they clapped along and stamped their feet to the uptempo “Seventy-six Trombones”, and listened in rapt wonder to the beautiful brass arrangement of Strauss’s “Blue Danube”.
It wasn’t so long ago that Austrians were considerably less welcome in Sarajevo than this;1 what better symbol of renewal and redemption than this? Perhaps, one day, a Serb band will be met with as warm a reception outside the Orthodox cathedral, and the old wounds will finally be healed.
Notes
- ↑1 Apart from the obvious assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914, the single act that more than any other sparked World War I, there were several nationalist insurrections against Austro-Hungarian rule from the 1908 annexation of Bosnia onwards.
