For hundreds of years its been a rite of passage that boys should stand atop the Mostar Bridge and leave innocence and good sense behind them -- by jumping or diving into the swirling current of the Neretva River below.
Some fly like birds, some fall like bricks, but when they emerge, they are hailed for their daring.
This tradition, this bridge, this happy crowd all reminders of what Mostar once was.
Before it all unravelled Mostar was a showpiece of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia.
Where Muslims, Croats and Serbs lived as neighbours and freely followed their faith in mosque and church.
Whenever she can, Maja Popovac gets out on the river to paddle her kayak.
She is a true child of Mostars multi ethnic days. Her mother a Croat, her father a Muslim.
Maja Popovac (Mostar resident)
First of all Mostar was a beautiful, small but cultural really European town. It was really a perfect place to live.
Before the war Mostar was the city with the most mixed marriages in exYugoslavia. We considered ourselves Yugoslavs so we were so proud to say it.
But eleven years ago, the young men whod dived off the bridge together, began to kill each other.
As Yugoslavia disintegrated, Bosnian Serbs took to the hills above Mostar to shell Bosniak Muslims and Croats. And a year later, after the Serbs had been expelled, Croats turned their guns on their one time Muslim allies.
Maja Popovac -
Its awful what theyve done but those are some people, some people from all sides . I cant say I blame Croats, I blame Muslims, I blame Serbs. No, thats definitely not like that
And one of the great casualties of that war was the famous Mostar Bridge. For 437 years its graceful sandstone arch spanned the Neretva River before it finally succumbed to a Croatian artillery barrage in November 1993.
More than ten years on and the bridge is being rebuilt by an international community desperate to have this become a symbol of a united Bosnia.
Safet Orucevic, Former Mayor -
I was not far from the bridge when it was destroyed. I went there immediately after the destruction and it was a shocking situation, while we watched the dark Neretva River, as if it wept and listened to shots fired by Croat soldiers, who were celebrating the destruction of the bridge.
Commissioned by Suilemann the Magnificent the bridge was completed in 1566. It was something of an architectural marvel ingeniously held together with iron pins. It was light yet strong a Muslim poet of the day called it, a crescent moon in stone.
The bridge endured for more than 400 years, before falling victim to what writer Michael Ignatieff called a perverse act of self-mutilation.
Maja Popovac is not just a Mostarian, shes one of the architects working on the new bridge. In hindsight, shes almost glad its stones tumbled into this river because it told the world that Mostar had sunk about as low as it could go.
Maja Popovac -
When people see that something cultural, and something that cant be reconstructed completely, when thats gone, thats how people get that something really weird and some really weird people took the power and the weapons in their hands. So that was maybe the quickest and most direct note to the world that something bad is happening.
The guns fell silent here .eight years ago, but the city still lies among the wreckage of war.
This was the confrontation line, where Croats and Muslims shelled each other for more than a year.
The European Union has financed some rebuilding new apartment blocks in pastel shades, but much of this pockmarked neighbourhood is too scarred to ever be beautiful again.
There arent any parks in the middle of Mostar, but there are plenty of cemeteries the fighting here claimed more than 3000 lives. Another 1500 people have still not been accounted for.
Maja Popovac -
This was really something that went out of the hands of the normal people and get into the hands of the weird non educated, narrow minded people.
It was fault of me and my parents and all the educated people from the, you know, cultural towns and everything . We let them do that kind of thing.
Mostars economy, like much of Bosnia, lies in tatters. Saturday is market day and we met three women Muslim, Serb and Croat all with similar stories. They wouldnt give their names theres still fear and suspicion here.
Muslim Stall Owner -
Were fighting, we have to fight for a living. We work this is what we do for a living.
We dont have real factories and things, like during good times. Its now all up to this our living is mostly from agriculture.
Serb Woman
Four members of our family could live on my husbands salary. We had everything we needed. Now its different, now both of us work, five times more than before, just to have a quarter of the things we had then.
In the Croat West, there are greater signs of prosperity. Before the war, this woman was a lawyer -- her husband, director of the Mostar Milk Plant. Now, he has no job and she supports a family, selling fruit and vegetables.
Croat Market Woman-
It is hard. We live hard. We used to live a nice life, but that horrible war did what it did, the economy is destroyed and without the economy there is no good life
Can this be the key to a return of that good life? A 24 million dollar rebuilding of the old bridge funded in part by the World Bank and UNESCO and overseen by both Muslim and Croat managers
Today the last stone is to be put in place.
Vox Pop -
This is a symbol of the city of Mostar. This is connection between two parts of unified city. This river not divide people but make
Q: BRING THEM TOGETHER?
A: Together.
But there is hostility to the idea and Mostars Croats are hearing it from the pulpit.
Father Ivan Stironja refused to be interviewed on camera, saying he and the bishop dont trust the media to tell the truth.
The bridge he says, is a political one which wont contribute to the common growth of Mostar or promote reconciliation the Muslims might like it he says, but it will only serve as a monument for sightseeing and will bring no benefit for Croats.
Religious tension is still very much alive here inflamed three years ago with the building of this cross, high above the city.
Father Stironja rejects claims that at 33 metres high its too imposing. He says its merely a vow made by Christians that this site will never again be a place of evil and war.
But to the Muslim population who live beneath the cross it is a brazen symbol of Croat authority.
Alija Behram General Manager Mostar Television -
Its my Mostar. Mostar before the war. Mostar in the war and Mostar after the war.
Alija Behram runs Mostar Television and Radio
on the air thanks to large amounts of US dollars it is very pro bridge and its Muslim general manager, very anti cross.
Alija Behram General Manager Mostar Television
Big cross on the mountain Hum, its provocation for the Bosniac. A cross belongs in the church, but not on a mountain, that overlooks everything.
NATO has been responsible for securing peace in Bosnia since 1995.
Today a fourteen thousand strong stabilization force continues to consolidate it. Of which, more than 4000 soldiers are based at Mostars airport.
Standing in the middle of the parade ground is the old bridge.
SFORs commanding officer, Brigadier General Gian Marco Chiarini is about to end his tour here. He departs convinced the bridge is crucial to peace.
Brigadier General Gian Marco Chiarini SFOR Commander
I give a lot of importance myself to the reconstruction of this bridge. I think it is something that is really important. We are just showing that there is a hope for the future.
Alija Behram General Manager Mostar Television -
SFOR here. Its crucial for peace. If SFOR go now, our peace is big crucial problem for us.
Q: YOUD START FIGHTING AGAIN ?
Yes Maybe.
But today is not about conflict its about celebration its diving day a tradition which has drawn the brave and foolhardy to this bridge for hundreds of years. With hope in their hearts and their hearts in their mouths,
Emir Balic is Mostars most famous bridge diver. He took the plunge more than a thousand times.
Emir Balic -
Why does one jump? It is a masculinity thing, entering the society of the courageous and brave in Mostar.
Well my jump was, I thought it lasted an eternity. It is not a jump it is a dive, because you fly three seconds from the top of the bridge until you hit the water, so you even have time to think.
Mostars new old bridge, wont lose its skirt of scaffolding until next year (2004). When it does it will become an important barometer of the fragile peace in Bosnia Hercegovina.
This crescent moon of stone is already carrying a heavy weight of expectation.
Some fly like birds, some fall like bricks, but when they emerge, they are hailed for their daring.
This tradition, this bridge, this happy crowd all reminders of what Mostar once was.
Before it all unravelled Mostar was a showpiece of multi-ethnic Yugoslavia.
Where Muslims, Croats and Serbs lived as neighbours and freely followed their faith in mosque and church.
Whenever she can, Maja Popovac gets out on the river to paddle her kayak.
She is a true child of Mostars multi ethnic days. Her mother a Croat, her father a Muslim.
Maja Popovac (Mostar resident)
First of all Mostar was a beautiful, small but cultural really European town. It was really a perfect place to live.
Before the war Mostar was the city with the most mixed marriages in exYugoslavia. We considered ourselves Yugoslavs so we were so proud to say it.
But eleven years ago, the young men whod dived off the bridge together, began to kill each other.
As Yugoslavia disintegrated, Bosnian Serbs took to the hills above Mostar to shell Bosniak Muslims and Croats. And a year later, after the Serbs had been expelled, Croats turned their guns on their one time Muslim allies.
Maja Popovac -
Its awful what theyve done but those are some people, some people from all sides . I cant say I blame Croats, I blame Muslims, I blame Serbs. No, thats definitely not like that
And one of the great casualties of that war was the famous Mostar Bridge. For 437 years its graceful sandstone arch spanned the Neretva River before it finally succumbed to a Croatian artillery barrage in November 1993.
More than ten years on and the bridge is being rebuilt by an international community desperate to have this become a symbol of a united Bosnia.
Safet Orucevic, Former Mayor -
I was not far from the bridge when it was destroyed. I went there immediately after the destruction and it was a shocking situation, while we watched the dark Neretva River, as if it wept and listened to shots fired by Croat soldiers, who were celebrating the destruction of the bridge.
Commissioned by Suilemann the Magnificent the bridge was completed in 1566. It was something of an architectural marvel ingeniously held together with iron pins. It was light yet strong a Muslim poet of the day called it, a crescent moon in stone.
The bridge endured for more than 400 years, before falling victim to what writer Michael Ignatieff called a perverse act of self-mutilation.
Maja Popovac is not just a Mostarian, shes one of the architects working on the new bridge. In hindsight, shes almost glad its stones tumbled into this river because it told the world that Mostar had sunk about as low as it could go.
Maja Popovac -
When people see that something cultural, and something that cant be reconstructed completely, when thats gone, thats how people get that something really weird and some really weird people took the power and the weapons in their hands. So that was maybe the quickest and most direct note to the world that something bad is happening.
The guns fell silent here .eight years ago, but the city still lies among the wreckage of war.
This was the confrontation line, where Croats and Muslims shelled each other for more than a year.
The European Union has financed some rebuilding new apartment blocks in pastel shades, but much of this pockmarked neighbourhood is too scarred to ever be beautiful again.
There arent any parks in the middle of Mostar, but there are plenty of cemeteries the fighting here claimed more than 3000 lives. Another 1500 people have still not been accounted for.
Maja Popovac -
This was really something that went out of the hands of the normal people and get into the hands of the weird non educated, narrow minded people.
It was fault of me and my parents and all the educated people from the, you know, cultural towns and everything . We let them do that kind of thing.
Mostars economy, like much of Bosnia, lies in tatters. Saturday is market day and we met three women Muslim, Serb and Croat all with similar stories. They wouldnt give their names theres still fear and suspicion here.
Muslim Stall Owner -
Were fighting, we have to fight for a living. We work this is what we do for a living.
We dont have real factories and things, like during good times. Its now all up to this our living is mostly from agriculture.
Serb Woman
Four members of our family could live on my husbands salary. We had everything we needed. Now its different, now both of us work, five times more than before, just to have a quarter of the things we had then.
In the Croat West, there are greater signs of prosperity. Before the war, this woman was a lawyer -- her husband, director of the Mostar Milk Plant. Now, he has no job and she supports a family, selling fruit and vegetables.
Croat Market Woman-
It is hard. We live hard. We used to live a nice life, but that horrible war did what it did, the economy is destroyed and without the economy there is no good life
Can this be the key to a return of that good life? A 24 million dollar rebuilding of the old bridge funded in part by the World Bank and UNESCO and overseen by both Muslim and Croat managers
Today the last stone is to be put in place.
Vox Pop -
This is a symbol of the city of Mostar. This is connection between two parts of unified city. This river not divide people but make
Q: BRING THEM TOGETHER?
A: Together.
But there is hostility to the idea and Mostars Croats are hearing it from the pulpit.
Father Ivan Stironja refused to be interviewed on camera, saying he and the bishop dont trust the media to tell the truth.
The bridge he says, is a political one which wont contribute to the common growth of Mostar or promote reconciliation the Muslims might like it he says, but it will only serve as a monument for sightseeing and will bring no benefit for Croats.
Religious tension is still very much alive here inflamed three years ago with the building of this cross, high above the city.
Father Stironja rejects claims that at 33 metres high its too imposing. He says its merely a vow made by Christians that this site will never again be a place of evil and war.
But to the Muslim population who live beneath the cross it is a brazen symbol of Croat authority.
Alija Behram General Manager Mostar Television -
Its my Mostar. Mostar before the war. Mostar in the war and Mostar after the war.
Alija Behram runs Mostar Television and Radio
on the air thanks to large amounts of US dollars it is very pro bridge and its Muslim general manager, very anti cross.
Alija Behram General Manager Mostar Television
Big cross on the mountain Hum, its provocation for the Bosniac. A cross belongs in the church, but not on a mountain, that overlooks everything.
NATO has been responsible for securing peace in Bosnia since 1995.
Today a fourteen thousand strong stabilization force continues to consolidate it. Of which, more than 4000 soldiers are based at Mostars airport.
Standing in the middle of the parade ground is the old bridge.
SFORs commanding officer, Brigadier General Gian Marco Chiarini is about to end his tour here. He departs convinced the bridge is crucial to peace.
Brigadier General Gian Marco Chiarini SFOR Commander
I give a lot of importance myself to the reconstruction of this bridge. I think it is something that is really important. We are just showing that there is a hope for the future.
Alija Behram General Manager Mostar Television -
SFOR here. Its crucial for peace. If SFOR go now, our peace is big crucial problem for us.
Q: YOUD START FIGHTING AGAIN ?
Yes Maybe.
But today is not about conflict its about celebration its diving day a tradition which has drawn the brave and foolhardy to this bridge for hundreds of years. With hope in their hearts and their hearts in their mouths,
Emir Balic is Mostars most famous bridge diver. He took the plunge more than a thousand times.
Emir Balic -
Why does one jump? It is a masculinity thing, entering the society of the courageous and brave in Mostar.
Well my jump was, I thought it lasted an eternity. It is not a jump it is a dive, because you fly three seconds from the top of the bridge until you hit the water, so you even have time to think.
Mostars new old bridge, wont lose its skirt of scaffolding until next year (2004). When it does it will become an important barometer of the fragile peace in Bosnia Hercegovina.
This crescent moon of stone is already carrying a heavy weight of expectation.