Bosnian war survivors share survival hacks with Ukraine

GORAZDE, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Residents of eastern Bosnia’s city of Gorazde do not need imaginations to understand the suffering of Ukraine’s people. They endured three decades of hardship when Bosnian Serbs pounded their city with rockets from the hills.

The long siege during Bosnia’s 1992-95 interethnic war cut off Gorazde from access to electricity, food, medicine and the outside world. They found innovative ways to keep heat and light on during the long siege. These survival hacks are being shared with civilians who have been thrown into darkness and cold by Russia’s constant missile and drone attacks against Ukraine’s power grid.

Edin Culov, the Gorazde region’s governor, said friends and acquaintances who work for the European Union’s mission to Bosnia, in Sarajevo, contacted him late last year seeking information for a humanitarian effort to provide Ukrainians with an alternative source of electricity.

They specifically wanted any “drawings, photographs, video recordings or anything else” about the “miniature power plants” used in Gorazde back in the 1990s. The plants used home-built paddlewheels, mounted on wooden platforms, and had electrical generators. They were set up by locals around a Drina River bridge, where barrels and ropes kept the plants afloat.

Each “plant” had a main supply cable running from its generator to the bridge, from where smaller cables carried the power to buildings. Depending on how much water was below the span, these contraptions produced enough power to power Gorazde’s hospital. Residents living near enough to the river could also use the electricity to light one bulb, listen to the radio, and occasionally view television.

The prototype was built by a small group of electrical engineers and mechanical engineers who had worked in the city’s prewar manufacturing sector, which made everything from textiles to weapons. The simple, yet clever design allowed DIYers create mini plants using engines, alternators, and scrap material from Gorazde’s destroyed factories, cars, and homes.

The river was quickly flooded with paddlewheels. These contraptions were credited by Siege survivors with helping the city to survive and remain the only enclave left in eastern Bosnia not to be captured. The equipment was dismantled and removed after the war.

Culov replied to the EU request over a decade later. He said that the city had collected everything possible and went to Bosnian radio to ask for any memories and documents. He stated that the information was handed to the EU mission in Bosnia. They have shared it with Ukraine.

“I guess they will use the material we provided to develop a few test models and then, if it proves feasible, start mass producing (the miniature) power plants” for distribution around the country, Culov explained.

Among those who responded to Culov’s appeal for information were two surviving members of the original development team.

Aziz Lepenica, who had taught engineering at the city’s technical high school until suffering a stroke a couple of years ago, offered to return to show students how to prepare proper design drawings and technical calculations for Ukraine.

During Bosnia’s war, “We made no drawings. We had no time for that,” Lepenica said. “We made all calculations and construction plans in our heads.”

Lepenica was a teacher and helped his students build a replica of their homegrown power plants. It was placed on the riverbank, next to Gorazde’s central bridge, in 2016 to serve as a monument to the days when, as Lepenica put it, “life was unbearable, but our morale was high.”

“It would mean a lot to us if it turns out we can help the people (of Ukraine) who are being deprived of electricity as we were,” Lepenica said.

Murat Heto was another of the inventors. He also assisted in preparing documentation for Ukraine.

“With everything we have been through, one would need to be made of wood not to empathize with (Ukrainians),” the retired electrician said, recalling how the lights powered by the miniature power plants developed by his team “made the world of difference” in wartime Gorazde.

The city saw approximately 7,000 civilians killed or seriously wounded. Residents were forced to stay home at night in order to escape the constant artillery and sniper attacks. Nearly 70,000 people were affected by the influx from neighboring areas.

While the refusal of Serb forces to allow U.N. aid convoys into Gorazde kept food and medicine in short supply, the power plants were a “symbol of our resolve to resist, to not give in,” Heto said.

“I wish to God it had not happened to us nor to Ukraine, but when people are pushed into a corner and faced with a threat of extermination, everything becomes possible,” he said.