Travel Guide Goražde

Goražde/Горажде (pronounced "goragedé") has a population of about 11,000, of which 94% are Bosniaks. It is the capital of the municipality of Goražde (population 20,000) and the canton of Bosnian Podrinje (population 23,000), in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The town is 32 km northwest of Montenegro (Metaljka border crossing), 33 km northeast of Foča, 39 km southwest of Višegrad, 76 km southeast of Sarajevo(via Pale) and 151 km southwest of Srebrenica. Bus connections: see bus station.A Bosnian enclave in a now predominantly Bosnian-Serb region, this small industrial city has little of interest, except for its location on a wide and beautiful meander of the Drina. The city still bears the scars of the war. In addition to the numerous buildings riddled with bullet holes and shells, Goražde is an isolated town. Since 1995, it is attached by a corridor to the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Yet it has become the second economic lung of eastern Bosnia, after Tuzla, attracting hundreds of Bosnian-Serb workers from Foča and Višegrad every day. Relatively prosperous, the city is known to comic book fans thanks to the album Safe Area Goražde (2000) by Maltese cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco. Published in French under the title Goražde: la guerre en Bosnie orientale, 1993-1995, this major work is a model in the genre of "reportage in comics. It is one of the works that best conveys the horror and complexity of the conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina.