My mom rocks me gently in her hands. I’ve just turned one and am staring at her with my big green eyes. She watches me lovingly but occasionally throws glances at the black-and-white TV in our living room. The TV broadcast shows snow-capped mountains, the open-air stadium, and cheering spectators.
She would tell me about this moment 41 years later when I sent her a text from Sarajevo.
Walking around Bosnia’s capital, we spotted a bar sign with a smiling, cartoonish wolf in a flowing winter scarf. I ask Julia if she knows who that is, and she doesn’t. I am not entirely sure myself, but given the cartoon style, I think I might know the answer. A quick online search confirms my hunch.
Vučko. A friendly wolf who lives in the Dynaric Alps - the official mascot of the 1984 Winter Olympic Games.
It is impossible to visit Sarajevo without learning about the Winter Games. The event was an important chapter in the city’s history, and the spotlight that the city (and Yugoslavia, for that matter) needed.
Sarajevo was awarded the Games in 1978 when things were still going strong for Yugoslavia. Tito was still alive (he would die two years later) and was holding the country intact. Ethnic conflicts hadn’t yet boiled over, and the economic collapse wasn’t looming. The necessary infrastructure for the Games was built and renovated; Vučko was drawn and won the national selection contest; the future looked promising.
And then for 11 days in February 1984, the city captivated the world’s attention with top athletes competing for Olympic gold on the slopes of Jahorina and Bjelašnica, and at other venues around the city. The Games - the first Winter Games in a Socialist country - were a success.
In our travels, we often visit former Olympic host cities. What happens to Olympic venues once the cauldron is extinguished and athletes depart is always an interesting topic. They can be turned into museums (like parts of Montreal’s Olympic Park), repurposed (Atlanta’s Olympic stadium-turned into a baseball park), or even fall into disrepair (Tallinn’s Linnahall used for the 1980 Moscow Olympics sailing events). But in Sarajevo, the former Olympic venues tell a profoundly sad story.
The reason is the Bosnian War that broke out eight years after the Games.
On our second day in Sarajevo, we walked from our Airbnb to the neighborhood of Koševo to see the Olympic Stadium that hosted the Games’ opening ceremony.
Strolling through Sarajevo’s residential neighborhoods, we saw a typical Bosnian sight: pockmarked buildings displaying damage from heavy artillery shelling. These war scars in Bosnian cities are so widespread that in many instances, they are not fixed even 30 years after the war. As we approached the stadium, we passed a solemn reminder - a wartime cemetery. Like with so many cemeteries in Bosnia, the white headstones had 1992, 1993, 1994, or 1995 written on them. Even if you knew absolutely nothing about Bosnia’s recent history, you could probably piece things together by just walking through the area.
Crossing the street from the cemetery to the Olympic Stadium, we passed by the former Zetra Hall that hosted Olympic hockey, figure skating, and ice-skating competitions, and where the Games closed. The building is now intact, but it was also badly damaged during the war.
There are no organized tours or Games-related exhibitions at the Olympic Stadium. But that evening, it hosted a game of the Bosnian top-tier football league, and we joined the local fans and cheered on FC Sarajevo. The stadium was neglected during the war and is now in a state of sad decay, begging for a major facelift. Though there isn’t much to see inside, it was special just to be there. This is where nations paraded on the Games’ opening night and where the cauldron was lit. This is the stadium that my mom saw on TV in 1984, while on maternity leave with me.
Being inside the stadium also gave us a compelling view of the city surrounded by mountains and hills. From these high vantage points, Bosnian Serbs rained terror on the residents of Sarajevo trapped in the valley during the Siege of Sarajevo. For nearly four years, heavy artillery pummeled the city, while snipers aimed at the locals as if they were not people but targets in some twisted wartime biathlon competition. “If you see the hill, the hill sees you” was not only the local saying. It was a fact of life. The hills are now peaceful, but the collective memory of the traumatic events still lingers.
As the football game unfolded, in the distance we could see a cable car going up the mountain to (probably) the world’s most famous abandoned Olympic venue. And that’s where we went the next day.
Trebević Mountain dramatically towers over Sarajevo. In 1984, Olympic spectators could stroll the historic neighborhood of Baščaršija, sip strong Bosnian coffee, and then get whisked to the top of the mountain in a cable car to cheer on competitors at the newly constructed luge and bobsled track.
Visiting the track 41 years later was a very different experience.
During the war, Bosnian Serbs held artillery positions at Trebević Mountain, from which they regularly attacked the city below. The bobsled track - right in the middle of the Serbian positions - was a legitimate military target and was eventually destroyed as a result of the fighting. After the war, it was abandoned and fell into further disrepair.
Now Trebević Mountain is a haunting place with fresh mountain air, pine trees, and remains of the bobsled track covered in graffiti. We took a cable car to the top of the mountain and then scrambled along the route, hiking through this decomposing former Olympic site.
We didn’t have time to visit the abandoned ski jump at Igman Mountain. But from what we understand, like the bobsled track, it too is deserted and rotting – the skeletal towers of the ski jump reach for the sky as two solemn cenotaphs to both the Games and Yugoslavia.
But it is not all doom and gloom. What we found uplifting is that despite neglect and decay of the former Olympic sites, the Games are still a source of local pride and a sign of hope for better things to come. Vučko smiles at you from bar signs and souvenirs: T-shirts, posters, and mugs. The Bjelašnica ski resort attracts visitors and even hosts alpine skiing and snowboarding competitions. And who knows, maybe one day, we will turn on our TVs to see another Olympic broadcast from Sarajevo.
