Today’s Enlightening Entertainment will be presented in Bosnian, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Thai.

Greetings, good-hearted viewers! Welcome to Enlightening Entertainment. Today, let us go to Bosnia and Herzegovina, a beautiful country located in southeast Europe on the Balkan peninsula. Formally a part of Yugoslavia, the country gained its independence in 1992, with Bosniak, Serb and Croat as the three main ethnic groups.

The region is a cradle to one of the most ancient civilizations. Its magnificent sceneries, rich culture and friendly people have attracted so many visitors from all over the world. We are honored to meet Her Excellency Biljana Gutic-Bjelica, Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Ottawa, Canada. She shared with us about natural and cultural heritage of the country.

The whole Bosnia-Herzegovina is a very beautiful country. It is a heart-shaped country, (Yes.) in the Balkans, and it’s in the center of the former Yugoslavia Republics, and in the centre of the Balkans itself. We have mountains, beautiful ones. We have the sea, the coast. We have many beautiful rivers, and I know that all the foreigners that come as a tourist, on business trip, whatever, they come to Bosnia-Herzegovina. they stay pulled by the rivers.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has always been at a crossroads. This has helped to create a rich history of contributions by many cultures.

Each child in Bosnia-Herzegovina knows how the mosque looks like, how the synagogue looks like, and the churches – either Catholic or Orthodox churches – look like. They can even recognize the sounds that come from different worship places. We are an Olympic country. If you know the Olympic Winter Games, the 14th in 1984, were in Bosnia-Herzegovina. So all our mountains surrounding Sarajevo as a capital, are Olympic mountains. And our rivers are so beautiful.

One of them was called “Una” by Romans. When they came, and saw the beauty of the river, they said, “This is Una,” meaning in Latin “the Only One.” And that is the name of my daughter, and that is very familiar and common name among the female children in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Nature’s beauty permeates all across Bosnia and Herzegovina. The beauty of the Una River is indescribable, and the famous waterfalls of Strbacki Buk are magnificent. The Neretva River was compared by famous Arthur Evans to a peacock’s glorious feathers, showing all the colors of the rainbow fluttering in the breeze.

Along the banks of the Drina River, known and unknown writers, poets, artists, and travel writers marveled. There are also the Tara, Krivaja, Vrbas, and Sana rivers whose beauty has been portrayed in many paintings. Bosnia and Herzegovina also has many lakes and a wealth of waterfalls.

There’s some beautiful waterfalls.

Yes, yes, in Jajce, which is applying to be also enlisted in United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage list. And we have two beautiful bridges, “Old Bridge” in Mostar, and “Mehmed Pasa Sokolovic Bridge” in Visegrad, both listed in the World Heritage List of UNESCO. And it means that Bosnia-Herzegovina is a country of beautiful, beautiful landscapes, and bridges that symbolically connect people, do not divide them by rivers, but connect people, different religions, different cultures, languages, traditions and so on.

I understand even eco-tourism is becoming quite popular?

Yes, yes, very popular. We have many very nice villages, intact villages where only our asphalt roads are the signs of modern city living. The beautiful nature, beautiful landscapes… and I think that all the people that go to Bosnia and Herzegovina will take with them beautiful memories of their time spent there.

A lot of forests too, I hear?

Yes, lots of forests. We actually have the only forest of that kind in Europe, it is called Perućica.

Perućica is one of the last remaining primeval forests of Europe, that is, an old-growth forest with very old trees. One of the trees is the tallest measured Norway Spruce tree, reaching a height of 63 meters! Perućica is part of the Sutjeska National Park, and unless accompanied by park rangers, people are usually unable to enter due to its dense verdant foliage.

It’s an undisturbed forest?

Yes, yes, that’s a virgin forest. It’s so thick that it is very easy to get lost. So only experts and scientists are allowed to go there and explore it.

Beautiful. (Yes.)

When we return, we’ll find out more about the cultural and spiritual beauty of Bosnia and Herzogovina, with Her Excellency Biljana Gutic-Bjelica, Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Ottawa, Canada. We will be right back. Please stay tuned with Supreme Master Television.

Thank you for joining us again on today’s Enlightening Entertainment, featuring the glorious Bosnia and Herzegovina. Her Excellency Biljana Gutic-Bjelica, Ambassador of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in Ottawa, Canada, shares with us highlights of her country’s food and music culture.

Many salads, many meals made of cabbage and carrots and different kinds of preparing of potato, it is very common in our cuisine. And of course, Mediterranean food because Bosnia-Herzegovina has two kinds of climate, it’s Mediterranean in the southern part and it’s Continental in the northern part of the country.

So many, many meals that usually are, let’s say, eaten in those Mediterranean countries, especially in Croatia, which is our immediate neighbor, and on the coastline of Croatia, is also eaten in the southern part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

And I understand here you’ve quite a reputation for coffee as well?

Yes, coffee as well. We have a very interesting proverb. Whenever you are invited for coffee, don’t ever say, “I do not drink coffee,” because people are not inviting you to have coffee, they are inviting you to have chat and some leisure time.

During the day coffee is drunk for two or three hours, maybe even longer if we have time and themes to discuss. It is a favorite Bosnian and Herzegovinian leisure time, time to spend with your friends, your family.

Bosnia-Herzegovina is a country of many ethnic groups, including Serbs, Bosniaks and Croats, and smaller groups such as Jews and Roma people. Each adds their own traditions, folklore, and music.

So-called ethnic instruments are maybe Gusle, Sargija, Flula, those are mainly string instruments, but really characteristic for that part of Europe. And I think that some of them are not to be found anywhere else. And our folklore, meaning traditional dance, folk dance, is very popular. And I know that even in Canada, our diaspora, which is very huge and numerous, has their own cultural associations that are fostering the cultural tradition of the people that they originally come from.

There was one dance in particular?

Yes, in our language it is “Nijemo kolo.” Translation in English could be “mute dance,” where there’s no music but the rhythm for players is given by thumping your feet on the ground. And it also is intended to be enlisted for an UNESCO list as a unique dance of that kind in the world.

Many great and creative minds have graced this nation. Ambassador Biljana Gutic-Bjelica mentions a few of her heroes.

Nikola Tesla, a famous, famous scientist, who actually was born not in Bosnia and Herzegovina; he’s a Serb from Croatia. And we all learned about him, his life, and his achievements in science. And he’s famous for Canada as well, you know, the Niagara Falls. He had experiments there and many of his famous achievements and um experiments and technical things that he made were installed at the Niagara Falls at this hydro plant. And he had really a great mind that could influence any child of that time, because we read a lot about him and we were very proud of him.

Ivo Andrić was praised with the Nobel Prize in 1961 for his novel in Bosnian. And in the languages of our country, it is “Na Drini cuprija.” In English, it is “The Bridge over the Drina River.” And that is the very bridge that was enlisted on the UNESCO World Heritage List. That is the bridge in Višegrad, Mehmed-Paša Sokolović bridge, and very famous for his architecture.

And that part of Bosnia-Herzegovina has always been very interesting to historians and to novelists as well. It is a remarkable novel. The whole environment that we lived in and the whole curricula at school really gave us some ideas of noble lives and noble achievements in life. So myself and my friends we all were inspired by them.

Next, in describing the characteristics of the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ambassador Biljana Gutic-Bjelica said the following:

We are famous for our humor, and it is a capability to make a joke from any, absolutely any situation in life, no matter how sad it is. But it’s so, so clever a way of making jokes that many foreigners are sometime surprised. The spirit of people, this, this funny side of each of us still is very alive. People who live in Bosnian-Herzegovina are very famous for its humor.

I didn’t know that, that is actually lovely.

It really is the characteristic that I admire at my co-citizens.

The different groups of religious believers of Bosnia and Herzegovina have always kept a strong faith in God.

Bosnian-Herzegovina’s history has always been very much influenced by religion. Two major religions that are practiced in Bosnia-Herzegovina: That is Islam by Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina called Bosniacs, [and] it is Christianity, both Catholic and Orthodox. The Catholicism is practiced by Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Croatian people. And the Orthodox Christianity is practiced by Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

And there’s also Judaism and some other religions. People of Bosnia-Herzegovina, they are very spiritual. The spirituality of people, their need to believe in God, to practice their religion, to keep the traditional customs that are particular for Bosnia-Herzegovina for each of the religions, that is being practiced there, it always has been very important to people and it is still.

Thank you, Your Excellency Biljana Gutic-Bjelica, for opening our eyes and hearts to the lovely land and spirited people of Bosnia and Herzegovina. May your jewel of a country and co-citizens continue to live in happiness, prosperity, and peace.

It was a pleasure having your company today on your company today on Enlightening Entertainment. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television for Words of Wisdom, up next after Noteworthy News. May your life be blessed with joy and harmony.