Kujundžiluk and the Ottoman Commercial Quarter
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
Listen
Transcript
Kujundžiluk — roughly koo-YOON-jee-look — was Mostar’s old crafts and commercial street. Its name is associated with coppersmiths, and the narrow route climbing from the bridge still carries a dense market identity.
Ottoman Mostar was organised through neighbourhoods, religious institutions, workshops, inns and the bridge economy. Mosques and endowments helped structure public services, while craft production tied the town to regional trade.
Today souvenir shops can make the quarter feel timeless. It is not. Commercial streets continually change merchandise, tenants and customers. The fact that a shop sells a copper coffee set does not prove an unbroken guild lineage back to Suleiman the Magnificent.
That distinction matters because “authenticity” can become a demand that residents perform the past for visitors.
The street is historic because commerce kept happening here, not because every object stayed historically correct.