The politics of genocide

It's hard to know how best to describe today, so I'll go with something like this and maybe the pictures can tell the story better than me. We started at the Tunnel of Hope which was constructed between March and June 1993 at the height of the Bosnian War. It was built by the Bosnian Army in order to link the Serbian controlled centre of Sarajevo, with outlying areas of the city which were in the hands of the Bosnians. Building the tunnel meant that food, weapons and people could be moved between the city centre and Bosnian territory. Remarkably the 800 metre tunnel was built by hand and completed in about 4 months. The preserved part of the tunnel, which you can visit, and the attached private museum, which is an old house, are powerful reminders of the resilience of the Bosnian people. To get to the Tunnel of Hope from the city catch the 103 trolley bus. You can walk from the last stop on the line (Dobrinja terminal) in about 25 minutes. Google maps will do all the hard work. From the old town, all up, it probably took us about an hour with pretty good connections.

Next stop was Gallerija 11/07/95, a photographic/multimedia exhibition devoted to the Srebrenica genocide. The exhibition was established in 2012 by a Bosnian photographer Tarik Samarah and a team of assistants. Start at the computers near the entrance and spend the best part of 30 minutes viewing the multimedia presentations on the background to events at Srebrenica. They will contextualise everything you are about look at in the exhibition. There's also a great film called Quo Vadis, Aida?, which, if you get a chance, is worth seeing before you come to Sarajevo. I'm not going to wade into murky waters and try to explain what happened thirty years ago. However, if you come to Sarajevo and visit only one museum/exhibition I would recommend making it this one.

It was a good day for museums as the temperature never went much about 7c and it was drizzling on and off all day. We made one outdoor visit when dropped by the Pijaca Markale in the afternoon. They sell lots of great fresh fruit and vegetables in a building which dates back to the 1890s. It's also worth noting that Sarajevo is pretty easy to get around. Lots of tourists seem to jump in the taxis which are pretty reasonably priced, but there's a good network of buses, trolleybuses and trams. Use Google maps to help you navigate and shouldn't go too far wrong. The locals are also incredibly helpful should your transport app fail.