Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Wild Goose Chase for Museum with Courtney

Courtney came to visit last weekend from Moscow and it was so fun :) I took off work on Friday and Courtney and I spent the day exploring Sarajevo. I introduced Courtney to Kafa Bosanski- well actually, Tetka Kimeta did... I attempted to make coffee for Tetka a few days before that, and did not understand why she looked like she was going to either throw up or cry, until she made me try what i had made her... it was something along the lines of mud. So now Tetka Kimeta laughs whenever i attempt to make it, and pushes me away from the stove to make it herself. Here is a photo of some yummy kafa (which is very difficult to make!!!)




















We wanted to see this museum that was supposed to have an amazing war exhibit, so we went to what we thought was the Historical Museum. However, there are quite a few museums in Sarajevo with similar names, such as "The Historical Museum of Sarajevo," "Historical Museum," and "Sarajevo Historical Museum." We went to one of the other ones, which was actually located on the corner where Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand and started WWI. This is the corner:


















Even though we found the wrong museum, we still wanted to stay and check it out.

After that we went to what we thought was the right museum... but again turned out to be the wrong one. It was still interesting because it was set up in a way as to offer a self-guided tour through the different periods of Bosnian history, with artifacts, clothing, jewelry etc. from Bosnia under occupation by various empires.

After all this searching, we needed some more coffee so we walked through Baščaršija (Turkish Quarters/old town) to the famous pigeon square, which is like the center of the old town. It's very beautiful and there is a fountain in the middle where the pigeons like to hang out.



















































Finally we found the right museum. It was in a heavily damaged building across from the Holiday Inn. The exhibit was really excellent, and we were actually allowed to take photos, which i thought was great.















This is the monument outside the museum. I don't quite understand it...






















The walls of the museum were covered in framed newpaper clippings and photographs of attacks during the siege of Sarajevo, and of citizens' daily lives under siege. Most were too small to take photos of, but i thought this one was particularly poignant.

















"Danger, sniper"














Bosnia's Book of the Dead










Typical apartment set-up in Sarajevo during siege- furniture arranged so as to block snipers' view into windows.









Since there was no water, heat or electricity for a lot of the siege, people made stoves and other household items they could no longer use out of cans, old pipes and anything else they could. During the winters, a lot of people started to chop their furniture up to burn in stoves so they would not freeze.











A package of humanitarian aid. It's in English, which is incredibly helpful. At least it has a picture on it.
























More humanitarian aid.








Something that is not widely known about the humanitarian aid distributed here during the siege: alot of it was from emergency food supplies; dried and canned meat, canned veggies, bread etc. accumulated by the US government. During the Vietnam War.

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