.. and where is that, exactly?
People usually ask when I tell them about Banja Luka. So now that I’m almost back to Germany here’s a bit more detail about my city.
Banja Luka is the capital of the Republic of Srpska, which covers 49% of the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The remaining 51% are called the Federation and are comprised of 10 (?) Kantons with either a muslim or a catholic (=Croatian) majority. So there is a government (ministers, parliament and all the rest) for both RS (Република Српска) and the Federation as well as all the Kantons. Also there is one for all of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of course. Which amounts to quite a number of people working on some kind of government job.
The population has reached about 250.000 by now, increasing significantly after the war since a number of refugees moved there. Refugees? Mainly Serbians whose former homes are now in Croatia or the federation. Some have lost their houses to unnatural fire, too.
Today Banja Luka is a very lifely, young city. Many students live there since it is the only remarkable university in RS. Young by another means, too: In 196x, the city was hit by two major earthquakes and most of the buildings got destroyed. Being located in the at least somewhat socialist Yugoslavia I was surprised to see a quite low number of Plattenbauten, those ugly skyscrapers that were to provide standard boxed-housing to the workers of most eastern European cities.
There are numerous clubs, but especially an uncountable number of cafés: About 3 at every corner and the same number between those corners. They are also frequently visited by the locals, not to say, all the time. Everyone will always go for a coffee with you. I love that. Costing 1KM virtually everywhere it is nothing to regret financially, too.
When I came to the city I was wondering how people react to foreingers there. Actually, they react just like most people would react in Bremen, Berlin or Graz. You are nothing special, and it is not only exchange students (about 40 of them are coming through IAESTE every year) who live there.
Pictures are availabe at the Gallery as usual, but haven’t been linked from the blog until now. I just spend several hours trying to get WPG2 and lightbox to work together but had to give up for now. Unfortunately the ImageBlock module returns either thumbnails or fullsize images – but I need the 640×480 *grml*. And I feel unable to dig deeper into Gallery and extend that module for now …
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