NEW YORK -- When you think of Sarajevo, tourism is probably not the
first thing that comes to mind.
Nevertheless, Predrag Krivokapic, president of Kompas Tours in
Fort Lauderdale, Fla., said the city, still recovering from the
Bosnian war of the mid-1990s, is ready for Americans who want to
visit.
"It is completely safe there," said Krivokapic. "Many Americans
have heard about Sarajevo, what an interesting place it was before
the war and how it's being revived."
Kompas is the first U.S. company to include Sarajevo, the
capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in a tour brochure following the war
there in the early 1990s. The 11-night program also visits Zagreb,
Dubrovnik, Split, Trogir, Zadar and Plitvice National Park in
Croatia and Llubijana and Lake Bled in Slovenia.
The tour is priced at $1,317, double, land only, with two meals
per day. Five departures are scheduled in 2001 from May through
September.
"I think the people who would be interested in coming to
Sarajevo now are not so different from those who came before the
war," said Krivokapic.
"They have traveled a lot, have seen most of western Europe and
want something different, maybe even some sense of adventure."
Yugoslavia is familiar ground for Kompas, which specializes in
tours to central and eastern Europe. The company is a division of
Slovenia-based Kompas, a leading operator from the former
Yugoslavia.
"One of the main reasons we decided to go back to Sarajevo and
make it the starting point for our tour is that is has the best air
connections in the region. The airlines cater to the European
government and non-profit organizations who have set up shop
there," said Krivokapic.
There are also 1.5 million Bosnian refugees around the world,
and many of them are returning, according to Bosnian government
authorities.
Sarajevo is served by Lufthansa, Swissair, Malev-Hungarian,
Austrian, Adria and Croatian Airlines, with daily flights from
several major European cities and capitals.
The Bosnian capital became a symbol of the horror that descended
upon the former Yugoslavia from 1993 to 1995, when many Americans
tuned into to CNN's nightly depictions of the Sarajevo siege by
Serbian nationalist forces.
The world was shocked by the destruction of city, a multi-ethnic
center where Croats, Muslims and Serbs had lived in harmony, and
its monuments, which had been polished up for the 1984 Olympic
Games there.
But times have changed.
The Holiday Inn where international reporters hunkered down
during the war went through a top-to-bottom renovation in 1998 and
is now the best property in Sarajevo, according to several
sources.
This is where Kompas will stay during its visit to the city.
And what will visitors see?
There will be a half-day day of sightseeing to "present dramatic
sites of the city that survived three years of siege and struggle,
as well as picturesque Turkish bazaar 'Bas Carsija,' the Husref
Bays Mosque and Olympic Stadium," the tour brochure states.
Sead Danovic, operations manager for Kompas and a Sarajevo
native, said although the city was "like Hiroshima after the bomb
dropped" in 1995, most tourist sites have been restored.
The city's Turkish bazaar, "a touch of the Orient in Europe,"
said Danovic, was miraculously untouched by shelling. The mosque,
the largest in the Balkans, has been repaired.
The Olympic Stadium was shelled continuously during the siege
and has been rebuilt.
"Around the Olympic Hall where there were tennis courts and
soccer field is the cemetery for the 10,000 victims of the war. You
can see the cemetery from the bus as you drive into the Olympic
Complex," said Danovic.
"The city still needs to rebuild 15,000 more apartments and you
can see building ruins from the window of the Holiday Inn, but at
least half of the corporate centers have been rebuilt," he
said.
The NATO-run airport is less than appealing, Danovic said, "but
the runway was rebuilt for the Balkan conference last year when
Clinton came to Sarajevo."
During the siege of Sarajevo, a tunnel was built under the
airport runway through which medical supplies and ammunition were
transported to the city residents.
"This is called the tunnel of life and the city authorities are
thinking of making a permanent exhibition on the war here," he
said.
Discussing daily life in Sarajevo, Danovic noted that taxis are
cheap, equivalent to $4 or $5 for a ride from one side of the city
to the other.
"Food is also very inexpensive and there are hundreds of
restaurants," he said, many of which cater to the 20,000 foreigners
living in Sarajevo.
"Every kind of food is available here; when I was there a few
months ago they even had Chinese with delivery."
Along with the surprising number of food options, Americans
should know one more key aspect of Sarajevo, Danovic said.
"The people of Sarajevo are grateful to Americans because they
consider them to be liberators."
Kompas
Phone: (954) 771-9200 or (800) 233-6422
Web: www.kompas.net
E-mail: [email protected]