A visit to Bosnia's last pigeon post office

In the late 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian empire built a network of carrier-pigeon post-offices throughout its territory: today, Bosnia has but a single (nonfunctional) pigeon post office remaining, in the southeastern town of Trebinje.

Writing in Balkan Insights, Mladen Lakic describes the site -- now a museum -- and its history, including a failed attempt to revive the pigeon post.

The post office lies on the right bank of the Trebisnjica river, in the old town, or Kastel, near the Sahat kula - the clock tower - another famous symbol of Trebinje.

Nowadays, it belongs to the Museum of Herzegovina, an institution run by the local authorities, and the trained avian messengers are long gone.

Some would like to see them back at work. "There was an initiative to keep pigeons once again, as part of the museum attraction, but for some reason it failed, even though it would be nice to see something like that, now, when even regular letters are becoming part of history," Vulesevic noted.

But the museum does its best to keep their memory alive. In February, it ran a workshop for local children of Trebinje where they explained the history of these winged letter carriers.

You've Got Mail: Bosnia's Last Pigeon Post Office [Mladen Lakic/Balkan Insight]

(via Beyond the Beyond)

(Image: Slobodan Vulesevic)