It’s easy to photograph the stone houses and dramatic canyon views of Lukomir, but as usual, my most lasting memories of Bosnia’s most remote traditional highland village are tied to the people who live there. And in particular, a couple named Vejsil and Rahima.
I had come to spend the night in Lukomir with the help of Mustafa, my guide from Sarajevo Photography Tours, hoping to experience the village after the day-trippers had disappeared and the quiet rhythms of everyday life returned. But Mustafa gave me something far more valuable than simply a way to reach this remote mountain village. He knew Vejsil and Rahima, and through his introductions and translation, opened a door into village life that I never could’ve accessed on my own.
After the quad bikes revved away in the distance, heading back to their mountain resort base, the village finally settled into a peaceful quiet. As the sun began to descend, Mustafa and I continued our photography walk through Lukomir.
An Unexpected Meeting
While heading back toward the village from the canyon viewpoint, we passed an elderly man sitting on a block of wood. Mustafa recognized him from previous visits and stopped to say hello. His name was Vejsil.
Mustafa and Vejsil struck up an easy conversation in Bosnian, leaving me to snap some candid shots of the scene. A massive pile of wood was stacked behind him, just up a small incline from his house. He was in the midst of measuring the width of a log propped up on a tree stump when we arrived.
Just then, Rahima came out of the house. Warm and welcoming, she greeted Mustafa and asked if we would like coffee. When Mustafa mentioned he didn’t drink coffee, she disappeared back inside and returned with three tall glasses of cold apple juice, serving all of us without taking a glass for herself.
The conversation flowed naturally between the three of them in Bosnian, leaving me smiling along, while understanding absolutely nothing. Eventually, I tried to insert myself into the discussion, pulling Mustafa in as my translator. I was so eager to hear about the lives of the couple sitting across from me. With his assistance, I was able to learn about their family, how life in Lukomir had changed, and their memories of growing up in the mountains.
Mid-conversation, Rahima pointed towards some birds darting around the roofline. She laughed, speaking to Mustafa. I smiled along despite not understanding a word, until Mustafa explained that she was talking about the birds that regularly nest around their home and occasionally fly right inside.
A Lifetime in the Highlands
Listening to this couple who had spent their entire lives in these highlands (Vejsil in Lukomir and Rahima in a neighboring village) offered a rare window into the past.
They reflected on the severe hardships of life after World War II, when basic staples like sugar were virtually nonexistent, livestock was scarce, and simply surviving from one day to the next took everything a family had.
But when I asked what life had been like during the Bosnian War in the early 1990s, their answer surprised me. While communities elsewhere endured devastating violence, Vejsil and Rahima remembered life in isolated Lukomir very differently. With no fighting reaching the village itself, they described continuing to live much as they had before.
It echoed something Mustafa had explained earlier: Lukomir’s extreme isolation, which so often created obstacles, became a form of protection during the war.
Their home itself even carries a slice of history. Mustafa pointed out that their stone house was actually used as a primary filming location (both inside and out) for the 1990 Yugoslav film Silent Gunpowder (Gluvi Barut).
Vejsil and Rahima’s home as it appeared in the 1990 film Silent Gunpowder (Gluvi Barut), which filmed scenes both inside and outside the house.
Even today, life in their small home apparently remains remarkably traditional, although I didn’t get to see inside the house myself. Mustafa told me that they don’t have a conventional indoor shower; even well in their 80s, Vejsil and Rahima bathe using buckets of water.
Across the Mountains by Firelight
When I asked how long they had been married, Vejsil didn’t give me an approximation. He gave me the exact date: November 13, 1962. Rahima quickly added that they still had the marriage certificate.
Vejsil grew up in Lukomir, while Rahima came from the nearby village of Čuhovići. Back then, traveling between villages on foot was simply part of life. Vejsil recalled walking to neighboring villages for sijelo: evening social gatherings where young people would get together.
But trekking to neighboring villages wasn’t exactly a simple walk down the street. Getting from one town to another could mean descending into a steep canyon and climbing all the way back up the other side—the same kind of terrain Mustafa and I had just been looking over.
I was struck by how casually Vejsil described a journey that I’d probably never undertake, even if I had months to train! He brushed it off as just an ordinary outing, saying, “that’s nothing.”
I especially couldn’t imagine navigating these mountains in complete darkness and asked how they managed it. Vejsil’s answer caught me completely off guard: since they didn’t have flashlights, they carried a glavnja (a burning piece of wood) to light the way.
When I asked why anyone would be walking through the mountains at that hour, Mustafa laughed as he translated the obvious answer: they weren’t heading to the gathering in the middle of the night. They were coming home from it.
Decades later, they proudly shared that they have six children (four daughters and two sons). When winter sets in and all of the residents leave the mountain for lower ground, Vejsil and Rahima move down to the town of Hadžići to live closer to their kids.
A Village Transformed by Tourism
I also asked for their perspective on how Lukomir has changed over the decades, particularly with the recent influx of tourism.
They explained how Lukomir was once an isolated world connected only by dirt footpaths. On summer weekends now, they told me, Lukomir can become so crowded with visitors that it’s difficult to walk through the village.
Rahima still knits, one small source of income alongside support from their children and other means. Vejsil hand-carves wooden spoons. In fact, that was what he was working on when we first walked up: measuring the log to calculate how many spoons he could yield from that single piece. He explained that crafting a single spoon takes a full day of meticulous handiwork.
Though he didn’t have any finished spoons available that day, I bought a pair of fingerless wool gloves, handmade by Rahima. These weren’t simply crafts produced for tourists; both Rahima and Vejsil were wearing their own colorful hand-knitted wool socks that evening.
The Work Continues
As we prepared to leave, Rahima joined Vejsil at the woodpile, helping him split the log so he could start carving spoons. Mustafa soon stepped in too, taking the axe from Rahima and giving them a hand.
Our time with Vejsil and Rahima had only lasted about twenty minutes or so. But somewhere between the apple juice, stories of nighttime journeys lit by burning logs, and questions passed back and forth through Mustafa, I had gotten a glimpse into everyday life in Lukomir that I’d hoped staying overnight might allow.
When we finally walked away, Vejsil was back where we’d found him: beside the woodpile, getting on with the work of the evening.
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