ÉGLISE SAINT-SAVA DE DRVAR

This Serbian Orthodox church (Crkva Svetog Save/Црква Светог Саве) is not of architectural interest. On the other hand, from here you can glimpse the eventful history of the city. Neo-Byzantine style, the building was erected in 1939 and burned twice: by the Ustasha in 1941, and then by the Bosnian-Croat army in 1995. Restored in 2006, it is the main place of worship of the Bosnian-Serb community of Drvar, but it does not house any frescoes. Just next door, a large orange building, a former social center from the 1930s, has served as a temporary Catholic church since 2003. The last real Catholic church was razed during the 1941 Serbian uprising against the Ustasha. Since then, the local authorities (socialists yesterday, Bosnian-Serbs today) refuse to grant a building permit for a new place of worship for the Bosnian-Croat community. Finally, on the other side of the road, a staircase climbs the small hill of the city park. A monument was erected at the top in 1967 in memory of the partisans who died in May 1944, when the Germans tried to capture Tito. But it too was destroyed by the Bosnian-Croat army in 1995. There is still rubble with inscriptions in honor of the partisans and, a little further on, a memorial wall covered with graffiti. There are also ruins throughout the municipality. Most of them are former houses of Bosnian-Croat inhabitants who fled the city after riots in 1998.