Sarajevo -- Where East Meets West

In the fall of 2017, we visited the Balkans and saw firsthand what Samuel Huntington called the fault line between civilizations. In the Balkans, people from what we now know as Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East met at various moments in history to trade -- both goods and ideas. The Balkan states were occasionally independent, more frequently overrun and ruled by others. And many of them look back with a certain fondness to the former Yugoslavia, when they were independent and united.

This year we visited Panama and learned that the mixing of people from all over the world that happened there (because of the desire to build first a railroad, then a canal) was ultimately positive. Panama is a melting pot that celebrates its diversity. The results in the Balkans is quite different. Particularly in Bosnia and Herzogovena, people from several cultures met but they didn't really melt or combine in any meaningful way. They fought a bitter civil war, which ended in a fragile truce. Dividing the country -- splitting it -- wasn't really an option, because as you see from the map, the people of different ethnicities and religion haven't integrated but they've intermixed physically. So instead of splitting into three countries, they've solved the problem with uneasy coexistence. Their constitution, for example, requires three presidents, one from each ethnic group, to serve simultaneously.

Sarajevo is the capital and cultural center of Bosnia and Herzegovena. Memories of the pain of war lurk just below the surface, with memorials and reminders scattered throughout the city. But at the same time, it's a normal European city, with a delightful mix of old and new. Very walkable (as long as you carry an umbrella). It prides itself on being the place where east meets west (meaning the cultures of Europe and the Near East), even highlighting it on the pavement on the pedestrian street. 

People cross from one side to the other nonchalantly. They work and shop on both sides of the divide. But the contrasts are very visible. The east side feels strongly Ottoman, Muslim, and Old World. The shops are different, the restaurants serve different food, the people are often dressed differently. It's much more pronounced than an ethnic enclave, like Chinatown in San Francisco or Little Italy in New York. It's not an interesting minority. It's half the city.

This strongly Old World part of the city was a bit jarring at first, but ultimately delightful. It was a bit like wandering through a souk. We loved exploring the shops and sampling the food. We discovered that coffee drinking (really espresso) is a vital, ceremonious part of the culture, just as it is in many parts of the world. Sarajevo is also noted for its fine bronze work. So what better way to commemorate our visit to Bosnia and Hertzegovena than with a bronze and porcelain coffee set?