A common question I hear these days is what do I miss about Bosnia? In fact, someone asked me a couple of nights ago. Funny she should ask. Here’s something that appeared on my “nostalgia” radar screen.
This week marks the 40th anniversary of the 1984 Olympics held in Sarajevo, Bosnia. This is true nostalgia for any Yugoslav/Bosnian old enough to remember. And they remember it with great national pride, as well they should. Among other things, those Olympics represented the pinnacle of their patriotic slogan, “brotherhood and unity”. Indeed, it may be the only lasting and shining accomplishment of that unique post-WWII socialist experiment, designed by strongman, dictator Josip Broz Tito, who died in 1980. Unfortunately, the fond memories of the very successful Winter Olympics were overshadowed by a devastating war eight years later (1992-1995), resulting in 100,000 deaths, two million people displaced, a 46-month siege of Sarajevo with daily shelling and sniper attacks on civilians, and the end of Tito’s Yugoslavia. So much for brotherhood and unity.
But on to happier memories. Here’s an interesting podcast from Remembering Yugoslavia. Episode 52 (with text and photos) tells a fascinating (at least for Yugo-philes) backstory on Sarajevo’s unlikely but successful bid to host the 1984 Winter Olympics. We lived just down the street from the Zetra Olympic Complex, the main indoor Olympic venue, including the tower with the Olympic rings. It was all severley damaged during the war but rebuilt. We drove or walked by it regularly. We went inside less often. Among other things, it houses a dingy, smokey bowling alley and a few artifacts and photos of her glory days in 1984.
One of my favorite stories about the Sarajevo Olympics has to do with the total absence of snow on the mountains the day before the opening ceremonies. Yugoslavs were an ostensibly atheistic-socialist country, but that did not stop the communists from praying desperately for snow! On opening day, with thousands of guests and the world focused on their city, they awakened to a Sarajevo covered in white from a record-breaking snowfall!
Who says prayer doesn’t work? Indeed, the ways of the Lord are mysterious and beyond understanding!