Sarajevo Rose

Before I came to Sarajevo I knew virtually nothing of the place except that there was a war here back when I was in high school (I have heard some stories about the war that I will relate at another time).  One thing I did when preparing for my trip was to do image searches of the city.  Of course when I would type in Sarajevo into Google and hit enter there would be pictures of the city during the war however, as I would scroll down the page I would also see pictures of the mountains, countryside, famous buildings and structures and a few pictures of what appeared to be spilled red paint on sidewalks.  Even though I never clicked on any of these images to read about what they were I had an idea of what they were.

As I said in a previous post, I know just a few people who own and operate their own little pizza and sandwich shop.  They said this time of year is the slowest because the schools near their shop are closed for the summer and many people are on vacation.  They told me that if I need a ride anywhere to let them know because they could have their one delivery driver, Bimba, give me a ride since they are not very busy.  Before I tell you the rest of my story I should mention a little about Bimba.  He is a big guy, probably in his 40's or early 50's, and looks like he would be a former KGB agent.  He is a nice guy and I am told that he has a little kitten that follows him around.  When they first told me his name I didn't quite understand it.  When I asked them to repeat it they said, "Bimba" but kind of laughed a little bit.  When I asked why they laugh when they say his name I was told because that is his nickname and that it means little boy in Italian.

He has given me a ride a few times but we don't really talk because he speaks very little to no English.  I was here about a week and had to go to this office to get a residence card.  He took me and someone else who I know who also "works" as my translator.  When we walked back to the car I saw this spot in the parking lot that looked like it had been filled in with plaster and painted red but since mostly faded.  This was what I had seen in some of the pictures I saw when I did image searches on the internet of the city.  I had an idea of what they were but wanted to be sure.  I asked the one person if they knew what it was and they said no so I asked if they could ask Bimba.  They said something to him in Serbian at which he looked at me and said one word, "Bomb."

Rather than smooth out or repave the sidewalks and streets where mortars had struck during the war they went around and filled them in with resin and then painted them red as a way to commemorate those who were killed during the war.  They would call these spots a Sarajevo Rose and while they have faded over the years, if you are watching where you are walking you will see them throughout the city.

Here are just a few pictures of one that I saw which was a little faded.  If you do a quick Google image search you will see many more of them, one of which I included so you can see the color.