17 October 2006 I ♥ MO

New and old in Mostar

Although I haven’t seen them all, I can safely say that Mostar is the town with most “something so wonderful, but I can’t quite explain what it is” in the world. During 1990s, this city suffered a lot and is now a monument to the everlasting human stupidity.

This is what happened:

Mostar is divided into two parts by the River Neretva. For centuries, people were fine with this, and furthermore, they built bridges to be able to cross the river. Citizens of Mostar, doing idiotic things like all Balkanites do, also realized they are able to fall off a 5 centuries old bridge and survive a 25 meter jump into an ice cold, rapid, shallow, river. They decided to make it a local sport, and they started competing. The legend says, one guy jumped off the bridge, kept falling for 300 meters before hitting the water stayed under surface until dinner time. He said he went out of the water just because it was January and he wanted to go skiing.

The horror of this sport had to stop, of course, so somebody wisely decided to destroy the bridge in 1993, during a battle which proved that strategically most important places in Mostar are a public pool and a cheese market.

A new bridge has been built. Music academy and a high school’s facade are still waiting for better days. Still, I will give you this piece of wisdom: