In 1982, I had a meeting with Brane Miljuš, Secretary of the City Committee of the League of Communists, when Emerik Blum, the Mayor of Sarajevo, came to discuss the extension of his mandate for another year. At that time, mandates in senior leadership positions lasted only one year and could be extended just once more – to prevent leaders from becoming complacent and too comfortable in their roles.
Arguing for the extension, Blum said:
“I was born in Sarajevo, I graduated from university in Sarajevo, and I founded Energoinvest, one of the largest companies in the world. Yet it still took me a year to understand what Sarajevo really is. Only now can I accomplish truly great things for the city.”
If he were alive today and about to become mayor of Sarajevo again, Blum would not need a year. Just one full day at the newly opened Interpretation Center Planet Sarajevo would be enough for him to understand who and what Sarajevo is.
Planet Sarajevo – A Metropolis of Spirit
The Planet Sarajevo Interpretation Center is a completely new cultural attraction that revives the spirit of Sarajevo from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, when the city was widely known and recognized as a hub of music, sports, art, good vibes, and togetherness.
Planet Sarajevo uses modern technologies, multimedia installations, and interactive content to take visitors on an immersive and emotional journey through time. Legends and myths, woven together with stories, photographs, sound, and authentic memories, speak of Sarajevo during one of its golden eras.
Through this unique multimedia and interactive experience, you will embark on a fantastic journey through one of the most vibrant and fascinating periods of Sarajevo’s past – a period that can today serve as an excellent inspiration for the future.
Planet Sarajevo is not just an exhibition. It is a meeting of generations, an experience that connects past and present, where history can be seen, heard, and felt. Planet Sarajevo is more than a museum – it is a place where Sarajevo is revived and experienced as a metropolis of spirit and energy.
In my 55-year-long professional career (and I do not intend to stop yet), I have visited hundreds of exhibitions and museums. I have been to all the cities that hosted the Winter Olympic Games before Sarajevo – from Lake Placid to Sapporo – and walked through their museums, but nowhere have I seen anything close to our Planet Sarajevo.
Walter and Today’s Heroes
It is an indisputable historical fact that the legendary Sarajevo resistance fighter Vladimir Perić received the nickname Walter in Tuzla in 1943 and then moved to Sarajevo to organize the liberation of the city, becoming its most famous underground fighter.
It is also an indisputable fact that Planet Sarajevo was created in Tuzla, where Edina Selesković and Zlatko Berbić spent five years developing it. Once everything was completed, they brought it to Sarajevo, proving through this project that they know and love the city more than many of its loudly proclaimed Sarajevans.
Sarajevo is not Sarajevo because of its traffic and energy infrastructure, or its water and sewage systems, but because of its people. This was well understood by the German colonel at the end of the film Walter Defends Sarajevo, who, when asked if he even knew who Walter was, pointed from the top of Trebević towards the city and uttered the legendary line:
“Das ist Walter!”
Today, Sarajevo needs a Walter as badly as bread. Dubioza Kolektiv sings: “Walter will return…”
For now, we can be happy and content with the fact that he has revealed himself to us in the figures of Edina Selesković and Zlatko Berbić. Thank you!
Until you visit Planet Sarajevo, it will be enough to visit www.planetsarajevo.ba.
