5 museums that you must visit in Sarajevo

Sarajevo is a city that holds a lot of history. Impacted by many different cultures and many different wars,  Sarajevo tells a captivating story. Therefore, there are plenty of museums that can help you understand this breathtaking country, this city and it’s people, but we have narrowed it down to the top 5 museums that you shouldn’t miss out on while you are staying in Sarajevo.

1.National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina

The National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina was established in 1888, during the rule of Austro-Hungarian Empire. The museum is a cultural and scientific institution covering a wide range of areas including archaeology, art history, ethnology, geography, history and natural history. The most valuable object kept in the National Museum is the Sarajevo Haggadah, a manuscript brought to Sarajevo by Sephardic Jews all the way back in the 15^th century. This museum really gives an insight into how this country came to be throughout history and what makes Bosnia unique; in cultural and natural sense.

2. Sarajevo Museum 1878-1918

   

One of the most significant historical events that took place in Sarajevo was assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, an event that spark the First World War. This museum is placed  right next to the bridge where all of this took place, and if you want to learn about the assassination in details, you should definitely go inside. This chronological and thematic exhibition begins with a presentation of the events preceding the Berlin Congress when Austria-Hungary was given a mandate to administer Bosnia and Herzegovina, and concludes with World War I and the part played in it by the First Bosnian Regiment.

3. Museum of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide 1992-1995

   

Nothing is sugar-coated in this confronting museum covering the many atrocities that took place throughout Bosnia during the 1990s war. Video footage combined with photographs, artefacts and personal testimonies illustrates the horror and brutality of the times. This visit may be very emotional for most people, but it sheds a light on the trauma that survivors of the war endured and hopefully teaches us a lesson to never allow for those things to happen again. Anywhere.

4. Gallery 11/07/95

   

In all of the centuries that this country exists, 11th of July 1995 must be the saddest date. Gallery 11/07/95 is the first memorial museum/gallery in Bosnia and Herzegovina – exhibition space aiming to preserve the memory on  tragedy of the town called Srebrenica  and 8372 persons who tragically lost their lives during the genocide. Photographs by Tarik Samarah from the Srebrenica series offer an insight into fragments of the still unresolved trauma of Srebrenica. What happened there was so horrific, so monstrous, that every description of the events fails their essence and eliminates their horror. The photographs remove any mediator between the observer and the observed, showing the emptied landscape of reality in Srebrenica.

5. Tunnel of Hope Museum

   

One of the most fascinating stories from the war in the 1990s is the story of the tunnel.  The Tunnel of Hope was built in 1993 by the soldiers of Bosnian Army to enable food, medication, ammunition and all other necessary supplies to enter the city that was under the siege. They dug this really long tunnel using nothing but shovels and many people will tell you, it saved Sarajevo. Today, a house where the exit from the tunnel into free territory was serves as a museum where people can see how it looked like to be the citizen of Sarajevo in those horrific times and to actually pass through 30 meters of the tunnel themselves.