Stari Most (Serbo-Croatian: Stari most, Стари мост, lit. 'Old Bridge'), also known as Mostar Bridge, is a rebuilt 16th-century Ottoman bridge in the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It crosses the river Neretva and connects the two parts of the city, which is named after the bridge keepers (mostari) who guarded the Stari Most during the Ottoman era.[1] On 9 November 1993, Stari Most collapsed due to shelling by the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), since the bridge was a military target as the opposing Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina used it as a military supply line during the Croat–Bosniak War. Subsequently, a project was set in motion to reconstruct it; the rebuilt bridge opened on 23 July 2004. In 2017, the appeal court deemed that destruction was legal and that the bridge was a legitimate military target.
The bridge spans the Neretva River in the old town of Mostar, the unofficial capital of Herzegovina. The Stari Most is hump-backed, 4 metres (13 ft 1 in) wide and 30 metres (98 ft 5 in) long, and dominates the river from a height of 24 m (78 ft 9 in). Two fortified towers protect it: the Halebija tower on the northeast and the Tara tower on the southwest, called "the bridge keepers" (natively mostari).[2]
Instead of foundations, the bridge has abutments of limestone linked to wing walls along the waterside cliffs. Measuring from the summer water level of 40.05 m (131 ft 5 in), abutments are erected to a height of 6.53 metres (21 ft 5 in), from which the arch springs to its high point. The start of the arch is emphasized by a molding 0.32 metres (1 ft 1 in) in height. The rise of the arch is 12.02 metres (39 ft 5 in).[2]
As Mostar's economic and administrative importance grew with the growing presence of Ottoman rule, the precarious wooden suspension bridge over the Neretva gorge required replacement. The old bridge on the river "...was made of wood and hung on chains," wrote the Ottoman geographer Katip Çelebi, and it "...swayed so much that people crossing it did so in mortal fear".[citation needed] In 1566, Mimar Hayruddin designed the replacement bridge, which was said to have cost 300,000 Drams (silver coins) to build. The two-year construction project was supervised by Karagoz Mehmet Bey, Sultan Suleiman's son-in-law and the patron of Mostar's most important mosque complex, the Hadzi Mehmed Karadzozbeg Mosque.[citation needed]
Construction began in 1557 and took nine years: according to the inscription the bridge was completed in 974 AH, corresponding to the period between 19 July 1566 [1] and 7 July 1567. Little is known of the construction of the bridge, thought to have been made from mortar made with egg whites,[7] and all that has been preserved in writing are memories and legends and the name of the builder, Mimar Hayruddin. Charged under pain of death to construct a bridge of such unprecedented dimensions, Hayruddin reportedly prepared for his own funeral on the day the scaffolding was finally removed from the completed structure. Upon its completion it was the widest human-made arch in the world.[citation needed]
The 17th Century Ottoman explorer Evliya Çelebi wrote that the bridge "is like a rainbow arch soaring up to the skies, extending from one cliff to the other... I, a poor and miserable slave of Allah, have passed through 16 countries, but I have never seen such a high bridge. It is thrown from rock to rock as high as the sky."[8]
Destruction
The temporary cable bridge in 1997
During the Croat–Bosniak War, the Bosniak Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina used the Old Bridge as a military supply line into besieged Bosniaks on the west bank.[9][10]Slobodan Praljak, the commander of the Croat Defence Council ordered the destruction of the bridge which collapsed on 9 November 1993 as a result of shelling by the Bosnian Croat forces. The ICTY Trial Chamber in its judgment from 2013 stated that the bridge was a military target, but its destruction was "disproportionate to the military gains achieved", hence it was an illegal act of a "war crime and a crime against humanity", adding it was “an underlying act of persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds as a crime against humanity and unlawful infliction of terror on civilians as a violation of the laws and customs of war “. In 2017, in appeal of the first judgement, court revised its rule, deeming that destruction was legal if the bridge was considered a military target. One of three judges, Fausto Pocar, contested this appeal ruling in his dissenting opinion, stating that he was surprised that his colleagues had ignored the Hague Convention of 1954 (the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict), especially its Article 4, paragraph 2.[11][9]
The first temporary bridge on the traces of the Old Bridge was opened on 30 December 1993; built in only three days by Spanish military engineers assigned to the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) mission.[12][13][14] The temporary structure was subsequently upgraded three times, to eventually link the shores with a more secure cable-stayed bridge until the proper reconstruction of the Old Bridge.[15][14]
Newspapers based in Sarajevo reported that more than 60 shells hit the bridge before it collapsed.[16] Croatian General and sentenced war-criminal, Slobodan Praljak, in attempt to absolve himself and his military units from responsibility and prosecution for the destruction of the bridge and other crimes committed during the war, published a document, "How the Old Bridge Was Destroyed", where he argues that there was supposedly an explosive charge or mine placed at the centre of the bridge underneath and detonated remotely, in addition to the shelling, which caused the collapse. Most historians dismiss these claims, and disagree with their conclusions.[17]
After the destruction of the Stari Most, a spokesman for the Croats said that they deliberately destroyed it, because it was of strategic importance.[18] Academics have argued that the bridge held little strategic value and that its shelling was an example of deliberate cultural property destruction. Given that mosques, synagogues, and churches in Mostar were in proximity, the Old Bridge was targeted for the symbolic significance it served in connecting diverse communities.[19]Andras Riedlmayer terms the destruction an act of "killing memory", in which evidence of a shared cultural heritage and peaceful co-existence were deliberately destroyed.[16]
The bridge was re-built in two phases: the first one being led by Hungarian army engineers, consisting in the lifting of submerged material for its repurpose; and the second one being the removal of the temporary bridge, task assigned to Spanish army engineers, and the reconstruction of the Old Bridge with Ottoman construction techniques by a partnership of civil engineering companies led by the Turkish Er-Bu.[21][22][23] Tenelia, a fine-grained limestone, sourced from local quarries was used and Hungarian army divers recovered stones from the original bridge from the river below, although most were too damaged to reuse.[20][19][21]
Reconstruction commenced on 7 June 2001. The reconstructed bridge was inaugurated on 23 July 2004, with the cost estimated to be 15.5 million US dollars.[20][2][12]
Stari Most in 2019
Diving
Video of a dive
Stari Most diving is a traditional annual competition in diving organized every year in mid summer (end of July). It is traditional for the young men of the town to leap from the bridge into the Neretva. As the Neretva is very cold, this is a risky feat and requires skill and training,[24] though according to TripAdvisor, tourists do dive as well.[25] In 1968 a formal diving competition was inaugurated and held every summer. The first person to jump from the bridge since it was re-opened was Enej Kelecija.[26]
^Jezernik, Božidar (1995). "Qudret Kemeri: A Bridge between Barbarity and Civilization". The Slavonic and East European Review. 73 (95): 470–484. JSTOR4211861.
^ abTaylor, David; Hannoun, Lionel; Molland, Halvor; Lehmann, Cristophe; Guner, Ender (7 May 2003). "The Old Mostar Bridge Project". SFOR Informer. NATO. 18, 19, 20, 23, 67. Archived from the original on 1 March 2021. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
