here is an article showing how the Serbs continue to create something out of what little they got left...Ever heard of the Albanians actually building something other than bunkers or mafia stuff?
Serbian Power Crisis Fuels
Demand for Wood Stoves
By JAMES M. DORSEY
Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia -- The colder this Balkan winter becomes, the
hotter it gets for Slobodan Spasovic's little "Savior."
And that's a good -- and profitable -- thing for Mr. Spasovic.
But success takes foresight, and that is what Mr. Spasovic, owner of CINI
Cacak, a heating-appliances manufacturer in southern Serbia,
demonstrated in late March when he called together his four-man research
and development team for a brainstorming session. That meeting took
place barely 24 hours after NATO bombs rained down on the nearby
production facilities of one of his major competitors, Sloboda, a
home-appliance maker.
Mr. Spasovic took that event as a sign from above. To him, war and
weather equaled work.
'Our Opportunity'
"In this part of the world, wars never last just a few days. Wars are always
long and they always create heating problems. This was our opportunity,"
Mr. Spasovic says, sipping a cup coffee in a Belgrade cafe. Across the
way, at a local department store, his product -- a newly designed,
miniature wood-burning stove called Spasjevo, which means Savior in
Serbian -- is selling like, well, hotcakes.
Made from Macedonian tin, the Spasjevo is designed to be a cheap
solution for urban dwellers desperate for ways to heat their homes as
winter tightens its grip.
Priced at 110 German marks ($57.97 or 56.24 euros), the
52-centimeter-wide little Savior doubles up as a heater and a cooking
stove. It was made with an eye on apartments in Belgrade and other
Serbian cities that are suffering from shortages of electricity and gas.
"It had to be small and cheaper than those of our competitors because it is
intended to be a temporary solution," Mr. Spasovic says.
The solution couldn't have come too soon. State-owned Radio Belgrade
announced several weeks ago that electricity in the Yugoslav capital would
be cut for several hours each day as severe cold triggered the country's
first major power outages of the winter. Serbian heating-plant managers
say they have no fuel for their facilities.
Bomb Damage
And adding to the bad news, the United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that Serbia's power grid
could only produce 70% of the normal requirements because of the
damage from bombs unleashed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
during the Kosovo conflict earlier this year.
In addition to the severe shortages, the cost of utilities is also working in
Mr. Spasovic's favor. Sales of wood stoves are getting a boost from rising
electricity prices in a country where average salaries have dropped to 47
German marks a month. And the small boom that preceded the bombings
gave residents a false sense of security when it came to power
consumption and cost.
"Electricity prices were low the last 10 years, so people bought electrical
heaters. As a result, the grid was overloaded even before the NATO
bombing," says Novak Radjocic, director of research and development of
D.P. "Elind-Teur"-Valjevo, a publicly owned heating-appliance
manufacturer. The company, too, has started producing wood stoves.
Naturally, wood vendors are also seeing a dramatic upswing in their
revenue. Business is brisk at Belgrade's wood market in the suburb of
Vojovac where more than 20 trucks operated by farmers have lined up to
sell cut wood to city dwellers.
"No doubt, we are going to have electricity shortages this winter. So I and
all my friends have bought wood-burning stoves," says Milan Milosevic, a
40-year old construction worker, who pulls up in a purple and yellow Fiat
van to buy seven cubic meters of wood from one of the vendors.
Stocking Up for Winter
Mr. Milosevic, no relation to Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic,
reckons that the seven cubic meters, at 50 German marks a cubic meter,
will carry him through the winter in his 80-square-meter apartment.
He says he has little faith in government promises that there will be enough
electricity, fuel and gas for winter heating. He also says he has no
confidence in the European Union's Energy for Democracy program under
which the EU would supply fuel to Serbian cities to guarantee heating. "I
only believe what I see and buy," Mr. Milosevic says.
His skepticism appears justified in the provincial town of Valjevo, 100
kilometers southeast of Belgrade. Home to one of Mr. Spasovic's three
major competitors in the production of wood-burning stoves, Valjevo is
still waiting for heating to return to many apartment blocks, and the town's
heating season usually starts around Oct. 15.
Naturally, the local brand of heater is favored, particularly among those
who make them.
"We all have Valjevac heaters at home. There is still no heating in our
buildings. But I'm fine as long as the temperature stays above zero," says
Dragan Zeravcic, a 34-year-old worker who assembles stoves for
"Elind-Teur"-Valjevo. The Valjevac model is an old-fashioned furnace that
doubles up as a cooker, but is far larger the Spasjevo.
"I could never have imagined that the Valjevac would save this factory,"
says "Elind-Teur"-Valjevo's Mr. Radjocic, who three years ago designed
the first model of the Valjevac for use in rural areas where wood and
coal-burning stoves are still common.
But demand is dictating what the company supplies. With demand for
electrical heaters dropping sharply and the state no longer investing in
heating equipment for trains, the Valjevac now accounts for 60% of
"Elind-Teur"-Valjevo's total production.
"We're going backwards in technological terms, but people are worried,"
says Mr. Radjocic, whose plan to develop a line of refrigerators and
freezers was canceled because of lack of credit.
"We'll have buyers for the Valjevac for years to come. Our electricity
problems are permanent. They won't be solved overnight."
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