Heritage: The Balkans

First broadcast August 2007

The Balkan Wars of the 1990s left many Balkan cities and historic buildings in ruins.

Archaeological broadcaster and writer Malcolm Billings visits key sites in the region and finds out how reconstruction projects are restoring its cultural heritage.

Part 3: Bosnia

 Listen to the Programme

The National Museum in Sarajevo was in the front line. We visit the museum to hear how the staff heroically moved the objects to safer locations in the building as the shells hit. They put out fires and saved most of the collection.

But the galleries that have been restored have no heating and during the icy winters the staff show people around the galleries in scarves and overcoats.

The question of heating is lost in a tangled bureaucracy that boasts 13 ministers of culture. Many buildings in Bosnia still lie in ruins, and in places mine fields near archaeological sites are a hazard.

Bosnia's World Heritage site, the bridge at Mostar - a 16th century masterpiece of engineering - was shelled and destroyed.

We visit the reconstructed bridge, and we hear the views of a Bosnian who defended the bridge in the war that brought it down.

A conservation expert explains how the new bridge with newly cut stone can qualify as an ancient structure worthy of world Heritage status.

Bosnia's most charismatic 'archaeologist' Semir Osmanagic claims to have identified the first pyramid in Europe.

Large numbers of Bosnians and overseas visitors have flocked to see it, creating a growing tourist industry around the site.

Malcolm Billings borrows an Indiana Jones hat from the discoverer and together they explore the 'pyramid' inside and out.

Series Producer: Brigid O'Hara; Executive Producer: Anthony Rendell.

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