Shot/Seen

At first, Mostar’s war wounds are fascinating. Walk down a street, and it can be almost any street, and you are confronted with the walls of homes and businesses, still peppered with holes created by light and heavy arms fire.

This Bosnian city is, of course, most famous for its bridge, the Stari Most, an elegant arch over the Neretva River. It was built in the 16th century, pounded to rubble by Croatian Defense Council artillery in 1993, and reconstructed, largely thanks to outside money, and reopened in 2004. It is truly a wonder.

Mosques and churches have also been rebuilt or repaired. Along the cobbled streets that lead to and from the Stari Most, the bazaar of souvenir stands (souvenirs include pens made from bullet casings, in a variety of calibres), cafes and restaurants has re-emerged from carnage.

But those bullet holes are pointers to a sobering part of the reality of Mostar.

It doesn’t take long for the initial fascination with the reminders of the too-recent war – the sense of being in touch with history – to turn to a powerful feeling that’s akin to despair. After a while, almost all you see are the scars, the holes punched through thick stone walls, the condemned ruins that were blasted almost to bits.

I don’t want you to take this wrong. Mostar is a lovely small city. The rebuilt bridge is a marvel. And despite the bullet and shell holes and whatever psychic wounds they carry, the people we spoke with are relaxed and friendly, with a tremendous sense of humour.

There’s one building in particular, three storeys tall and covering half a city block, one street above the tourist-heavy market street. Former building, I should say, for while its walls still stand, its interior is a mangled crush of wood, bricks and mortar. It looks like someone has painted red around the gaping, glassless windows to suggest the flames that must have once raged.

You can see the savagery of the destruction clearly from across the street, from a concrete bench in what used to be a park. It is still green and flowered, but now the flowers are on row after row of closely fitted clean, white gravestones. On every one of them, the date of death is 1993.

(Second in a series of short photo-and-word essays that arise from four weeks of travel through the Balkans.)