Qualla: Stari Most https://qualla.com/stari-most en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/s/w/stari-most-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Stari Most https://qualla.com/stari-most Stari Most: Introduction https://qualla.com/stari-most/ Photo credit Original uploader was HarunB at bs.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Mimar Hayruddin was given an impossible commission and a death sentence in the same breath: build a bridge across the Neretva gorge in Mostar wider than any human-made arch in the world, or die for the failure. According to legend, on the day the scaffolding was finally removed in 1566, Hayruddin had already prepared for his funeral. The arch held. For 427 years it would hold, linking the two halves of a city that took its very name from the bridge keepers -- the mostari -- who guarded the crossing. When Stari Most collapsed into the Neretva on 9 November 1993 under sustained shelling during the Croat-Bosniak War, something more than limestone fell. The bridge had been the physical symbol of connection between communities. Its destruction was what scholar Andras Riedlmayer called memoricide -- the killing of shared memory.

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Image: Original uploader was HarunB at bs.wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/s/w/stari-most-wp/srsw-stari-most-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Stari Most: The Sultan's Commission https://qualla.com/stari-most/ Photo credit Modzzak, CC BY-SA 4.0. Suleiman the Magnificent ordered the bridge in 1557 to replace a precarious wooden suspension structure that hung on chains over the gorge. The Ottoman geographer Katip Celebi described the old crossing bluntly: it "swayed so much that people crossing it did so in mortal fear." H...

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Image: Modzzak | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/s/w/stari-most-wp/srsw-stari-most-the-sultans-commission.mp3 0:06 2 full Stari Most: A Bridge and Its City https://qualla.com/stari-most/ Photo credit Martin Brož, CC BY 3.0. Mostar grew around the bridge, and the bridge defined Mostar. The city took its name from it. The bazaar quarter of Kujundziluk clustered at its approaches, Ottoman houses cascading down the steep banks of the Neretva on either side. The bridge connected not just geography but co...

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Image: Martin Brož | CC BY 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/s/w/stari-most-wp/srsw-stari-most-a-bridge-and-its-city.mp3 0:06 3 full Stari Most: Nine Minutes, Four Centuries Gone https://qualla.com/stari-most/ Photo credit Raphael Schön from Vienna, Austria, CC BY 2.0. During the Croat-Bosniak War, Bosniak forces used the bridge as a supply line across the Neretva -- by then the last surviving river crossing in Mostar. Croatian Defence Council forces began shelling it in June 1993. On 8 November, an HVO tank on the heights above the city starte...

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Image: Raphael Schön from Vienna, Austria | CC BY 2.0

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/s/w/stari-most-wp/srsw-stari-most-nine-minutes-four-centuries-gone.mp3 0:06 4 full Stari Most: Pulling Stones from the River https://qualla.com/stari-most/ Photo credit Litany, CC BY-SA 3.0. After the war, an international coalition formed to rebuild what had been destroyed. The World Bank, UNESCO, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and the World Monuments Fund oversaw the reconstruction, funded by Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Croatia, and the Council of Europe Devel...

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Image: Litany | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/s/w/stari-most-wp/srsw-stari-most-pulling-stones-from-the-river.mp3 0:06 5 full Stari Most: Leaping from the Arch https://qualla.com/stari-most/ Photo credit Z thomas, CC BY-SA 4.0. Today, young men dive from the bridge into the Neretva 24 meters below -- a tradition that has become a kind of secular pilgrimage. Since 2015, Stari Most has been a stop on the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, professional athletes launching themselves from the same Ottoman s...

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Image: Z thomas | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/s/w/stari-most-wp/srsw-stari-most-leaping-from-the-arch.mp3 0:06 6 full