Hope in a t-shirt

by Stavroula Soulopoulou (Greece)

I didn't expect to find Bosnia & Herzegovina

"Fear of the dark, fear of the dark”. No, it is not Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden there in front of me and I am not at a concert. Underground is the key word here as I stand two-feet away from the tunnel with the best name in the world: ”Tunnel of Hope”. Instead, I get to be with Dickinson’s biggest fan in the world, Enis, his red Nikes and the band’s t-shirt to prove it. No other person could have ever echoed so perfectly the surrealistic heart that I suspect lies in the heart of Sarajevo. The siege tour seemed like a good way to find out. Sarajevo’s siege was the longest in modern history. From 1992 till 1996, for 1,425 days, shelling and sniper attacks was the city’s everyday life. Enis guides us, talking lively and incessantly during our ride, telling jokes about marriage, life, his mother and whiskey - which is mentioned more than once as he stresses that “We are European Muslims and if we like our Johnny Walker we drink it, we like our freedom”. He spent almost his whole childhood in a basement and his mother would never allow him to wear red shoes as that would make him an easy target for the snipers. His familiar face and mischievous spirit that glows through the past pain in his green eyes, takes us on the doorstep of the “Tunel Spasa”. The mark of yet another Sarajevo’s Rose is on the floor outside: the concrete scar caused by a mortar shell's explosion that was later filled with red resin so as to resemble a rose. Every time you see that rose you know people died there and with that in mind I always tread carefully around it - the city is shockingly full of them, just yesterday I saw one outside the Cathedral of Jesus’ Sacred Heart. We step inside the little museum, and I take a glimpse of Angelina Jolie’s picture on the wall among other celebrities who have visited the tunnel. As Enis takes his iPad out and shows us pictures - “I don’t get why not everybody does that. Just take an iPad. It brings the tour alive” - I can hear in my mind the 24-hour hand shovels digging, the wheelbarrows filled with dirt, the buckets, the ropes, the “war candles”. This tunnel became the lifeline of the city and along with hope, Marlboro cigarettes passed hands to be traded with food. Enis is standing with us now in a room with a video screen. He looks at the guard and they seem to have an understanding, he is a well-know figure, our “Enis, the guide”. He still uses his iPad: a dead child lying there with soldiers above its head. “Famous photograph”, he says. “It stayed on my mind forever, I felt so bad for that kid”, he looks down with a hint of introvert sadness. But his face lights up again when he starts to narrate to us his favourite war story and the screen shows parts of a documentary. “During the siege Bruce Dickinson was approached with an offer everyone was sure he was gonna refuse like all the other famous musicians did before him. There is nothing sane about playing in a war zone of starved-for-a-little-bit-of-life youth but there is pure poetry in reminding the living that they are still alive and that indeed, there will be a day without siege again”. So, Dickinson’s scream reached Sarajevo and from there, the whole world. Those who actually turned up at that small underground venue back in 1994 - many thought it was a prank- ended up having an experience that carried them through two more years of war. “Ah”, I exclaim. “So that is why everyone’s favourite band here is Iron Maiden!”. The mystery of the cool music taste I have been encountering everywhere in Sarajevo - in conversations and passersby's t-shirts alike - is finally solved. Bruce Dickinson was made honorary citizen of Sarajevo in 2019 and in the last photo Enis shows to us, he is there with him, giving him a traditional copper Bosnian coffee set as a token of true love.