Bosnia

The ancestral lands had been on my route for years.

Despite traveling the world, my path led to Sarajevo for the first time.

I ate köfte with onions in a warm pita, as delicious as what I have eaten at the Tuna or Rodop meatball shops in Eskişehir.

I also devoured the Bosnian meat pastry baked over a wood fire as a dessert.

Sarajevo is the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina and, according to the 2007 census, its largest city with a population of six hundred thousand.

Sarajevo was established around the Miljacka River within the Sarajevo Valley, surrounded by the Dinaric Alps in the Bosnia region.

The city is known for its religious diversity. Islam, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Judaism have coexisted here in peace for centuries. That is why Sarajevo is considered the Jerusalem of Europe.

Let us not pass by without noting the Muslim genocide of 1995.

I toured the Baščaršija, which still bears the traces of the Ottoman Empire.

One should not return without visiting the bedesten (covered bazaar) of the Baščaršija.

Of course, one must also visit the complex commissioned in 1531 by the Bosnian Sanjak-bey Gazi Husrev-beg to be built by Mimar Sinan, one of the most striking works of Ottoman architecture.

It is a spotless bazaar consisting of small shops, generally staffed by Bosnian girls.

I performed Friday prayers at the Baščaršija Mosque in the center, which was restored by the Turkish State.

I encountered a congregation with a quite young average age.

Bosnian youths with well-groomed appearances and clothing, and compassionate faces, had filled the mosque to the brim.

It is worth looking into how much the Bektashi lodges, which we frequently noticed around, contribute to this beauty.

I saw similar beauties at a wedding I happened upon in the evening.

It is immediately apparent that the women, like the men, possess a tall, statuesque, and remarkably stylish beauty.

In this Muslim geography, which we made our home for 500 years and saved from the hands of the Catholics, I did not come across many who understood our language.

Although the Islam brought to the region by the Turks has lived on for years, the Turkish language has unfortunately disappeared in this geography.

Will I encounter it soon?

We will decide that to some extent ourselves.