Bosnia and Herzegovina hit me hard.
Not long ago, this country went through extreme violence, and it lives with it quietly, without turning it into spectacle.

Bosnia has always been a borderland. Ottoman rule, Austro-Hungarian rule, Yugoslavia under Tito - it has witnessed all of it. Between 1992 and 1995, Serbian forces killed around 8,000 people, mostly men, simply for being Muslim, and systematically raped women. Europe watched. The EU looked the other way. The traces of what is one of the biggest massacres in modern European history are still clearly there.

I visited Sarajevo and Mostar. Sarajevo, with the Latin Bridge where World War I began, felt relatively alive - everyday life continues there. Mostar, with its famous Old Bridge, was quiet, almost like a village.

People are not extremely poor, not rich either - they survive. But there is no culture of showing off like in Turkey or Russia. I didn’t see luxury cars. Buying expensive things is almost considered shameful. Even though the country is relatively poor, it felt more developed to me than many richer places, because of its cultural level. Even waiters spoke very good English. Every bookstore and record shop I entered was packed, especially with young people. This comes from the importance given to education during the Tito period. Turkish TV series are watched every day, and many people feel close to Turkey.

While traveling between cities, I took what is considered the most scenic train route in the Balkans. I visited the world’s only museum dedicated entirely to children. But what I will never forget is my first day: walking through the Bosnia War Museum, I couldn’t stop crying. I was furious. How can you brutally kill completely innocent civilians just because of their religion and land? They were supposedly under UN protection - WHAT A JOKE! If they had been Christian, they wouldn’t have been killed so easily. I can’t process it. My next stop is Serbia, and I’m going there with an involuntary anger toward Serbs.