A Brave New Face

Sarajevo, Bosnia

Sept 9, 2025

There are still plenty of buildings that are pock-marked with bullet holes but Sarajevo wears a smile these days. There are churches and mosques and a new City Hall resplendent in its myriad architectural styles. I have a lovely view of the city as it creeps up the hill beyond the stone bridge. The Sacred Heart Cathedral with its lofty towers are in the middle of a large plaza, next to the park and the Clock Tower. The giant Serbian Orthodox church is around the corner. There is the multi-domed Gazi Huzrev Beg Madrasa in the old town is not a museum. And the mosque across from it has a beautiful wooden roofed fountain. The more famous fountain though is the Sebilj, built in the 18^th century in the form of a wooden kiosk.

This too is a town that goes back to the Ottoman era and in the old town, just about all the mosques and streets and sights that go back to this time. The patterns and the decorations are from that era.

Like all older towns, this too had areas segregated by trade. One of the more interesting areas is the copper smithing area. A narrow lane is lined by shops selling everything you could possibly want in copper. More of a show than anything, a man sits in a corner hammering away wearing a fez.

There is one other place in this town that intrigues me. It is called House of Spite – an impossible lure! The story goes that at the time of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy when a lot of grand roads and buildings were being built, this house was in the way. But the owner, Benderija refused; the house was his internal peace and he did not want to give it up. It was only after much negotiating that agreed but only if he received a bag of gold coins and if the house was moved brick by brck to a new location. Called Inat Kucha which translates as Spite House, it still stands and now is a restaurant for traditional food.

There are a couple of caravanserais in this town which surprised me. I did not think the routes came this far north but true enough, there are the picturesque ruins of Tashilhan right in the middle of the old town. A name that translates as Stone Place, this is now a covered bazaar. The other looks nothing like a caravanserai! A long white building of one story, it has the rectangular open space in the middle like most serais and all around are shops with kilims and rugs piled colorful confusion.

Like Mostar and Prizren in Kosovo, there are a lot of Turkish tourists here too but it really seems to be bursting with tourists from everywhere. There are big groups trundling behind an umbrella toting guide and I hear snippets of language from everywhere in Europe.