Bridge resurrected

last updated 8 January 2015

Mostar, Bosnia

Mostar’s 16th-century Ottoman bridge, blown up in 1993 during the Balkan wars, was reopened this week. The bridge over the Neretva river connected the Bosnian Croat side of the city with the Bosnian Muslim side, and its destruction by Croat shells was seen as a symbol of the bitter ethnic strife that tore Yugoslavia apart. At the gala ceremony to dedicate the repaired bridge, Muslim and Croat dance groups and musicians performed together. As a climax, 12 young men dove headfirst from the bridge, a traditional rite of passage in Mostar and one that had been missed in the past decade. “Mostar was full of love,” said Sarajevo’s Dnevni Avaz newspaper. “The streets have a special smell—they say it is the smell of goodwill.”