Mostar, Bosnia, Honors Bruce Lee with First Lee-Monument

Bruce Lee Monument Unveiled in Mostar, Bosnia

MOSTAR, Nov 26 (Hina) - The first world monument to martial arts screen legend Bruce Lee was unveiled in Zrinjevac park in the southern Bosnian city of Mostar on Saturday at the initiative of the citizens' association Mostar Urban Movement.#L#
The bronze statue in Lee's actual size, 168 cm, was made in Zagreb's foundry "Ujevic".

Beneath the statue of Lee in a typical martial arts pose is an inscription reading "Your Mostar".

One of the project's initiators, Mostar writer Veselin Gatalo, said "this is a monument to the universal justice Bruce Lee fought for".

"Bruce Lee is sufficiently far away from us for someone to ask him what his parents did in the First or the Second World War or in the Turkish wars. At the same time, Bruce Lee is sufficiently close to us all, Croats, Serbs and Bosniaks," said Gatalo.

Another initiator of the project, literature professor Nino Raspudic, said the Lee monument in Mostar would become a tourist attraction.

"In a city where everything is divided, we wish to show that there are things which cannot be divided. Everyone likes Bruce Lee," he said.

The screen legend passed away in 1973 aged only 32.