From the life of blockade survivors. A war we know almost nothing about Military intervention by the international community

The 90s became another era of bloodshed in the Balkans. Several ethnic wars began in the ruins of Yugoslavia. One of them unfolded in Bosnia between Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. The intricate conflict was resolved only after the international community, primarily the UN and NATO, intervened. The armed conflict became notorious for its numerous war crimes.

Prerequisites

In 1992, the Bosnian War began. This happened against the backdrop of the collapse of Yugoslavia and the fall of communism in the Old World. The main warring parties were Muslim Bosnians (or Bosniaks), Orthodox Serbs and Catholic Croats. The conflict was multifaceted: political, ethnic and religious.

It all started with the collapse of Yugoslavia. A variety of peoples lived in this federal socialist state - Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians, Slovenes, etc. When the Berlin Wall fell and the communist system lost the Cold War, the national minorities of the SFRY began to demand independence. A parade of sovereignties began, similar to what was then happening in the Soviet Union.

Slovenia and Croatia were the first to separate. In Yugoslavia, in addition to them, there was the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was the most ethnically diverse region of the once united country. About 45% Bosnians, 30% Serbs and 16% Croats lived in the republic. On February 29, 1992, the local government (located in the capital Sarajevo) held a referendum on independence. The Bosnian Serbs refused to participate in it. When independence from Yugoslavia was declared in Sarajevo, tensions began to escalate.

Serbian question

Banja Luka became the de facto capital of the Bosnian Serbs. The conflict was exacerbated by the fact that both peoples lived side by side for many years, and because of this, in some areas there were many ethnically mixed families. In general, Serbs lived more in the north and east of the country. The Bosnian War became a way for them to unite with their compatriots in Yugoslavia. The army of the socialist republic left Bosnia in May 1992. With the disappearance of a third force that could somehow regulate relations between opponents, the last obstacles holding back bloodshed disappeared.

Yugoslavia (where it lived predominantly from the very beginning supported the Bosnian Serbs, who created their own Republika Srpska. Many officers of the former unified army began to join the armed forces of this unrecognized state.

Which side Russia was on in the Bosnian War became clear immediately after the start of the conflict. The official authorities of the Russian Federation tried to act as a peacekeeping force. The rest of the influential powers of the world community did the same. Politicians sought a compromise by inviting opponents to negotiations on neutral territory. However, if we talk about public opinion in Russia in the 90s, then we can say with confidence that the sympathies of ordinary people were on the side of the Serbs. This is not surprising, because the two peoples were and are connected by the commonality of Slavic culture, Orthodoxy, etc. According to international experts, the Bosnian War became the center of attraction for 4 thousand volunteers from the former USSR who supported the Republika Srpska.

Beginning of the war

The third party to the conflict, in addition to the Serbs and Bosnians, were the Croats. They created the Herzeg-Bosna Commonwealth, which existed as an unrecognized state throughout the war. The capital of this republic was the city of Mostar. Europe felt the approach of war and tried to prevent bloodshed with the help of international instruments. In March 1992, an agreement was signed in Lisbon, according to which power in the country was to be divided along ethnic lines. In addition, the parties agreed that the federal center will share powers with local municipalities. The document was signed by the Bosnian Serb Radovan Karadzic and the Croatian Mate Boban.

However, the compromise was short-lived. A few days later, Izetbegovic announced that he was revoking the agreement. In fact, this gave carte blanche to start the war. All I needed was a reason. After the bloodshed began, opponents named various episodes that served as the impetus for the first murders. It was a serious ideological moment.

For the Serbs, the point of no return was the shooting of a Serbian wedding in Sarajevo. The killers were Bosniaks. At the same time, Muslims blamed the Serbs for starting the war. They claimed that the Bosniaks who took part in the street demonstration were the first to die. The bodyguards of Republika Srpska President Radovan Karadzic were suspected of the murder.

Siege of Sarajevo

In May 1992, in the Austrian city of Graz, the President of the Republika Srpska Radovan Karadzic and the President of the Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosna Mate Boban signed a bilateral agreement, which became the most important document of the first stage of the armed conflict. The two Slavic unrecognized states agreed to stop hostilities and unite to establish control over Muslim territories.

After this episode, the Bosnian War moved to Sarajevo. The capital of a state torn apart by internal strife was populated mainly by Muslims. However, the Serbian majority lived in the suburbs and surrounding villages. This ratio determined the course of the battles. On April 6, 1992, the siege of Sarajevo began. The Serbian army surrounded the city. The siege lasted throughout the war (more than three years) and was lifted only after the final Dayton Accords were signed.

During the siege of Sarajevo, the city was subjected to intense artillery bombardment. The craters that remained from those shells were already filled in peacetime with a special mixture of resin, plastic and red paint. These “marks” were called “Sarajevo roses” in the press. Today they are one of the most famous monuments of that terrible war.

Total war

It should be noted that the Serbo-Bosnian war ran parallel to the war in Croatia, where conflict broke out between local Croats and Serbs. This confused and complicated the situation. A total war broke out in Bosnia, that is, a war of all against all. The position of local Croats was especially ambiguous. Some of them supported the Bosniaks, the other part supported the Serbs.

In June 1992, a UN peacekeeping contingent appeared in the country. It was originally created for the Croatian War, but its powers were soon expanded to Bosnia. These armed forces took control of the Sarajevo airport (previously it was occupied by the Serbs, they had to leave this important transport hub). Here, UN peacekeepers delivered humanitarian aid, which was then distributed throughout the country, since there was not a single area left untouched by the bloodshed in Bosnia. Civilian refugees were protected by the Red Cross mission, although the efforts of the contingent of this organization were clearly not enough.

War crimes

The cruelty and senselessness of the war became known to the whole world. This was facilitated by the development of the media, television and other methods of disseminating information. The episode that occurred in May 1992 became widely publicized. In the city of Tuzla, combined Bosnian-Croat forces attacked a brigade of the Yugoslav People's Army, which was returning to its homeland due to the collapse of the country. Snipers took part in the attack, shooting at cars and thus blocking the road. The attackers cold-bloodedly finished off the wounded. More than 200 soldiers of the Yugoslav army died. This episode, among many others, clearly demonstrated the violence of the Bosnian War.

By the summer of 1992, the Republika Srpska army managed to establish control over the eastern regions of the country. The local Muslim civilian population was repressed. Concentration camps were created for the Bosnians. Abuse of women was common. The relentless violence of the Bosnian War did not happen by accident. The Balkans have always been considered the explosive barrel of Europe. The nation-states here were short-lived. The multinational population tried to live within the framework of empires, but this option of “good neighborliness” was eventually swept aside after the fall of communism. Mutual grievances and claims have accumulated over hundreds of years.

Unclear Prospects

The complete blockade of Sarajevo came in the summer of 1993, when the Serbian army managed to complete Operation Lugavac 93. It was a planned attack organized by Ratko Mladic (today he is being tried by an international tribunal). During the operation, the Serbs occupied strategically important passes leading to Sarajevo. The surrounding area of the capital and most of the country is mountainous with rugged terrain. In such natural conditions, passes and gorges become places of decisive battles.

Having captured Trnov, the Serbs were able to unite their possessions in two regions - Herzegovina and Podrinje. The army then turned west. The Bosnian War, in short, consisted of numerous small maneuvers by rival armed factions. In July 1993, the Serbs managed to establish control over the passes near Mount Igman. This news alarmed the world community. Western diplomats began to put pressure on the leadership of the Republic and Radovan Karadzic personally. At the negotiations in Geneva, the Serbs were made to understand that if they refused to retreat, NATO airstrikes would await them. Karadzic folded under such pressure. On August 5, the Serbs left Igman, although the rest of the acquisitions in Bosnia remained with them. On a strategically important mountain, peacekeepers from France took their place.

Bosnian split

Meanwhile, an internal split occurred in the Bosnian camp. Some Muslims advocated maintaining a unitary state. Politician Firet Abdić and his supporters took the opposite point of view. They wanted to make the state federal and believed that only with the help of such a compromise would the Bosnian War (1992-1995) end. In short, this has led to the emergence of two irreconcilable camps. Finally, in September 1993, Abdic announced the creation of Western Bosnia in the city of Velika Kladusa. This was yet another protest against the Izetbegovic government in Sarajevo. Abdić became an ally of the Republika Srpska.

Western Bosnia is a clear example of how new short-term political entities emerged, which gave rise to the Bosnian War (1992-1995). The reasons for this diversity were the huge number of conflicting interests. Western Bosnia lasted two years. Its territory was occupied during Operation Tiger 94 and Operation Storm. In the first case, it was the Bosnians themselves who opposed Abdić.

In August 1995, at the final stage of the war, when the last separatist formations were liquidated, Croats and a limited NATO contingent joined Izetbegovic’s government forces. The main battles took place in the Krajina region. An indirect result of Operation Storm was the flight of about 250 thousand Serbs from the border Croat-Bosnian settlements. These people were born and raised in Krajina. Although there was nothing unusual in this emigrant flow. The Bosnian War removed many from their homes. A simple explanation for this population turnover is this: the conflict could not end without defining clear ethnic and religious boundaries, so all small diasporas and enclaves were systematically destroyed during the war. The division of territory affected both Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats.

Genocide and tribunal

War crimes were committed by both Bosnians and Serbs and Croats. Both explained their atrocities as revenge for their compatriots. The Bosnians created detachments of “bagmen” to terrorize the Serbian civilian population. They conducted raids on peaceful Slavic villages.

The worst Serbian crime was the massacre in Srebrenica. By decision of the UN, in 1993 this city and its surrounding environs were declared a security zone. Muslim refugees from all regions of Bosnia flocked there. In July 1995, Srebrenica was captured by the Serbs. They carried out massacres in the city, killing, according to various estimates, about 8 thousand Muslim civilians - children, women and the elderly. Today, all over the world, the Bosnian War of 92-95. She is best known for this inhumane episode.

It is still being investigated by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. On 24 March 2016, former Republika Srpska President Radovan Karadzic was sentenced to 40 years in prison. He initiated many of the crimes for which the Bosnian War is known. The photo of the convicted person again spread throughout the world press, just like in the previous 90s. Karadzic is also responsible for what happened in Srebrenica. The intelligence services caught him after ten years of living under a secret false identity in Belgrade.

Military intervention by the international community

Every year, the Serbo-Bosnian war with the participation of the Croats became more chaotic and confusing. It became clear that neither side of the conflict would achieve its goals through bloodshed. In this situation, the US authorities began to take an active part in the negotiation process. The first step towards resolving the conflict was the agreement that ended the war between the Croats and Bosniaks. The corresponding papers were signed in March 1994 in Vienna and Washington. The Bosnian Serbs were also invited to the negotiating table, but they did not send their diplomats.

The Bosnian War, photos from the fields of which regularly appeared in the foreign press, shocked the West, but in the Balkans it was perceived as commonplace. Under these conditions, the NATO bloc took the initiative. The Americans and their allies, with the support of the UN, began to prepare a plan for aerial bombing of Serbian positions. The military Operation Deliberate Force began on August 30. The bombing helped the Bosniaks and Croats push back the Serbs in the strategically important regions of the Ozren Plateau and Western Bosnia. The main result of NATO's intervention was the lifting of the siege of Sarajevo, which had lasted for several years. After this, the Serbian-Bosnian war approached its end. All parties to the conflict were drained of blood. There is no entire residential, military and industrial infrastructure left on the territory of the state.

Dayton Accords

Final negotiations between the opponents began on neutral territory. The future ceasefire agreement was agreed upon at the American military base in Dayton. The formal signing of the papers took place in Paris on December 14, 1995. The main characters of the ceremony were Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, Slobodan Milosevic and Croatian President Franjo Tudjman. Preliminary negotiations took place under the patronage of observer countries - Great Britain, Germany, Russia, the USA and France.

According to the signed agreement, a new state was created - the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the Republika Srpska. Internal borders were drawn in such a way that each subject received an equal part of the country's territory. In addition, a NATO peacekeeping contingent was sent to Bosnia. These armed forces have become a guarantor of maintaining peace in particularly tense regions.

Violence during the Bosnian War was hotly debated. Documentary evidence of war crimes was transferred to an international tribunal, which still operates today. It judges both ordinary perpetrators and the direct initiators of atrocities “at the top.” Politicians and military personnel who organized the genocide of civilians were removed from power.

According to the official version, the causes of the Bosnian War were ethnic conflict in the collapse of Yugoslavia. The Dayton Accords provided a formula for compromise for a divided society. Although the Balkans remain a source of tension throughout Europe, open war-scale violence there has finally ceased. It was a success of international diplomacy (albeit belated). The Bosnian War and the violence it caused left a colossal imprint on the fate of the local population. Today there is not a single Bosnian or Serb whose family has not been affected by the inherently terrible conflict of twenty years ago.

Siege of Sarajevo
Siege of Sarajevo- a 3.5-year siege of the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, first by Yugoslav and then by local Serbian armed forces. The siege began on April 5, 1992 and ended with the lifting of the siege on February 29, 1996, according to the Dayton Accords.

The reason for the siege

Before the outbreak of hostilities in BiH, Serbs made up almost a third of the population of Sarajevo, living compactly in a number of its districts. At the end of February - beginning of March, a referedum on self-determination was held in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was boycotted by the Serbs. The majority was in favor. On March 1, Serbian Nikola Gardovic was killed during a wedding procession. He is considered the first to die according to the Serbian side. On April 5, during a demonstration, units of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) opened fire on the demonstrators. Two Bosnians were killed, the first to be killed by the Bosnian side. On April 6, the European Union recognized Bosnia and Herzegovina as independent, after which an armed conflict began.

In February 1992, the Bosnian War began. Detachments of Bosnian Serbs managed to bring a number of territories of Bosnia under control and oust the Bosnians from Zvornik and other cities. In March, attacks on JNA targets began in the city. In early May, the federal army announced a complete blockade of Sarajevo both from the ground and from the air. However, already in June, Sarajevo airport was open for humanitarian supplies to the city. The capital of Bosnia was constantly exposed to artillery fire, but no significant attempts were made to capture the city.

In the second half of 1992, the JNA was disbanded, and the siege was carried out by Republika Srpska troops, who entrenched themselves in the Serbian areas of the city and on the surrounding heights. However, all attempts to storm and capture the city failed and were weak. Serbian volunteers succeeded in several attempts to break through the defense of Sarajevo, but the army was unable to develop its success. Until 1994, heavy artillery was used during the siege of the city, but after the incident at the Markale market, the West gave the Serbs an ultimatum to remove heavy artillery from Sarajevo, which greatly eased the fate of the besieged. The West accused the Republika Srpska Army of the Markale incident and the deliberate attack on civilians. However, UN experts have not identified the culprit of the incident; some researchers believe that the mine explosion was organized by Muslims.

In August 1995, after the second terrorist attack on Markale and the capture of Dutch peacekeepers by the Serbs, NATO launched Operation Deliberate Force. Many Serbian positions near Sarajevo were hit by alliance airstrikes. This eased the siege of the city. A truce was reached in October 1995, and in February 1996, Serbian troops withdrew from Sarajevo.

After the end of the siege of Sarajevo, the entire Serbian population left the city and its surroundings.

Statistics

· As a result of the siege, the population of Sarajevo dropped by 35% to 334,000 people.

· 12,000 people were killed and 50,000 were wounded, among them 85% were civilians.

· The siege lasted 1395 days (http://sa92.ba/v1/index.php?showimage=259&lang=en), this is one of the longest sieges in modern military history

· In two terrorist attacks on the Marcale market, 105 people were killed and 234 injured.

It is unlikely that you will find in Europe and the former USSR (including Volgograd, Grozny and other places of fierce hostilities) another city where cemeteries can be found everywhere. Today my report will be somewhat sad and even a little creepy, but, unfortunately, without these traces, the appearance of the city will seem somewhat embellished.

Sarajevo was one of the most damaged cities during the Bosnian War. Almost 20 years have passed since then, but traces of the war remain in the city. Today we will look at how the collapse of a large European multinational state with subsequent wars left its mark on a seemingly sleepy Eastern Europe.

It was not only the GDR that was buried under the rubble of the Berlin Wall. These debris also covered Yugoslavia. By 1991, in Yugoslavia, consisting of national republics (almost the same as in the USSR), centrifugal tendencies had gained such momentum that the collapse of the country became irreversible. In the USSR it all started from the Baltic states, and in Yugoslavia - from Slovenia. Now, by the way, Slovenia, like the Baltic countries, is part of the EU. The Slovenian initiative was actively supported by the Croats, who also wanted independence and even managed to adopt a constitution that discriminated against the Serbs. All this ended in wars - a small one for Slovenia and a long and difficult one for Croatia. The city of Vukovar, for example, became famous throughout the world for particularly brutal battles combined with ethnic cleansing, long before terrible reports began to arrive from Grozny, Stepanakert or the center of Moscow. History has shown that this was just a terrible prologue to a more destructive war - the Bosnian war.

On March 1, 1992, Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence, since about 99% of those who came to the referendum supported independence. Everything would be fine, but the ethnic Serbs ignored the referendum, and it was during the referendum that a Serbian wedding was shot in Bascarsija. The fighting did not begin immediately, of course, but war could no longer be avoided. And the first “collective” victim of the Bosnian War was Sarajevo, which has been under siege for almost three years.

Today we will look at the traces of that very war.

1. When I first walked through the center of Sarajevo, I had the feeling that the city had been completely restored. I didn’t see not only any grandiose destruction, but even chips from shells on the facades of houses. Everything seems to have been repaired; there is not even a hint of the fact that the city actually repeated the fate of besieged Leningrad. This is what the parliament of Bosnia and Herzegovina looked like at the beginning of the war:

photo - Wikipedia

Now he looks like new.

2. On the central streets, traces of the war are simply not visible, something has been covered up, something has been repaired. It is possible that there were no shellings or heavy fighting on some streets. They look exactly the same as some similar streets in the EU or St. Petersburg.

3. This impression was destroyed immediately as soon as I left the main street. There are still a lot of chips on the facades.

4. On the central street - Marshal Tito - there is a small monument-fountain to those who died during the siege.

5. And right there, right in the central park, right behind this monument are the graves of the victims. They remained where they were in the besieged city.

6. The department store near the Catholic Cathedral still stands in ruins.

7. In almost every district of the city there are memorial walls listing the names of those who died during the siege. This wall, for example, is located 300-500 meters from the Sarajevo Museum.

8. Opposite her across the road is again a makeshift cemetery, essentially a mass grave. It's even closer to the Old Town from here.

9. “At this place, Serbian villains killed...” - there are a lot of such signs in the city, although they are usually located in inconspicuous and non-tourist places. But I don’t like to go through atlases, and that’s why now you see that Bosnian travel agencies don’t advertise much. I liked this sign only because it was made in a very unique way and how much work was spent.

10. In the courtyards of mosques, the density of graves is even greater. The years of death for most graves are 1992-1995.

11. Large monuments are illuminated until late at night. Sarajevans spare no expense for this memory.

12. But the eternal flame on Marshal Tito Street burns not for the victims of the siege, but in honor of those who liberated Yugoslavia.

13. If you move to the Novo Sarajevo area, there are even more traces of the war. Look at the “fresh” brickwork: it was on these balconies that the Serbian artillery was fired. She didn’t hit for fun, of course, but at the Bosnian snipers who opposed the Serbs, shooting the latter from these balconies. Now this is Meche Semilovic Street, but then it was called “sniper alley”.

14. About a block away from those high-rise buildings is another small memorial. Now from here to the Republika Srpska (not to be confused with Serbia, this is part of the confederation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) is 700-800 meters in a straight line, this is where the heaviest fighting took place.

15. There are still poorly cleaned traces of fires on the houses.

16. Only the Olympic symbols in the stadium where the 1984 Winter Olympics were opened reminds us that there was not always war here. Now, after the war, it is partially neglected...

And partly it was turned into a shopping center and some kind of club.

17. In the very center, opposite this stadium, on the Milacki embankment, houses abandoned after the war still stand.

In general, as the famous political figure V. Zhirinovsky said, “there is no need to joke with war.” Of course, for some “color,” you could also visit the “tunnel of life” under the Sarajevo airport or the abandoned Olympic cluster in the mountains. But probably enough about the war, enough negativity. In the next part of the story we will look at modern Sarajevo. It's much more fun and better.

Previously about Sarajevo:

Material from our reader.

Background

In fact, both Croats and Bosniaks used to be a single Serbian Orthodox people. But it just so happened that the Balkans became a place of contact between two empires: the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian ones. The Turks began to impose Islam mainly in the Bosnian part, many accepted it because it was profitable (those who accepted were exempt from taxes), and they threatened many. But some retained the Orthodox faith. The Croatian territory of the future Yugoslavia was influenced by Austria-Hungary; accordingly, the local part accepted Catholicism and was guided by the instructions of the Vatican. We must remember that the fatal shot of Gavrilo Princip was fired in Sarajevo, which started the First World War. The religious differences of the three peoples were clearly demonstrated in the Second World War. The Croats, under the patronage of the Germans, created Ustasha detachments, which also included detachments of Bosnian Muslims. The Ustasha committed especially atrocities against the Serbs, which was well remembered by the latter and was not forgotten until the 90s. After 1945, Tito, who defeated both the Chetniks and the Germans, took advantage of the post-war redistribution of Europe and gathered the Slavic lands in the Balkans into a single socialist state. Socialism with a “human face” was built, nationalism was severely punished, and it seems that the marshal managed to keep the “powder keg of Europe” in peace and harmony.

The heart of Tito's empire was multinational Bosnia or "Yugoslavia in Yugoslavia", where Muslims lived - 44% (then not yet called Bosniaks), Croats -17% and Serbs -31%. The capital of Bosnia, Sarajevo, was an experimental city, in which three communities also lived closely, and even hosted the Winter Olympics in 1984. The whole country threw its efforts into the construction of Olympic venues, many donated money from their salaries, thousands of volunteers enthusiastically helped hold the games. Large Western companies came to Sarajevo (which was impossible to imagine in the USSR), the Holiday Inn built its own hotel, the Momo and Wezir skyscraper towers appeared in the city, a large television center and a television tower for broadcasting games, which finally turned Sarajevo from from a small town to a metropolis and the most prestigious city in Yugoslavia to live in. Nobody could have imagined that in less than 10 years “Momo” and “Wezir” would be on fire, and the capital of the world and the Olympics would be under siege.

After Tito's death, Yugoslavia went to hell. The death of the Marshal made it clear that no one simply knew what to do, how to keep local nationalists in the republics, who quickly changed from communists to supporters of democracy and independence for their peoples. In the late 1980s, the Serbian Academy of Sciences, in response to emerging Croatian and Muslim nationalism, issued its memorandum, which hints at a Greater Serbia - a republic not within the Yugoslav borders, but within the borders of the Serbs (these are parts of the territory of Bosnia and Croatia). Yugoslavia was doomed.

In 1990, the first free elections were held in Bosnia. They are won not by the communists, but by the three national parties of Croats, Serbs and Muslims. Moreover, the votes are divided almost according to the percentage of the population. At first, on the wave of democracy, all parties welcomed each other's political enlightenment. Muslims sent greetings to SDA, the party of Radovan Karadzic. But as soon as the elections to the Assembly (parliament) were held, Muslims and Croats declared the independence of Bosnia, all that remained was to consolidate this with a referendum, which, naturally, purely mathematically, Muslims and Croats won. The Bosnian Serbs, under the leadership of a psychologist (by the way, who worked at the Koshevo Olympic Stadium) and dissident Karadzic, declare that they will create their own republic on the lands where Serbs live and join Yugoslavia, and “the Muslim people will not be able to defend themselves in the event of war.” Here we must clearly understand that all three parties, especially the Croatian and Bosnian ones, were nationalist. The Muslims from the Democratic Action Party were inspired by the “Muslim Declaration” of party leader Izetbegovic and wanted to populate Bosnia with another 5 million formerly deported Bosniaks from Turkey and build a “Euro-Islam” based on European order and civilization. The Croats were guided by the Zagreb new Ustasha ultranationalists. Before the referendum, the situation is heating up, the police in Sarajevo are divided along national lines, and in the Bascarčija quarter, a Serbian wedding is being shot, as they say, for the Serbian tricolor, traditional at weddings. In Sarajevo, barricades appear in areas populated by Serbs. But not everyone wants to separate, three peoples speak the same language, there are many mixed marriages, because there was no great religiosity in a socialist country. A large demonstration of one hundred thousand people against the war and for the unity of peoples takes place in Sarajevo. As it was stated then, snipers are shooting at her from the same Holiday Inn hotel where the office of the Serbian SDA party is located. Although further investigation shows that the shots came from the other side of the city, from the mountains. But the fuse was lit, the provocations continued and after the referendum escalated into war.

Siege

After the referendum, the Yugoslav People's Army gradually began to withdraw from Bosnia, but interethnic clashes slightly slowed down this process, the Serbian part of the army began to go over to the side of the local Serbs, the Muslims and Croats did not have the same weapons as the YuNAs, and at first they were content with seizing warehouses or supplies from abroad. If desired, the JNA could quickly resolve the issue with Sarajevo, part of which the Serbs wanted to see as their capital, but time was lost, and the matter was limited to the siege of the city. Sarajevo was located in a valley between two mountain ranges, and it was not difficult for the Serbs to organize a siege of the city. By this time, many Serbs had left the city, and those who refused to do so were declared “not Serbs” by the Serbian command. The siege lasted almost 4 years, with interruptions and all four years there was a seesaw between the international community, Yugoslavia, Bosnian Serbs, Croats and Muslims.

The open and most dangerous part of the city from the Bascharchia quarter to the Butmir airport was called “sniper alley”, it was dangerous to appear on it, people only moved there at a run, and the local Yugo cars rushed at maximum speed since this part was under fire from the surrounding mountains. The chance of survival here was 50/50. Residents of Sarajevo tried to wear shorter skirts and wear brighter makeup - a sniper would see it, regret it, and not shoot. In the city itself, gangs of local crime bosses popular among young people begin to operate, who first, under the guise of defenders of Muslims, deal with Sarajevo Serbs, and then rob their own. One of these commanders, Yussuf “Yuka” Prazina, was later liquidated by the decision of the Muslim authorities.

The Serbs almost completely close the defense circle of Sarajevo, only Butmir airport is controlled by UN peacekeepers. Under the airport, Muslims are digging a tunnel (now a museum, you can even walk 200 meters) leading to the free Bosnian territory, the city is supplied through it, and Muslim leader Izetbegovic even has his own personal trolley. However, the city was supplied not only through the tunnel, but also through the UN. The Siege of Sarajevo is the longest siege of a city in modern history, ending only in 1996. In the city, houses are still riddled with bullets, but it has been practically restored, and a new skyscraper has appeared. Locals say that Greece helped a lot in the restoration in order to “excuse” its Greeks who fought for the Serbs from extraditing to the tribunal. We don’t know how true this is, but the Greeks were really actively restoring Sarajevo. In the Sarajevo brewery, which during the siege actively served as a source of water for residents (beer here is brewed with spring water), you can still drink a glass of local light or dark beer.

Nowadays there are Muslim mosques, Orthodox and Catholic churches in the city, but they have few visitors, and the locals are not particularly religious. Bosniak, Croat and Serb can only be distinguished from each other by their names. Muslims have Turkish names, and surnames often sound like Serbian ones, Croats have names after Catholic saints, Serbs often have names like Alexander, Mikhail, Vladimir that sound to the Russian ear. But the war has done its job, the three communities live their own lives, the Serbs live more separately in East Sarajevo, but young people, unlike the older generation, more often cooperate and do business with other communities, and do not look at nationality. Under the terms of the Dayton Accords, which ended the war, Bosnia and Herzegovina was divided into two parts: the Muslim-Croat part and the Republika Srpska. Muslims did not receive a purely Muslim state, as Izetbegovic dreamed, but began to be called not in Tito’s “Muslims”, but Bosnians. They are forced to continue to live with two other communities in a secular state and dream of joining the European Union. The Croats were not allowed to join Croatia with the Croatian lands and even create their own republic within Bosnia, while the Serbs received their own republic, but it does not have the right to join “big” Serbia, remaining part of Bosnia. Formally, this is now a single state of three nations with its own currency and army. Three presidents rule for one year each - a Croat, a Bosnian and a Serb. The siege, the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 and the former Olympic venues have become a tourist attraction in Sarajevo, people are busy with their own affairs and do not remember the war, but who knows what awaits the powder keg next?