Explore Sarajevo / Hidden Gems / At Mejdan
Hidden Gem · Bistrik · 4 min read
At Mejdan
A small riverside park in Bistrik whose name means "Horse Square." Six centuries of execution ground, horse track, religious quarter, and finally a place to sit.
- Established
- Park designated 1925; horse square since the 15th century
Address
At Mejdan, Bistrik, south bank of the Miljacka
Hours
Always accessible
Price
Free
Getting there
8 minutes' walk south of the Sebilj across the Šeher-Ćehajina bridge
Time needed
30 minutes, longer on a bench in summer
Best time
Late afternoon, any season
Coordinates
43.8569° N 18.4283° E
Navigate
At Mejdan is the small park on the south bank of the Miljacka, eight minutes’ walk south of the Sebilj across the Šeher-Ćehajina bridge. It has a fountain, a few benches, several chess tables, plane trees, and the kind of light afternoon traffic of locals that small urban parks have everywhere. It also has a six-century history that is invisible unless someone tells you.
This page tells you.
The name
At Mejdan is Ottoman Turkish: at for horse, mejdan for square. The Horse Square.
In the second half of the 15th century, shortly after Sarajevo was founded by Isa-beg Ishaković in 1462, this stretch of the river bank became the city’s horse track and horse-trading ground. Ottoman troops kept their mounts here. Caravan merchants sold animals here. Saturday races ran here. The name dates from this period and has stuck ever since.
Before the horse market, the site had a darker function. Public executions were carried out here under Ottoman rule, when the spot was called Sijaset Mejdan — the Square of Justice. The change from execution ground to horse market in the mid-15th century is, in its way, an improvement.
The religious quarter
By the mid-16th century At Mejdan had begun to acquire religious infrastructure. In 1544, Hajji Alija Bakr-Baba built a mosque close to the Ćumurija bridge. In 1741–42, Hajji Ismail built a medresa — a religious school — beside it. By the late 18th century, Abdulah Efendi Kantamirija had added a library nearby. For a few generations At Mejdan was one of the city’s quieter educational quarters.
Most of these buildings were demolished or repurposed during the Austro-Hungarian period (1878–1918), when the south bank was reorganised along Habsburg lines. The mosque survived in modified form; the school and library did not.
The park
The site was formally laid out as a public park in 1925, under the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Plane trees were planted. Paths were laid. Benches went in. The park has functioned as a public green space ever since, with relatively few modifications.
During the 1992–1995 siege, the south bank was on the front line; At Mejdan suffered shellfire and was sometimes used as a hidden crossing point. Restoration after the war was modest. The park you walk today is essentially the 1925 park, with a hundred years of weathering.
What’s here now
- Chess tables — concrete tables with chess boards permanently inlaid. Locals play here most afternoons in fair weather, sometimes for small stakes, often just for the game. Bring a book if you want to watch.
- The fountain — a small Ottoman-style drinking fountain restored after the war. Water runs in summer.
- Plane trees — the original 1925 plantings, now large, providing deep shade across most of the park.
- The river bank — low stone walls along the Miljacka, with informal sitting spots for the river. Children fish in summer.
- A small plaque near the river side commemorating the original Ottoman uses of the square. Easy to miss.
How to use it
The right way to visit At Mejdan is not to plan a visit at all. Buy a coffee from one of the bazaar cafés. Cross the river on the Šeher-Ćehajina bridge — one of the city’s oldest, dating to the 16th century. Find a bench. Drink the coffee. Watch a chess game.
The park is most rewarding in late afternoon in spring and autumn, when the light through the plane trees is at its best and the chess players are in steady residence. Summer evenings the benches fill. Winter mornings the park is silent and worth walking through.
You will not need an hour. You will probably take one anyway.
How to combine it
At Mejdan sits at the bottom of Bistrik, ten minutes’ walk downhill from the lower station of the Sarajevo cable car. The natural combination is: a morning in Baščaršija, lunch in the bazaar, the cable car up to Trebević for the afternoon, a walk back down through Bistrik, and an hour at At Mejdan in the late light before crossing back over the river for dinner. It is one of the more satisfying half-day routes in the city.
Sources & further reading
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Ph: Julian Nyča · CC BY-SA 3.0
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