Prijedor // Laughing with a Mouth of Blood
© John Bills
Magnet and steel. Prijedor and the rain go together like magnet and steel. You can take that however you like, as a positive, a negative, whatever. This is your story. I am a bit-part player in my own life. The second most important John Bills.
Such phrases are remarkably easy to commit to, although they might be a subtle way of waving away laziness. It was raining when I arrived in Prijedor, not enough to stop all activity but enough to make it mildly irritating. I walked from the bus station to the apartment, checked in, and fell asleep. The bed cover was very pink. This is irrelevant.
Why the mundane introduction, chap? Are we taking a day off from aimless questions and half-baked ideas? Well, yes and no. Trying to get lost in your thoughts is exhausting, but this is more a case of skirting around an issue than anything else. I want to write about Prijedor, but how can I write about Prijedor? What right do I have? The elephant in the room has been on the to-do list several times, but there is a difference between planning and performing.
Prijedor was first mentioned in the report of an Austrian field marshal following several attacks his army made on Ottoman border spots. It was a wooden fort, loosely referred to as Palanka Praedor, although differing stories exist behind the name. ‘Prodor’ means breakthrough, in this case, the breakthrough of the Sana river. For a more whimsical explanation, you can go with the ‘prije dore’ explanation, this of a race between man and horse that the biped somehow managed to win. It doesn’t matter if it is a true story. History only remembers the winners.
No, that isn’t a joke.
© John Bills
History isn’t exactly tangible in Prijedor. When the first railroad on Bosnian territory was built (1873), it passed near Prijedor. A massive fire in 1882 burnt everything down. A trade centre developed, but nothing spectacular. The Austrians were responsible for the first town-planning scheme, detailed in 1901. Then, the 20th century and the scramble for synonyms. My very own filibuster.
Rain, rain, rain. Drizzle. In 2016, the Pembrokeshire village of Elgwyswrw had 85 consecutive days of rain. No Welshman has ever been disrupted by rain, so I headed out into the streets of Prijedor in search of a city essence that I could latch onto for a thousand or so words. More specifically, I headed out in search of coffee, although that isn’t so hard to find in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thanks, Preduzeće. If you want to be specific in the most honest definition of the term, I headed out in search of murals.
What happens if you put an Italian plumber in Prijedor? John, don’t even try and pretend to be able to shoehorn Mario references at will. Sonic and Tails, 4 lyf. Prijedor is home to some of the finest murals in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and this isn’t just an attempt to jazz up bare concrete. The city is linked to art. Prijedor is the birthplace of Todor Švrakić, a turn-of-the-century watercolourist who was one of the first academically trained painters from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Another Prijedor-born boy in that group was Pero Popović, who together with Todor (and Branko Radulović), helped organise the first exhibition of local painters in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Prijedor has a history of painting. The murals are a doff of the cap in that direction.
© John Bills
Gejm On (Ljubiša Pušac) is the first mural that catches the eye, a colourful rendering of Super Mario and the Mushroom Kingdom stretched across an apartment building. Grad is nearby, a somewhat psychedelic piece by the Dim Tim collaborative group. A short walk into the pedestrian zone and the colour Vrt (Garden) takes over. Produced by Saddo (Raul Oprea), it might be my favourite of the murals.
There are more, from Nataša Konjević’s The Hatter to Vidam’s Transformacija, and one can only hope that the bare walls of Prijedor’s centre continue to brighten through creativity. It makes all the sense in the world, right? Why allow neglect and blight to reign when you can encourage and support creativity and beauty? Somewhere in this is an intricate stripping down of political greed and the avarice of those tasked with leading us.
There is a difference between planning and performing.
Sometimes, performing isn’t even enough. The murals are the latest iteration of Prijedor’s fascination with art, but that fascination doesn’t begin with the brush and end with the canvas. There are beautiful buildings in Prijedor. Stunning buildings. If we are judging by architecture, I would argue that Prijedor is one of the most beautiful towns in BiH.
The problem is that most of these beautiful buildings are dead. Abandoned. Neglected. The scramble for synonyms. Flea markets are inherently sad because they are filled with once-loved items worthy only of discount discarding. The beautiful buildings of Prijedor don’t get new owners. They get the rust, the ruin.
© John Bills
The Radetić Tower is maybe the best example. Most visitors to Prijedor have the same reaction upon seeing it. “Oh, what is that? What was that building used for?” Well, here are your answers. It was built by Count Wilhelm von Reitz between 1883 and 1885, although the grandeur of his name suggests he didn’t exactly get his hands dirty. He was a wealthy guy, leave it at that. The building is a homage to Neoclassicism with dashes of Romance, although the dashes are long destroyed. Von Reitz frequently argued with the family of Mile Radetić, a merchant from the town, about who had the tallest house. You know, important stuff. It didn’t really matter (of course, it didn’t matter), as Von Reitz was leaving Prijedor. His tower went up for sale and was eventually bought by a friend of Radetić, who passed it to Von Reitz’s great rival.
Not that it matters today. The building is unoccupied. Beautiful, but much of the beauty comes from imaginative recollection. The same can be said of the nearby Mladen Stojanović Cultural Centre. The same can be said for many buildings in Prijedor. The same can be said for Prijedor.
By the morning, the rain had become snow. Everything can always get worse. Hopes become haunts. Adoration becomes abandonment. At first, it is dark, and then it is light, and then it is dark again.
