Balkan Tour: Tito--War Hero and Dictator (On the Road to Sarajevo 5.13.26)

On May 13, 2026, we followed in the footsteps of Tito, ruler of Yugoslavia for more than 40 years.  

We stopped at Jablanica, on the road to Sarajevo, where Tito staged a dramatic World War II win against the Germans, as a partisan leader for Yugoslavia.  And we toured the austere bunker where Tito, as president of Yugoslavia, later assured his own safety in the event of nuclear war.  And finally, we arrived in Sarajevo and toured the tunnel where military and citizens scurried underneath the airport runway to reach the hospitals and other facilities of the city as Serbia waged war on Bosnia & Herzogovina.  Once Tito died and his iron grip on holding Yugoslavia was gone, Yugoslavia split into pieces that warred against each other.
 

We passed through gorgeous mountains and lakes on the road from Mostar to Sarajevo.

We paused at Jablonica, the scene of a shrewd caper by Tito and his partisans against the Germans in World War II.  Tito convinced the Germans that he would not/could not use this railway track and its trains to transport his partisans across the gorge.  Tito even blew up the railroad track.  Then, working day and night for several days, the partisans built the railroad track again over the gorge and transported both soldiers and citizens caught in the crossfire across it.  The Germans were caught offguard and unable to prevent the partisan army fleeing.

The Jablonica Museum included statues and dioramas illustrative the event, as partisans and peasants rode horses and pushed carts across the newly completed railroad bridge.

A movie has even been made about the Battle of Neretva, which involved the train tracks at Jablanica.

Tito, as president of Yugoslavia (meaning "home of the South Slavs"), was a formidable ruler.  He was a dictator himself, but he also fended off complete Soviet control of his country, and led such countries as India and Egypt in "the middle way," keeping independence from both the Russians and the Americans during the Cold War.  

The bunker we visited was a secret from all but a very few of Tito's top officials.

A Muslim woman in head scarf was our guide through the bunker.

The bunker included bedrooms and studies for Yugoslavia's top officials, as well as teletype machines, the latest thing in technology during the 1960s and 1970s.

The technology to heat, cool, and power this bunker, deep within a mountain, was formidable.

Art works were scattered throughout the bunker.  This piece of art, spelling out the words, "Fear," seemed particularly applicable!

We stopped, on the outskirts of Sarajevo, to tour the "Tunel Museum," incorporating a piece of the 2 1/2 mile tunnel leading under the Sarajevo airport into the city.  It was the only way in and out of the city, during the siege by the Serbians during the early 1990s, that avoided the snipers firing down from the hillsides.

Our guide grew up in Sarajevo and lived through the siege.  He told about his father, in the Bosnian army, transporting his mortally wounded uncle, also a soldier, through the tunnel, in a race against time to get him to the hospital in Sarajevo.  When our guide's father met a medical technician, halfway through the tunnel, the technician confirmed that our guide's uncle had died.

This chart, from the Tunel Museum, shows how Yugoslavia was split into seven pieces after the fall of the Soviet Republic in 1991.  A series of civil wars occurred, as the different pieces split away from Serbia, which contained the capital of Belgrade.

This chart shows Sarajevo as a besieged city from 1992 to 1995, with surrounding areas claimed by Bosnia and by Serbia.

Flowers are still placed next to walls near the tunnel containing bullet holes.  Bosnians were safe in the tunnel, but not in the area surrounding the tunnel entrance.

Balkan Tour: Bullet Holes and Burek (Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina 5.12.26)

Mostar was bombed repeatedly and heavily during the Balkans War, between 1992 and 1995.  There are still bullet holes in its buildings, and buildings that were demolished in the war and never rebuilt. Guidebooks describe Mostar, in the 1990s, looking like Dresden, Germany, after World War II. But Mostar is also a charming, happy city these days, with a bustling market selling all kinds of great food, from ice cream and baklava to the distinctive Balkans snack, "burek."  We had a great time exploring Mostar on May 12, 2026.

One of the most memorable museums we visited on our Balkans trip was the War Photo Museum in Mostar.  The walls of the small museum were filled with photos by New Zealand photojournalist Wayne Goddard of the suffering during the Balkans War.  

On our walking tour of the city, our guide pointed out walls with remaining bullet holes and entire buildings that had never been repaired following the bombings of the Balkans War.

The symbol of regeneration after the war is, of course, the Stari Most, or old stone bridge in Mostar, connecting the Muslim and Orthodox sections of the city.  The bridge was bombed during the war but rebuilt afterwards.

The city, itself, is beautiful, with quaint houses and minarets on the banks of a green river.

Dave and I love ethnic food, and Mostar had great varieties.  Burek is a baked pastry consisting of rolls of filo dough wrapped around meat or cheese and spices.  It is as popular as pizza in the Balkans.

After hundreds of years of Ottoman occupation, Turkish baklava is also a popular treat, served in many varieties.

Dave's and my all-time favorite snack/dessert/entree was ice cream, in wondrous flavors like Dubai chocolate and forest berry.  Ice cream shops were on every street of the bazaars.

We took a side trip to Blagaj, a pretty Muslim town on the turquoise Bune River.  We walked down to a cave near a historic tekke, or half-timbered Dervish house with Oriental rug-overed floors, carved doorways, curious niches, and a bathroom with star-shaped glass set into the ceiling.  The Dervishes follow a mystical strand of Islam, in which the peaceful contemplation of nature plays a part.  It was for that reason the Dervish house was positioned above the cave's mouth, from which the Bune River's surrealistic blue-green waters flow out.

"Ethnographic museums" are as common in the Balkans as pagodas in Thailand.  They are usually located in Turkish-style houses from many decades or centuries ago, decorated beautifully with artifacts from former times.  In Mostar we visited a home once owned by beloved philanthropists, pictured above.  How very Turkish the man's outfit is!