Among the historical and cultural tourist attractions that visitors can see in Sarajevo is a small shop where Muamer Mujcic sells his tiny models of traditional Bosnian houses, keeping this way a part of Bosnia’s heritage alive.
Dozens of small hand-crafted houses are displayed in the ‘Bosanska bajka’ (Bosnian fairytale) shop. Mujcic builds them himself.
He told N1 that his goal is, apart from running a business, to show this part of Bosnia’s tradition to local youth and tourists, who keep visiting the Bosnian capital in larger and larger numbers every year.
“The goal is to show how people lived before and how we had a comfortable life, how families in Bosnian houses lived and what life was like back then,” Mujcic said, describing that life as “slower, and therefore nicer.”
He said that how long it takes for him to build such a little house depends on what kind of model he is building, but also on his mood and level of inspiration. The wood is put together in the workshop, and then the model is painted and details are added.
“It could last for two, three, five days, some models aren’t even finished within a month,” he said.
Tourists from China are especially interested in the models, Mujcic said.
“The visitors find it interesting and they are satisfied. Above all, because it is something different, it is handcrafted and traditional,” he said.
For him, the traditional Bosnian house represents a symbol for family.
“We hear a lot about family and about how it should be made a priority again. That was the priority in the Bosnian house,” he said. “That is where births, lives and deaths took place. Children played, people flirted. That is the basic thing in our Bosnian culture and tradition.”
