Bosnia’s Brigadoon

Ever since we got to Bosnia (and even before) we heard about this mystical-sounding highland village called Lukomir. It is the highest and most isolated village in Bosnia, inaccessible most of the year because of deep snow.

People talk about the “toothless old ladies who will try to cheat you” (that’s our friend Hawley) as they sell tourists their wool sweaters and socks, supposedly made from wool that they still spin with a drop spindle. Guidebooks say the people there wear the old-style Bosnian clothing and live pretty much as they have for centuries.

Bill heading toward the peak

Because it is so inaccessible, Lukomir was spared during the war. Other villages were burned, but Lukomir was left alone. (We were told that the residents were pretty upset after the war during reconstruction when the other villages got all new buildings and they were left with the old ones!)

 We’ve been bugging Fikret to plan a hike there since we arrived three months ago. There was too much snow earlier, but now it’s melted so last Sunday 8 hikers (including us) climbed some 4 hours up and down valleys and peaks toward the high village. (There is a rough and hard-to-find road to the village now that is passable for cars, but what fun would that be?) The hike was stupendous – wildflowers everywhere, the ubiquitous clear drinkable water spurting from hills, views of all of Bosnia from the top of Mt. Obalj (6220 ft.).

Pretty, pretty hike. Buzz-off shirt for a few mosquitoes.

 From the peak, we could also look down and see – gasp – Lukomir! Dots of little buildings shimmering in the sunshine on a flat plateau with sheer drops on three sides and mountains for a backdrop. Fikret pointed to “the downtown”: a water spout, a red truck and a cow. 

We're coming, we're coming! Get ready, Lukomir!

 We walked down, down, down 1400 feet along cow tracks to the village. “I feel,” Bill said, “like we are approaching the Holy Grail.” We joked about whether the residents could see us coming and were running to get into their traditional garb, setting up sock stands and preparing coffee.

And then we were there. A couple big stecci (medieval  gravestones)  lined the path, and pretty quickly we met an old lady carrying – yes! – knitting needles and a half-made sock. I was hoping to buy yarn and then make a hat using the Bosnian motif designs I’ve been collecting. So I pointed to the loop of yarn I had tied on my wrist (obviously I don’t know the word for yarn) and one of the old ladies seemed to say, “Of course.” Then we saw another old lady – yes, again! – also knitting socks. And another sitting in the doorway of her hut wearing a strange-looking ducat on her forehead – double yes! This obviously was the real thing. She asked for 1 KM (convertible mark, about 70 cents) for taking her picture, but her family was killed in the war, etc. and jeez, why not? We were in Lukomir!

She's carrying her knitting!

After coffee at the mountain hut run by an actual young person, we looked for the yarn, but unfortunately, the old lady only wanted to sell socks. So we bought them – yes, Hawley, we got cheated but it was Lukomir! Who cares? (The socks are very intricate, almost a bit too much so, says my skeptical nature. I mean she was carrying white yarn and knitting a plain sock, and they do sell these intricate ones in the Old Town in Sarajevo...)

Home sweet home, Lukomir style

And then we left. Four old ladies in faded sweatpants and traditional scarves, a few decrepit if picturesque old huts (some sporting the old vertical cherry-wood shingles), one young man running the coffee place for his mother (and he looked pretty much like he would be running home to Sarajevo that night). The cow.  That was it. Pretty darn quiet in Brigadoon.

We hiked down along the top of the canyon through a pretty valley of yellow buttercups and anemones, a stream meandering quietly through it all. And another 2 and a half hours to drinks at another hut and home.

Were we disappointed? Oh, no. The hike was wonderful, the day lovely, the company interesting. And Lukomir? Does it really exist?

See Fikret’s pictures of the hike. 

 

One of the residents watching the sock-selling process