I’ve wanted to visit Sarajevo since I was about six, when I first read in our home encyclopedia about how World War I started in this Yugoslav city, one that would host the Winter Olympic Games 70 years later. Last week I finally walked across the Latin Bridge where Franz Ferdinand was assassinated and went for a leisurely stroll down the Olympic bobsled run, now a concrete monument splattered in graffiti that’s slowly being blanketed by undergrowth from its forest setting. (A video of that stroll is here.)

Here is a series of time lapses, shot from 28-30 June, comprised of 3606 photos and condensed into just under two-and-a-half minutes that encapsulates at least part of my visit.

Sarajevo notebook I – timelapses from Bob R on Vimeo.

The Scenes:
1. Shelled building along the Miljacka River near the Skenderija Bridge
2. View to the northwest, Koševo district and Olympic Stadium complex
3. Destroyed senior center, Alipašino Polje (eastern Sarajevo)
4. Ali-Pasha Mosque
5. Beggar on Mula Mustafe Baseskije Street, a lively pedestrian thoroughfare
6. Intersection of Marshall Tito Avenue and Vladimir Peric Valter Street in central Sarajevo
7. Apartment building in the New Sarajevo district
8. Destroyed observatories in the mountains to the south – at right the Orion Observatory built during the Yugoslav period, and the older dating to the Austro-Hungarian Empire
9. Katedrala Srca Isusova (Jesus’ Heart Cathedral)
10. Former Yugoslav (JLA) army barracks, now part of the University of Sarajevo campus
11. View to the east from Dom Policije Vranjače, a former Club/vacation home for police officers
12. Front of the Railway Station
13. Near the Holiday Inn, the only functioning hotel during the Siege of Sarajevo. This is near the beginning of what was known as Sniper Alley.
14. Fine Arts Academy, formerly the Evangelical Church
15. Apartment building in the New Sarajevo district
16. In the Baščaršija, or Turkish Quarter
17. View west from the Žuta Tabija, or Yellow Bastion (early 18th C.)

MANY thanks to Skender from Sarajevo Funky Tours. If you plan to visit, check out his company, Sarajevo Funky Tours.

Music:
City Night Line
by Cobra (avec logo panthère)

CC/Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License

Originally published 3 July 2011 on my blog Piran Cafe which is no longer being updated.