Postcard from Sarajevo

This is not the story of the long forgotten Sarajevo Grand Prix because, so far as I am aware, no such event ever took place. I’m writing it as one of those occasional tales that sit under our Universe umbrella because I’ve just emerged from three days of driving through Bosnia-Herzegovina from north to south through Sarajevo and Mostar and I need to talk to someone about it. I hope you don’t mind.

I guess it was the war in Ukraine that made me think of this place in a way I had not in many years, perhaps ever. What did I recall from over half a century’s acquired knowledge? Torvill and Dean at the 1984 Winter Olympics – today the two conference rooms in the Sarajevo Marriott are called Torvill and Dean (I preferred Torvill, now as then) – and their show stopping Bolero routine.

And two wars. The one I actually remember, the Bosnian War, seemed to go on for ages, largely because it did, from the spring of 1992 to the last month of 1995. I didn’t understand the issues, not because I was too young or they were too complex, but because I couldn’t be bothered to learn. I remember my father groaning about ‘not more bloody Bosnia’ when some new development came on the news. I regret that now.