Trebević

Trebević is a mountain in central Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is found directly to the southeast of Sarajevo, territory of East Sarajevo city, bordering Jahorina mountain. Trebević is 1627 meters (5338 ft) tall, making it the second shortest of the Sarajevo mountains.

During the Middle Ages, Trebević was known as Zlatni Do. During the 1984 Winter Olympics Trebević, like the other Sarajevo mountains, was used for a number of Olympic events, such as bobsledding. During the Siege of Sarajevo, Trebević took on a darker role as its elevations proved ideal positions for besieging artillery and the mountain became a key fighting ground.

Trebević today is not as important of a tourist destination as Igman or Bjelašnica, largely due to the heavy fighting that took place in the early 1990s. Still, most of the land mines are now cleared, and civilian casualties on Trebević are today unheard of. There are numerous hotels, mountaineering homes, and other such structures on Trebević and the immediate area.

1984 Winter Olympics

When Sarajevo was awarded the 1984 Winter Olympics in 1977, a bobsleigh and luge track was proposed. The track design was approved in 1981, with construction starting on June 1 of that year.^[1] Construction was completed on September 30, 1982 at a cost YUD 563,209,000. The 1984 games had 20,000 luge spectators and 30,000 bobsleigh spectators. After the Winter Olympics, the track was used for World Cup competitions^[2] until the start of the Yugoslav wars in 1991 that would include the Siege of Sarajevo the following year. The track was damaged as a result of the siege which occurred during the Bosnian War.^[3] During the siege, the track was used as an artillery position for Serbian guerrillas.^[4] Today, the tracks still remain mostly intact with war wounds of defensive fighting holes, drilled into one of the last turns of the course. The tracks today are mainly used to express the graffiti artistic talents of the new generation.

No turn names were given for the track.

Serb Cross controversy

In March 2008, a Bosnian Serb organization called the Association of Bosnian Serb War Victims led by Branislav Dukic announced its intention to put up a giant 26-meter high Orthodox cross at the part of the mountain on Republika Srpska territory in order to commemorate the Serb people who died in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War.

The announcement enraged the Sarajevo-predominant Bosnian Muslims, with Sarajevo's Muslim mayor Semiha Borovac saying that such a cross would "harm a fragile process of rebuilding confidence between people of different ethnic groups".^[5] International community's High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina Miroslav Lajčák also asked Republika Srpska authorities not to allow the construction of the cross.^[6]

References