A new shopping centre opened this weekend just next to our office, so we went for an expedition at lunchtime today. I have mixed feelings. Yes it's beautiful, shiny, new and convenient. Of course I am going to go there all the time. But.... I know this is going to be an entirely predictable, middle-class ethics rant, but please, humour me.
I mean, some of the stuff in there is just fantastic. Clothes shops, electronics shops, pharmacy, all within reach of your lunchbreak. No longer do I have to trek through the snow, possibly visit two or three different shops and then carry heavy shopping bags home; now there's a really big, really attractive supermarket in the basement. If you're used to Bosnian corner shops run by grumpy old men, or of walking half a mile to get to a big supermarket before paying for a taxi home with your bags, this is a big deal. My word, it was like the first time I ever walked into Marks and Spencers Foodhall. Granite counters, varnished pine and recessed lighting! Imported wine! A take-out deli! Low and behold, untold and unknown exotica like blue cheese and - oh, wait for it - PORK! Ham, sausage, bacon! There are very few things I miss, living in a majority-Muslim city, but pork is - surprisingly - one of them.
And best of all, the shopping centre also has places to eat over there. Anyone who knew me in Dublin will know how often I b*tched about places like Dundrum Town Centre exploiting a captive market with corporate coffee chains charging extortionate prices. Today I threw off all of my principles and eagerly embraced a foodhall. Our office has only two cafés; any kind of extended choice at lunchtime is eagerly welcome.
So yeah, the shopping centre's great. But on the other hand... I walked inside, we looked around, and I thought, just like that, I'm right back in Dublin. Why do shopping centres in any and every part of the world look exactly the same? It's so... depressing.
Today it was absolute bedlam in there, you could hardly walk around for the crowds... but none of the shops were busy. The whole of Sarajevo had gone there for a walk and a look around. But no one has any money to go shopping. Most people didn't even go into the shops and pick things up and look at them. They just looked in the windows and then strolled away. The local joke is that shopping centres here need to have as many cafés as shops, because no one ever buys anything but everyone goes out for coffee.
I've written before about how there's at least a 40% unemployment rate here. Every weekday afternoon, the city centre is heaving with pedestrians, while every seat in every café is occupied by young people slowly smoking, sitting for hours with empty coffee cups before them. Today, all those people left the streets and came to the new shopping centre instead. Yes, the weather's miserable so it makes sense, and everyone wants something new to see. And going by the deserted halls of other shopping centres, I'm pretty certain that in a few days they'll all go back to strolling on the streets and drinking cheaper coffee elsewhere.
But today there was something so grim about everyone sitting around the new cafés in the shopping centre, really delighted with themselves and enjoying a day out. It reminded me of a stressful day in an Irish - American - British - Spanish - anywhere - mall, queueing, getting run over by parents with buggies, getting shouldered by people who couldn't be bothered making space for you as they passed. Ferhazdija and the old town with its pedestrianised streets and alleys are so neighbourly when everyone's out walking, the youth checking each other out, the grandparents with little kids, the middle-aged looking on, disapproving. Because they're all there every day, and most likely all do know each other. That atmosphere was dead in the shopping centre.
And yes, I know exactly that I sound patronising; coming over here and working for an international organisation and begrudging Sarajevo for getting on with what every other country deems progress. Yes, I know, I wasn't here during the war when all of this must have been an unimaginable dream. I don't begrudge it to them in the slightest, but hear me out.
During the Irish boom (oh, back in the day!), almost overnight the whole country was suddenly filled with identikit housing estates, shitty cardboard-box apartment complexes, and vast noisy shopping centres on new motorways around the cities. Very little public transport, just traffic jams outside. Every little town got a big Tesco supermarket, built of pre-fabricated glass, sitting in the middle of acres of parking. Meanwhile town centres (old, unplanned, poky, lacking parking, but hence quirky, charming and distinctively Irish) withered, while locally-owned businesses were replaced with branches of Euro2 and Eastern European food shops. And everyone was so excited about it, and so proud of it. And now where are we?
I find all that as convenient as anyone else - I remember very well having to drive an hour to Cork to do any kind of shopping for clothes, Christmas, birthdays - but I find it deeply miserable that Irish families now take their kids for a day out to shopping centres on Sunday . I totally avoid those places at the weekends because they're full of screaming, tired kids and parents who'll ruthlessly run you down with baby buggies. Actually I avoid them in general, I'd prefer to just get the bus into the city centre and soak it all up. And I know that not everyone can do that, or has the time and energy to do that. I just still don't see this as a trend to be glorified.
I just don't think of shopping centres as progress, so why on earth does Sarajevo need four of them when no one can afford to buy anything there? It can't possibly provide that much employment or income, I don't see this as marking an economic change. Please prove me wrong if you have figures that show otherwise, but the fact that this new centre is located beside two multi-story buildings filled with international organisations and multinational financial firms suggests that this new venture may not be entirely targeting the locals for it's clientèle. Apparently this new centre's been built by an American consortium; the last centre to open last year is owned by a group referred to locally - mysteriously - as "the Arabs".
There's something really quite tragic in imagining Sarajevo deserted because everyone's out in the suburbs.
Ugh. And the worst is I'm almost disgusted with myself in advance because I know I'll be making use of it all the time...
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