Legend (this drawling is, obviously, not to scale): 1 –Hotel Holiday Inn (international media HQ); 2 – PTT building and UNPROFOR HQ for Sector Sarajevo; 3 Mount Igman’s descent road; 4 – Serbian area of Dobrinja; 5 – Sniper Alley; 6 – UNPROFOR HQ for Bosnia-Herzegovina; 7 – UN Compound in Zetra; 8 – Serbian area of Lukavica and Grbavica; 9 – UNMO Team house; 10 – Mount “Spiky Rock”; 11 – Mount Trebevic.
This was the way I saw Sarajevo in August 1995, just before NATO’s airstrikes: There was domestic trash, parts of automobiles and smithereens of buildings everywhere. Due to the war, no one was collecting the trash. Crows and rats were proliferating among all that filthiness. The gardens and urban green spaces were abandoned and transformed into little jungles, with big bushes and all sort trash hanging from the dry vegetation, a perfect hideout for unpleasant animals. Only the wind would sweep the papers and rolls of dry vegetation away.
In certain areas, covered by a building from the snipers’ fire, small garbage piles had been set on fire by some courageous citizen. We could see the smoke coming out of the dark stack, together with the stinky smell. Burning the trash was the only way to avoid a plague.
On the buildings hidden from the Serbian outskirts, the verandas and the windows had flower vases but, instead of flowers, there were eatable vegetables.
All urban public furniture made of wood, such as garden benches, fences, lamp posts, etc., had been removed and used as firewood. Home furniture also had the same destiny; improvised fireplaces for cooking and home heat production. Only the essential woodcraft was kept away from the fireplace.
Those were desperate scenes of a population trying to survive a blockade, for more than three years. There was a constant background sound of automatic rifles bursts, the rhythmic fire of heavy guns and an occasional explosion.
Certain street corners and public spaces had a traffic sign Alex hadn’t seen before – “Pazi Snajper” – Caution snipers. That sign announced the “kill zone” of a sniper – a place where someone had been shot before.
Close to Hotel Holiday Inn, on Sniper Alley, there was another version of the sniper warning sign, with a touch of black humor: – Opasna Zona– RUN or R.I.P. – [Danger Area – Run or Rest In Peace(die)].
OPen samento 