Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Surviving companies have no money. The Bank of Yugoslavia, which held the mortgages,
is now gone. No one will invest until it's clear who owns the buildings.” I had never con-
sidered the financial confusion that follows the breakup of a country, and how it could
stunt a society's redevelopment.
We walked to a small cemetery congested with more than a hundred white-marble
Muslim tombstones. Alen pointed out the dates: Everyone died in 1993, 1994, or 1995.
Before 1993, this was a park. When the war heated up, snipers were a constant con-
cern—they'd pick off anyone they saw walking down the street. Because of the ongoing
danger, bodies were left for weeks, rotting on the main Boulevard, which had become the
front line. Mostar's cemeteries were too exposed to be used, but this tree-filled park was
relatively safe from snipers. People buried their neighbors here…under the cover of dark-
ness.
This cemetery, once a park, is filled with tombstones all dated 1993, 1994, or 1995.
Weaving slowly through the tombstones, Alen explained, “In those years, night was
the time when we lived. We didn't walk…we ran. And we dressed in black. There was
no electricity. If the Croats didn't kill us with their bullets, they killed us with their mu-
sic.” That politically charged, rabble-rousing Croatian pop music, used—apparently ef-
