Improvised stoves and cookers, military equipment and exploding ordnance, food and other supplies that were obtained through humanitarian aid, badges and military insignia from the period from 1992 to 1995, flasks and cans for water, and improvised lamps are just part of the collection that reflects the state of life in besieged Sarajevo in the Historical Museum of BiH.
Large part of these items were collected, and later, if necessary, conserved and archived, and eventually donated to the museum, by former employee of the City Administration Mirsad Zorabdic.
By profession historian, and now in the retirement, he remembered the days when he was working with his colleague Ramiz Kadic and decided to collect everything that could witness the way of life and survival of the people of Sarajevo during the siege.
Zorabdic and Kadic started to collect items in 2000 that Sarajevans themselves invented and which served for various purposes during the war.
It is amazing how the citizens were full of ideas, how innovative they were.
“There was no garbage, everything was used. I suppose that was one of the way to fight, out of spite, defiance, all this testifies about a special spirit of this city. The most interesting were the inventions which produced light. People did not want to sit in the dark, some even used to read. There were engineers who were only trying to make something out of nothing,” said Zorabdic.
“When you look at the cards with descriptions of these items, you can see the ethnic picture of Sarajevo, you can see that the same battle took place in Serbian, Muslim and Croatian houses in Sarajevo. In this city stayed people who loved it. This impressed me,” he said.
Amar Karapus from the Historical Museum of BiH stated that the items donated by Mirsad Zorabdic significantly enriched the collection of the museum.
He noted that the most interesting objects to visitors of the museum are innovations and improvisations created by citizens such as trolleys, lighting, and improvised stoves and cookers.
“These creations are not only effective, but some of them also had interesting design, thus it is not surprising that these objects attract the most attention,” said Karapus.
Based on this exhibition, the future generations will be able to reconstruct the life of ordinary citizens in the war period and the ways in which they compensate for the lack of basic energy sources such as electricity, water, heating and everything else, stated Karapus.
(Source: faktor.ba)
