Foča // A Dull Catalogue of Common Things
© John Bills
When was this drive going to end? The journey from Višegrad to Foča had been simple enough, conjuring up memories of a night bus that went onto Trebinje many years ago, although memories that aren’t interesting enough to be reprised in any meaningful form. Not. Here, at least. My only worry with Foča was that nobody had told me where I was going to be staying,
Which, in turn, made this seemingly endless drive extra uncomfortable. Foča was far behind us at this point, and we were snaking alongside the Drina past rafting camps. I’m not staying at a rafting camp, am I? Am I not supposed to be writing a guide to Foča? Far be it from me to tell the bee about its wings, but that would require me to, you know, be in the city? I’m not an expert, but maybe after 9 years of this, I should shed the charlatan thing.
No, John, stop it. We’re not doing this, not today. The drive ended at a camp in the middle of nowhere, you told the guide it wasn’t acceptable, alternative arrangements were made, and you ended up staying at a motel in Foča. Let’s try and write something simple, something orthodox, something classical today, please.
Case stored away in my room and nap completed, I headed out into the streets of Foča to do some exploring. Some old-fashioned travel writing research, if you will. Is such a thing possible? The first point of interest I came across was the Aladža Mosque, long regarded as one of the most stunning in the region. Evliya Çelebi (your travel writing tsar, remember) referred to it as a ‘magnificent place of worship. In fact, Çelebi was a big fan of Foča in general. What would he make of it today? Don’t answer that question.
© John Bills
Çelebi wasn’t alone. People came from far and wide to admire the Aladža Mosque. It was constructed in 1550/1551, ostensibly at the behest of Hasan Balije Nazira, a chap most believe was in charge of trade customs in town. Foča (then called Hotča) was on that most lucrative of routes, the famous road from Ragusa (Dubrovnik) to Constantinople (Istanbul), and there was serious money to be made. Hasan made it, presumably, and the Aladža Mosque was his legacy to the town. It was built by the most skilled workers and was famous for its meticulous decorations, intricate calligraphy that drew gasps of wonder from locals and visitors alike.
Not that the decorations have survived. The 20th century was grim for the mosque. The Austrians stripped the lead from the dome during World War I, and the Italians used it as a warehouse in the sequel. The minaret was struck by lightning in 1963 before the VRS dynamited it in 1992. The materials were dumped into the Drina. When I visited, the mosque was being rebuilt, and the finish line was nearly in sight.
A little further along the right bank of the Ćehotina was the Temple of St Sava, the third-largest temple in the Serbian Orthodox Church, with a detailed mosaic of the building in front. A celebration of sorts was taking place in the temple as families milled around the entranceway. I kept my distance, not because of reticence but because of the whole celebration thing. Wedding Crashers, this is not. Don’t put yourself in any situation you are not welcome.
© John Bills
I crossed the Ćehotina and headed up a gentle slope towards the old centre to Foča’s Čaršija. The town experienced its most significant development during the 15th and 16th centuries, and most of that development happened here. The Čaršija was the commercial centre of Foča, where currency and conversation were exchanged from morning to night, where the bustle of a trade town on a well-travelled road blossomed. The Čaršija was divided into commercial, artisanal, business and residential quarters, but everything blended together in a blizzard of existence. There were several mosques, trading posts, hans and shops, streets wide enough for pedestrians, horses and nothing more.
The bustle of Foča’s Čaršija was long gone. When the Austro-Hungarians arrived, they weren’t particularly interested in maintaining it, and it was left to its own devices. On the positive side of things, it meant that the original layout was retained. The negative? The Čaršija lost its purpose. I wandered around, alone on the streets save for the occasional cat, and then stopped to admire the Mehmed-pasha Kukavica clock tower. It is assumed that the tower was constructed sometime after 1758, a sentence too vague to merit inclusion. Story of your life, John.
Where are you going with all of this? I didn’t spend too long in the Čaršija, primarily because there wasn’t a whole lot to do outside of considering history and lamenting the degradation of time. I trundled down the hill and nipped into the Begova Kuća, a quite gorgeous 18th-century building that was the home of the Avdagić family, although I couldn’t find too much information about them. Today, it houses the Hunters Association in Foča. I drank a beer. What else could I do?
© John Bills
And then, back through the centre of modern Foča. Kisela voda at Mozart. A brief chat with Marija at the tourist information centre. Coffee at Cinema Club. Another beer at Hemingway. Another. The sun had set, the day was coming to an end. I wandered back across the Ćehotina and stopped for one last drink at Vizantija. I ordered a Raft Beer and was delighted to find that the man responsible for brewing Foča’s craft beer was also in the cafe. He was the only other person in there, but still. We talked for a while about craft beer in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the future of tourism in Foča, the future of tourism in the country. We talked about football. It was an unremarkable conversation in theme, a dull catalogue of common things, but it was refreshing in its simplicity. He was a good man. I remember that much. And then, to bed. A day that started in the wilds had ended the same way all my days ended.
See, John? That wasn’t so hard, was it? You can write generic travel copy. Accept that. No aimless questions, just aimless wandering. No grappling with the very concept of existence, just existing. Simplicity.
