Sarajevo Shopping

there are many small booths or shops in the old town selling traditional ottoman or bosniak crafts. hookah pipes, religious artefacts, miniature mosques........its all there and makes a fantastic souvenir of this wonderful and strange place.

What to buy: water pipe? arabic artefacts, turkish calligraphy

Bezistan
If you have been to Istanbul`s bazaar complex, you`ll recognise the spacious Ottoman architecture of this beautifully restored covered market that was built by Gazi Husrev-beg in 1555. There are a lot of arts and crafts as well as gold and silver stores to be found here.

Interesting to know, Gazi Husrev-Beg (1480-1541) was a Bosniak beg in the Ottoman Empire during the first half of the 16th century. He was an effective military strategist, and the greatest donor and builder of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He was born in Serres, Greece, to a Bosniak father and a Turkish mother, who was the daughter of the Sultan. Thus, Gazi Husrev-Beg was Sultan Beyazid II's grandson. A brilliant strategist and politician, in 1521 he became the governor of the Ottoman province of Bosnia.

This is a long street connecting M Tita avenue and bASCARSIJA. You can find a lot of internationa brands here such as ms selfridge, Benneton, gerry weber etc.

From TIMES on Line:
Ferhadija, the city?s pedestrianised main street, has a huge number of pavement caf?s, where chic young Sarajevans drink coffee and eat ice-cream in the afternoon sun and old men gather around a giant communal chess set in the leafy shade of a public square. The city?s nightlife, centred here, is acquiring a Europe-wide reputation.

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There are small craft shops all over Bascarsija, I could not possibly write tips about all of them. Thus I have placed 5 pictures here and 8 in a TL.

In addition to the crafts shops you find clothes and food stores, too.

What to buy: Silver. gold and other metal works, filigran, intarzia, knitted and wowen products.

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It is a very nice old building. As far as I remember a Hamam (local historical bath) was transformed into a small shopping mall. You should go in there, especially when you are cold. It is like a warm heaven in the center of the cold weather :)

Find the STR Audio-Video CD Club in the shoppin mall. The owner speaks fluently English and there is variety of music and stuff there.

What to buy: You can find music, clothes, books, jewelry :)

Balkan Region is famous with its delicious meat. By coincidence, while rushing from one meeting to the other, we discovered this place. It is in the Center of the city near the old town. We bought wonderful dried meat. Althoug I finished it long ago, the taste is still there. Eat the dried meat with great local alcohol. (local raki)

What to buy: All sort of meat stuff, cheese, butter etc.

What to pay: Very very reasonable compared to my country. We have pastirma in Turkey which is dried meat as well. The driet meat in Bosnia is nearly the 1/3 price of our pastirma.

This Bazar offers a large variety of gold and silver jewelry. The prices seem to be o.k.. ,perhaps little cheaper than back home. I bought a birthday present for my sister in law, and I think I had a fear deal.

Bascarsija is the pace where you can find a great giffts or suveniers. The shops are selling goods hand made from copper, wood, silk etc It is not the cheapest place in the world but it is not that bad eather.