The Burek Chronicles: Continued

With my reemergence in the Balkans came a rediscovery of my favourite breakfast food item, the humble burek. The pastry is found in many forms throughout the Balkans and I first encountered it in Slovenia and Croatia two months ago, but more recently in Serbia. According to Wikipedia burek is said to have originated in Bosnia so I was intrigued to investigate the cultural influences that went into making a Bosnian burek.

But first, some background. The landscape of Bosnia-Herzegovina differentiated itself from other places I’d been to. As I crossed over the Drina river - constituting most of the eastern border with Serbia - the environment changed. I was thrust into a verdant, mountainous region overwhelmed by strong rainfall. The other thing I noticed, after the bus had passed through the lush greenery, was that when we passed through small towns in the eastern side of the country there were a lot of flags composed solely of red, blue and white stripes. Having seen the Ukrainian flag flown in front of public buildings, in parks, in big cities and in small towns across continental Europe I wondered: have I just arrived in an openly pro-Russian part of the world? Whilst there were undertones of this feeling in Serbia, no one was this openly supportive of the regime. And also, I wasn’t in Serbia anymore.

Understanding the flag I was seeing required some investigation into the country’s recent history. To broker peace following the war in the ’90s, a very complex political system was created in Bosnia-Herzegovina. At it’s heart, the country is divided into two ‘entities’ with separate public services and lower-level government. (This division is different to the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina which is a purely geographical division.) These two entities are the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Republic of Srpska. (There is also technically a small, third entity but that’s a level of complexity that I was not able to get my head around during my brief stay in the country.) Some things are standardised, like the currency, and the country does have a central government.

The central government has three presidents. Yes, three. One to represent each ethnic group. There is a Bosnian president, a Croat president and a Serb president. It is worth noting that these terms refer to ethnic groups, not countries. The terms are used almost interchangeably with faith insofar as Bosnians are Muslim, Croats are Catholic and Serbs are Orthodox Christians. The division of the two entities falls roughly along the lines of ethnicity. The Republic of Srpska generally comprises the areas of Serb majority and the Federation takes up the other half of the country. These ethnic divides are a perennial source of tension in the region. Whilst everyday people live together harmoniously, the differences have been weaponised, most recently in the ’90s, to create division. Ultimately the over-complicated political system means that the everyday lives of people living in Bosnia-Herzegovina are still shrouded by bureaucracy. Factors such as superfluous layers of government and the presidents’ ability to essentially veto decisions means that, whilst not at war for almost thirty years, significant political change is still yet to come.

Needless to say, this doesn’t explain the flags I was seeing in eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina. Here is the key thing: I wasn’t looking at a Russian flag. I was looking at an upside-down Russian flag (which looks very much like a Russian flag when hung sideways on the signposts along a town’s main street). The flag of the Republic of Srpska is red, blue and white stripes whereas the Russian flag is white, blue and red stripes. Confusing, I know. This was the least of my problems. I felt the full effects of the way the ‘entities’ worked before I even arrived in Sarajevo. The bus route that was taken from Belgrade was almost entirely in the Republic and only stopped in that part of the country. Although my hostel in central Sarajevo was only a few minutes away from the road the bus drove on, the bus did not stop there. Instead it stopped in East Sarajevo, in the Republic, so I had to get back to Sarajevo-proper which was in the Federation. From the international bus station in the Republic I had to walk a few minutes down the road and over the “border” to the local bus station. No signage indicated where anything was because the two bus stations were handled by different authorities. I eventually managed to get on a trolley bus into the city. What would have been a ten minute walk, had the bus stopped near my hostel, ended up being a ninety minute journey back into town.

In Sarajevo itself, the cross-cultural harmony that has been felt for years by everyday people is palpable. In the morning I was roused by bells from a nearby Catholic church and, as the sun went down, was absorbed by the conflicting calls to prayer from the many mosques that dot the urban area. In the main pedestrian street of the city, I could face in one direction and see mosques and the remains of caravan lodges and small cafes where people had baklava and coffee in small copper pots. I could turn in the other direction and see a church and European coffee shops and architecture that wouldn’t be out of place in any central European city. A small river trickled its way down the centre of town, just next to where Franz and Sophie Ferdinand were infamously shot before the outbreak of the first world war. Surrounding the city was a green mountain range that, though beautiful today, is a grim reminder of the besiegement of the city in the ’90s.

Back in town and I was ready to get my burek on. Whilst many bakeries have large round burek pies and small snail-shaped burek which you can get in most Balkan cities, I visited one that specialised in Bosnian burek. I arrived for breakfast in the small shop and was greeted by a nice Bosnian woman. The burek lay in the glass display case in front of her. The shape of the pastries immediately caught my eye. Unlike the round pies found in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, here I saw a large rectangular oven tray with long, cylindrical rolls of filled pastry - almost like a big tray of thin sausage rolls. Available on order that morning were cheese, meat, spinach and cheese or pumpkin. I chose the spinach and cheese. A couple of rolls of pastry were selected by the woman behind the counter, weighed (it was priced by the kilo) and placed on a plate. In other countries the pastry was served with a thin yogurt which was sipped as a drink whilst eating the burek. Yogurt still made an appearance though this time it was a condiment. A spoon of thick yogurt the consistency of sour cream was dolloped on top of the burek. The burek was hot out of the oven so the yogurt quickly melted into the pastry but did little to prevent the pipping hot pastry from burning the roof of my mouth.