Počitelj is historic village and an open-air museum in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
It lies on the banks of the emerald green River Neretva, some 30 kilometres south of Mostar and 20 kilometres from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s border with Croatia. It is a fortified village set within a natural karst amphitheatre, with a current population of 869 inhabitants.
Dating to as far back as 1383, and first mentioned in writing in 1444 in charters by King Alfonso V of Aragon, the village developed mostly during the period from the 16th to the 18th centuries under Ottoman rule. Indeed, with the conquest of Gabela on the other side of the River Neretva by the Venetians in 1694, Počitelj became a strategically important frontier town between Ottoman Herzegovina and Venetian Dalmatia over the course of the next century.
With the arrival of Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1878, Počitelj was no longer of strategic importance and deteriorated over the next several decades. A little over a century later it was destroyed and ransacked before and even after the Bosnian War of the early 1990s. As a result of this destruction, in 1996 World Monuments Watch named Počitelj as one of the world’s 100 most endangered cultural heritage sites.
However, since the year 2000, the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Government has placed the village under a Programme of Permanent Protection, which has dramatically transformed it.
Its unique cultural value has been recognised by the fact that since 1964 it has hosted the Počitelj International Art Colony. Since that time, the Art Colony has hosted thousands of artists and cultural actors from all over the world. The Association of Visual Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is the owner and founder of the Art Colony, organizes working colonies throughout the year.
Počitelj has a magical air that transcends time. It is a place just to wander, get lost in thoughts, and feel a profound sense of wonder and serenity. It truly is the pearl of Herzegovina. And it truly is a place like no other.