:: Personal website of a Toronto web designer
Lately » The New Old Bridge of Mostar
Since centuries bridges bear special significance in Bosnia. One of our best writers, Ivo Andric, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961 for his work "The Bridge on the Drina", a literary experience that you should not miss.
My brother recently visited Mostar and took some nice pictures of The (New) Old Bridge of Mostar. The bridge has recently been reconstracted. Its history is exceptional. Mostar, important historical centre of Bosnia and Herzegovina, originated in the XV century as a defence outpost next to a crossing over the torrential Neretva river. But only in the year 1566-67, after 10 years of hard works, during the Ottoman domination, the construction of the famous stone bridge was completed by architect Hayruddin. The bridge, named "Stari Most" (=Old Bridge), became pretty soon the symbol of the town that takes the name from it (mostari= bridge guardians).
On the 9th of November 1993, during the civil war, the bridge was destroyed by shelling, and, in a few hours, a masterpiece of the past times, an example of the ancient constructive technique and an element of regional identity was definitely cancelled. Damage due to this destruction is invaluable, either for the town of Mostar, either for the whole cultural world; but on the spiritual side and in the common ideal imaginary, nobody, as Bosnian people and Mostar citizens, is able to understand deeply the real meaning of such a los.
:: Sasha, at 10:10 pm on Wednesday, 18. August 2004
Useless scrawling facts:
Top 5 scrawlers:
(updated once a day)
556 Sasha
488 zoka
316 vitez-koja
235 Davor
58 mungos
