Walking around Sarajevo today I ducked into a few churches, mosques and such. They were mainly empty (this being Wednesday afternoon), but the main mosque was quite busy.
This is a few down the street. The first Mosque is the biggest, maybe outside of the Middle East and Asia. It is call Gazi Husrev Bey's Mosque. Gazi Husrev Bay was the Ottoman governor that essentially built Sarajevo into a city with a capital C in the 1500s. He also started a library (500 years ago!) which is now one of the most valuable Islamic Libraries in the world.
I didn't take a picture inside of the Mosque because prayers were just starting and ton of school boys (say 15 - 17) were running in late, and trying to get their tennis shoes off as quick as possible. It made a hub bub at the entrance, and I didn't want people to think it was the tacky tourist.
This is the Cathedral of Jesus' Sacred Heart (as opposed, one must assume, his regular old heart). It was built in 1889 right after the Catholic Austrians took control of the region.
This is the interior (and below the exterior) of the Saborna Crvka, an Orthdoc church complete in 1872 (only 5 years before Bosnia Herzegovina fell to the Austrians). The building of this was sponsored by both the Turkish Sultan and the Russian Tsar. Russia would declare war on the Ottomans only 3 years later.
Anywho... it is beautiful. The picture above is the alter will all the Orthodox Icons. There are no pews - I think they stand through the whole service
