Dove non suoanano più i fucili - Europuglia

Going to Sarajevo
We decided then that it was time to go and see Sarajevo, to directly observe the
mythologies of the province, to meet those influential figures that in Herzegovina
raise a lot of discussions but that also charm people at the same time.
We already had a list of names and addresses; some of them were also in the list
provided by Eugene on the coach to Mostar, and they had also been mentioned by
the people we met in Mostar. We would have liked to take the train in order to see
the Mostar-Sarajevo railway line that had recently been reopened, but Joha advised
us against it because the trip is quite long even by coach, due to the high number of
sharp U-turns while ascending the mountains. The duration of our trip by train would
have seemed as lengthy as an ocean crossing, and we didn’t have much time left.
We went through an impressive downpour that obliged the coach to travel at 30 km
an hour. Once in the capital, after a terrible lunch in the worst dive in the centre, we
ran into a thirty year-old booby that commented in a loud voice every gesture he
made and according to an old script tested in hundreds of travels, we swallowed the
map he showed us where the hostel seemed to be just round the corner. That’s how
we went up a steep slope for half an hour, tired and hot in the humid air, to get to the
two rooms at the top of the hill with the booby who urged us to quicken our pace
“since you are so young.” However, from the hostel you could breathe the magic of
a mixture of the call to pray, of ringing and roofs of churches all different from each
other, an unrivalled feature in the Old Continent. A megaphone crackled Koranic
psalms and the dunce talked to his father in the yard. In the room we immediately
broke some of the rules listed on the wall (after the unexpected long walk, smoking
a cigarette was the least we could do to the owner Master in Economic Sciences).
On each bedside table of the hostel a bible dominated: we slept until the evening on
one of the cursed Sarajevo ribs - above this place, Serbian snipers threw infernal
grenades over harmless people.
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Later on, we began to search for the people in charge of the MESS, the Sarajevo
Theatre Festival, the Winter Festival and the Sarajevo Film Festival - a search which
basically consisted in one try that if you fail you go back home empty-handed: finding
“The Emperor” Mister Ibrahim Spahic. I had a private telephone number I had found
with difficulty, but that mobile was either switched off or sounded a dialling tone. The
next move was then his secretary, whose number had also been quite hard to get.
“Oh my god, I don’t know what to say any more, believe me, Mr. Spahic is in Poland
and will be back in three days. Today I’ve already received at least six phone calls
by people who want to interview him. What can I do?” I revealed to her that I had the
private telephone number of the Democratic Party leader and she was very surprised,
she told me to try to interview him on the phone and, anyway, she invited me to
their office to have a look at the place where they are based.
We went down to the town. Along Marsala Tita smiling women kindly and warmly
welcomed us.
First of all we wanted to see the market where took place the horrendous massacre
that convinced the international community to intervene.
With a sigh of relief, I noticed that the horrible warehouse as well as the well-known
bridge of the Pedestrian Target Shooting and most of the places we had absent-mindedly
seen on the news while eating pasta had been entirely rebuilt and were crowded
with hopeful and well-educated people.
I called Spahic every ten minutes. I caught him at nine in the evening, before going
to eat a pizza.
“Mr. Spahic , how did the Winter Festival come into being?”
“It’s a festival that involves 35 countries and lasts more than a month. It was organized
for the first time in 1985,” spoke up Spahic from Poland as if he had put on a
record. “We have organized 600 performance days and exhibitions of 11,000 different
artists visited by 2 million people. The festival has also been organized under
the siege in ’92, ’93, ’94 and ’95. Our association along with the Peace International
Centre has planned this project called Sarajevo open city and has been supported
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