Life in Bosnia: Banja Luka – A Forgotten Place of Bosnia

Life in Bosnia: Banja Luka – A Forgotten Place of Bosnia

Banja Luka is the capital of Republika Srpska, one of the two entities of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. As you can see from the name, the population of Republika Srpska consists of mainly Bosnian Serbs versus Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats from the Federation. Banja Luka has around 200,000 people, making it the second biggest city, after Sarajevo. Over the past year, I have visited a lot of places in the Federation, but I have never properly been in the Republika Srpska. Thus I was curious to go there and see whether it would be any different from the Federation. I know that I should visit the entire entity to come to a clear conclusion, but I don’t have the opportunity to do that–and nobody ever will see something in its entirety–so I thought the capital was a good place to start.

There are of course obvious differences between the Republika and the Federation. You can easily spot are ubiquitous Orthodox churches, brightly lit and colored standing next to road signs in Cyrillic (Latin is used here as well). In the Federation you also see Cyrillic, but often people spray graffiti over it to show how they feel about anything that has to do with Serbian culture. Other than churches and the Cyrillic alphabets, there is not much difference between these two entities. This makes sense because they are still in the same country sharing the same culture.

In Banja Luka, you can find excellent coffee bars, friendly people and interesting history, just like everywhere else in Bosnia. Banja Luka, nonetheless, is a bit different than other Bosnian towns in a way that it reminds me more of an European city: the setup, bigger roads, special sidewalks for disabled persons. You don’t see mosques lining one street block after another. Things just feel slightly more modern though I can not exactly pinpoint how I come to this conclusion.

If you are going to Banja Luka I would recommend you walk around a little bit and you’ll run into the Orthodox Cathedrals at some point. It has special architecture and has been rebuilt recently after being destroyed in the Second World War. A new mosque is being built because sadly none of the 16 existing mosques survived the war from 1992 to 1995. What surprises me is the sight of many mosques in villages near Banja Luka given the percentage of Bosniaks living in the municipality is only 4%, against 92% of Serbs and 2% of Croats. In 1991 the statistic was very different. 55% of the population was Serbian, 15% was Bosniak, 15 % was Croat, and another 12% consisted of Yugoslavs, who didn’t identify themselves with any of the three main religions and ethnic groups.

The main attraction of the city is the fortress used to defend the city against invading Ottomans. Now instead of Turks and fights, one can sit and eat peacefully at the restaurant, and in the summer go to various concerts held there. Below, the river Vrbas quietly flows guarding the fortress, contemplating the past and has many Bosnians and Bosnian-Serbs wondering about its dubious future. It is a pity that I was there for only a few days as I would have loved to go deeper into the mere surface contemplating the differences between the entity and the federation, as well as to talk to more people and discover things that the eyes can not see.

How to get there?

Since Banja Luka is an important town in Bosnia, it is not difficult to get there by public transport. The city has both a bus and train station, next to each other. You can easily reach Banja Luka from Zagreb. It takes at least 2.5 hours or longer depending on how busy it is at the border. There is also a scenic route that passes by stunning landscapes from Mostar and takes about 5 hours. There are also several buses a day from Sarajevo, leaving as early as 5:00 in the morning and takes 5 hours.

Photo Credit: daddys.fun via Compfight cc