1077-1078 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA - Bosnian Serbs in the ethno village Stanišići

Bosnia and Herzegovina is home to three ethnic "constituent peoples", Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, all three explicitly mentioned in the constitution, none of them being considered a minority or immigrant. The costumes of Bosnian Serbs are divided into two groups, the Dinaric and Pannonian styles. The basic element of both women's and men's dress was a hemp or linen shirt in the form of a tunic with sleeves, abundantly decorated with embroidery done in yarn. The Jelek is a Waistcoat made from wool or velvet while women's jackets are lined with fur. The peony embroidery design often found on aprons, socks and elsewhere is colored bright red, symbolising the blood lost at the Battle of Kosovo.

Traditional Serbian female costume consists of Opanci, embroidered woolen socks that reached to the knees and Nazuvice. Skirts are very varied, of plaited or gathered and embroidered linen, with tkanice serving as a belt. An important part of the costume are aprons (Pregace) decorated with floral motifs. Scarves bordered with cords were worn as headdress. Girls also wear collars, or a string of gold coins around their throats, earrings, bracelets, and their caps were decorated with metal coins. The men wear in the winter Šubara, a fur hat in a conical or cylindrical shape,  predominantly black, because of the black lamb/sheep fur (woolen).

0232, 0266 & 0857 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (FBiH) - Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar (UNESCO WHS)

Old Bridge in Mostar after 2004

Posted on 31.05.2012, 03.07.2012, and 09.11.2013
Very few cities in the world are so connected to a single construction as is Mostar (the political and cultural center of Herzegovina) and its Stari Most (Old Bridge). Basically, the city grew around this stone bridge, which link the two banks of the Neretva River at the narrowest point of the river gorge, and gave the name to the city (mostari mean the bridge keepers). It replaced a wooden bridge that marked the center of the settlement in the 15th century. From the middle of the next century, the settlement had grown significantly, making Mostar the main regional connection between the Adriatic Sea and the interior, linking cities to the north, south and west. Its strategic location led the Ottomans to build a permanent and solid crossing.

Designed by the architect Mimar Hajrudin the Younger, a pupil of the Mimar Sinan, the chief architect for sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and erected between 1557 and 1566 by Dalmatian craftsmen, the bridge, built in local tenelija stone, a limestone known for its endurance, had 29m long and 4m wide, and the vault supporting the roadway had 77cm thick. The stones were fastened together with iron clamps and then joined with molten lead. The bridge was later fortified at either end with a tower where stationed the guards, on the east bank (the Tara, or Hercegusa Tower) in 16th century, and on the west bank (the Halebinovka or Celovina Tower) in the 17th century.

Old Bridge in Mostar after 2004

"The bridge is like a rainbow arch soaring up to the skies, extending from one cliff to the other", wrote the well-traveled Evliya Çelebi in the 17th century "...I, a poor and miserable slave of Allah, have passed through 16 countries, but I have never seen such a high bridge. It is thrown from rock to rock as high as the sky."

With the old bridge at the center, new mahalas (quarters) began to spring up on both sides of Neretva River, Mostar quickly becoming a key trading partner with the Adriatic's coastal cities and experienced a long period of cultural, political and economic growth. Many beautiful mosques and medresas (religious schools) were constructed in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. All three ethnic / religious communities (the bosniaks / muslims, the croats / roman catholic, and the serbs / orthodox) lived in harmony for centuries, the Ottomans having a high level of religious tolerance.

When the Ottoman Empire started to decline, Austria-Hungary included Bosnia and Herzegovina in its administrative region, building railroad, bridges, and schools. After WWI much of Bosnia and Herzegovina experienced harsh economic and political struggles, and Mostar wasn't a exception, but after WWII the city enjoyed great prosperity.

Original Old Bridge in Mostar in 1890

The things changed rapidly in 1992, when began the Bosnian War. Mostar experienced its worst part of history, the town being subject to an 18 month siege, and most of the city being completely devastated. On November 9, 1993, the bridge, which crossed more than four centuries without problems, even surviving two world wars, being an enduring symbol of the region's multiculturalism, was purposefully destroyed by Bosnian Croat tank shells.

The bridge was rebuilt and inaugurated on July 23, 2004, but what seems to me very interesting and significantly is that International Stari Most Foundation, the World Bank, UNESCO, the Council of Europe Development Bank and various governments - including Italy, Croatia and Turkey - offered financial and technical support for the reconstruction process, together with the local and national governments of Mostar and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, Stari Most was reconstructed by ER-BU Construction and Trade, a Turkish company specializing in the reconstruction of Ottoman stone bridges. On 2005 the Old Bridge Area of the Old City of Mostar was included among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

0540 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (FBiH) - Sarajevo - unique symbol of universal multiculture - continual open city - Sebilj (UNESCO WHS - Tentative List)

Unfortunately Sarajevo, city situated in the heart of the Balkans, on the Miljacka River, isn't known mainly for its traditional cultural and religious diversity, with adherents of Islam, Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Judaism coexisting there for centuries, but for the assassination of the Archduke of Austria on 28 June 1914 (that sparked WWI), and for the devastating siege suffered by the city during the Bosnian War for independence, the longest in the history of modern warfare (almost four years).

0460 BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA - The map of the country

According to the Dayton accord (signed in Paris on 14 December 1995), which put an end to the war in Bosnia, one of the armed conflicts in the former Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the borders that appear in this map, is formed from two entities: Republika Srpska (49% of the total area) and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (51% of the total area). In 2000 was created also, in the north of the country, the Brčko District (officially belonging to both entities, but being governed by neither), which separating in two sides (or connects the two parts of) Republika Srpska (depending on how you look at it).