When your world is turned upside down, what is it like? Can you rush to the supermarket and stock up on groceries? Can you rely on the national guard to keep roving gangs at bay? Can you make sure that your home is heated and that you have running water? What is it like?
This is an interview with Selco when he first started posting on the internet. He says a lot of interesting things, and makes a number of points that I would like to underline.
This article is from another article posted, titled ;”How I survived a year of SHTF in 90s Bosnia”. I think that is is pretty good. All credit to the author and the source. I did edit his grammar, for the most part. It makes for decent reading that way.
Introduction
Back in September of 2011, a user named Selco joined the forums at SurvivalistBoards.com and posted “my SHTF experience-wartime,” a thread that would since become legendary in survivalist communities and beyond (you frequently see people reference it to this day on sites such as 4chan and reddit).
In it, Selco details his experience of living in a besieged Bosnian town of 50 to 60k people during the Bosnian War (1992-1995). The siege took away everything modern humans take for granted and tested with extreme brutality Selco’s and his community’s ability to survive.
But what is so interesting about this war story is that it was told to a group of survivalists (preppers) who had questions — lots of questions.
- How does barter work and which survival strategies are worthless bunk?
- How were the social dynamics when everyone realized there was no law?
- What really happens and what kind of tricks do people actually get up to to get by when faced with — essentially — the apocalypse?
Selco’s first post.
OK, i wanna share with you my own experience. (be patient with my English, I am from far away )
I am from Bosnia, and as some of you may know it was hell here from 92-95, anyway, for 1 whole year I lived and survived in a city of 50 000- 60 000 residents WITHOUT: electricity, fuel,running water, real food distribution, or distribution of any goods, or any kind of organized law or government. The city was surrounded for 1 year and in that city actually it was SHTF situation.
We did not have organized army or police force, there was groups of defenders, actually anybody who had a gun, fight for his own house and his own family.
Some of us was better prepared, but most of families had food for couple of days, some of us had pistol, few owned AK-47 when all started.
Anyway, after one month or two, gangs started with their nasty job, hospital looked like butchery, police force vanished, 80 percent of hospital staff gone home.
I was lucky, my family was big in that time (15 members in one big house, 5-6 pistols, 3 Kalashnikov s) so we lived and survived, most of us (that is).
I remember US Air force dropped MRE every 10 days (God bless USA for that) as help for surrounded city, it just was not enough. Some of houses had little gardens with some vegetables, most did not.
After three months rumors started about (the) first deaths from starvation, deaths from low temperatures, we stripped every door, window frame from abandoned houses for heating, I burned all my own furniture for heating, lot of people died from diseases, mostly from bad water (two of my family members), we used rain water for drinking, several times I ate pigeons, once I (even) ate rat.
Money did (was) not worth shit.
We traded things, (the) black market worked. A few examples: for 1 (can of) corned beef can you could have woman for couple of hours (sounds bad, but it was the reality). I remember, (that) most of that the women were just desperate mothers…
…candles, lighters, antibiotics, fuel, batteries, rifle ammo and of course food, we fight like animals for that.
In a situation like that, lot of things change, most of people turned into monsters, it was ugly.
Strength was in numbers, if you were alone in the house, you would have probably been robbed and killed, no matter how well armed (you were).
Anyway, war ended, again thanks to America (and again god bless USA for that). It is not important witch side was right in that war.
It was almost 20 years ago, but believe me, for me it was just like yesterday, I remember everything, and I think that I learned a lot (of things).
Me and my family are (all) prepared now, I am well armed, (well) stocked and (well) educated.
It is not important does not matter what going to happen; earthquake, war, tsunami, aliens terrorists, important thing is that something is gonna (eventually happen).
And from my experience, you can not survive alone. Strength is in numbers. Be close with your family, prepare with them. Choose your friends wisely and prepare with them too.
And at the end, this is my first post, and my English is not so good, so don t judge me too hard. ”
Q: How did you get around safely?
Actually, the city was broken in something like a lot of street communities. In my street (15 or 20 houses) we organized patrols (5 armed man every night) to watch out for gangs or enemies.
We traded things between people in that street. Five miles from my street there was one street with something (that looked) like organized traders, but it was to dangerous to go there. It worked only during the nighttime (during the day it was sniper alley) and (it was risky) you had a greater chance to be robbed there than to trade. I used that street only 2 times, and believe me, it was only when i really needed something (really) bad.
Q: What about wood? It looked like there are many forests around your city, why did you have to burn doors and furniture?
First, thank you for your questions, I did not expect this kind of interest in my post.
I ll be glad to share lot of things with you guys because i want to learn lot of things from you.
Anyway:
Bosnia does have a lot of woods and forests when you go and check the map, but I lived in city closer to the Croatian border, more to the South. I really don’t want to mention name of the city, but if you check the map, the southern part of my country closest to Croatia is all rocky.
Yes we had some trees in my city, parks, fruit trees, but most of the city was building and houses. But believe me…
… all the trees in the city are going to be burned very fast when you don’t have electricity for cooking and heating. After that all what you have is furniture, doors, wooden floors… (and believe me that stuff is burning up far too fast)
There was almost no car use in town. This is because: most of the roads were jammed with ruins, abandoned cars, destroyed houses stuff like that, and petrol was like gold (to us).
If i needed to go somewhere I almost always used night time. I never went alone but also I never went in big group either. (We traveled in smaller groups) (2-3 men maybe), always armed, very fast, always in shadows, through ruins, rarely ever openly on the street, actually… always hiding.
We did not have suburbs and farmers, in the suburbs were the enemy army. We were surrounded by the enemy army, and inside town… (well,) you did not know who is your enemy.
And yes, there were organized groups of gangs, 10-15 people, sometimes even 50. But also there were (a lot of) normal people like you and me, fathers, granddads, decent folks, who robbed and killed. There wasn’t too much good and bad guys (black and white), most of everyone was (some shade of) gray, ready for everything.
Q: Did you prep and what kind of skills did you need?
Of course you can ask.
We used what we had, we were not prepared for that situation. We did not know about prepping.
So you can imagine in some aspects we went back to stone age, actually in most (ways we did).
We just used everything what we had. One example, I had in my possession, a propane (or butane I am not sure which) large storage bottle; cylinder (i am not sure is that right word), but I did not use it for cooking or heating, it was too valuable. Instead, I managed to modify that bottle with my friend. I attached a hose and created some kind of refueling mechanism (sorry my English is going down here) so i can refill those disposable lighters, (they are not really disposable if you have know-how) those lighters were worth a small fortune.
To make story short, somebody (would) bring an empty lighter to me and I would fill that lighter up with gas. Usually I took one can (of food) for that or (else) one candle or whatever he was able to offer me.
I hope you understand my example, my English is poor on some things.
One more example, I am a registered nurse, in any time like that, my knowledge was (a valuable thing) for trade.
And yes, be trained and educated, in times like that it worth a fortune if you know how to fix things. Eventually, all your goods are going to be exhausted one day. However, your specific knowledge can be your food.
I mean learn to fix things (shoes or people, whatever you can).
My neighbor used to know how to make some kind of oil for oil lamps (oil in glass, peace of rope – “kerosene camping lanterns”) and he was never hungry, he never did show me how he made that oil for the lamps. ”
I believe he used some tree behind his house and small amount of diesel fuel, i don’t know.
My point is to learn things, people always need somebody who knows how to fix things.
It was not survival movie, it was ugly, we did what we have to do to survive.
Nobody wins, we just survived, with a lot of bad dreams.
Q: Wasn’t it religious, the war?
Sorry man wrong info, that was not Cristian vs Muslim war, it was civil war, with lot of switching between sides.
And sorry I will not get into the politics involved, I really don’t care too much about that, I am not going into religious stories. I mean, I believe in God as a higher power, and I am trying to live by his laws, but I do not belong to any dogma, Muslim or Christian.
Q: Who was your support group?
My group was only my family. This was my blood (relatives like uncles, grandmother…), in my street. In my town trips I had some close friends, but my best friend(s) was my family. I never took a stranger into my close group.
Q: If you had three months to prepare today, what would you do?
If I have extra three months to prepare?
Hmmm, I’d probably run overseas …
<Joke>
OK, Now I am very well aware how things can go very bad in very short time, so (today) I have food, hygiene, energy etc. to supply me for 6 months. I now live in apartment with some improved security. I also have a house with shelter in a village some 5 miles from my apartment. In that house are also supplies for 6 months. The village there is a small community, and most of them are my relatives, (and now) most of them are prepared (they learned that from war). I have four kinds of (live) fire weapons with (at least) 2000 bullets for each (sorry, can not go in details, laws are different here for rifles).
I have big garden at that house and some good knowledge about gardening and farming.
I think i have knowledge now to smell trouble. You (do) know that when everybody is saying that everything is going to be fine you somehow know that is everything going to fall apart.
I think I have the strength necessary to do everything what it takes to keep me and my family alive, because when everything is going to shit…
…be sure, you are going to do some bad things to save your kid. You don t want to be hero, but you do want to survive with your family.
I am nurse, also I am paramedic (US standards)
And i am willing to learn from all of you.
One man survivor, no chance ( OK, it’s only my opinion).
No matter how well armed and prepared you are, at the end you are gonna die. I’ve seen that, many times. Family groups or closest friend with lot of preparing and lots of different knowledge (skill sets) will carry you through the SHTF event, I believe that is what is best.
Q: What items should we stockpile?
Thank you.
Well it depends, I guess if you stock only one thing you are not going to survive. (That is), unless you want to survive like robber, then you need only a gun and lot of ammo.
I believe, besides ammo, food hygiene and energy things (batteries etc.) are necessary. You need to focus on small things for trade. This would include pocket knives, lighters, and flints.
Also a LOT of alcohol, the kind that can store long. I mean stuff like whiskey and all that. It’s not not important what kind, you can have cheapest brand. It is a very good thing for trade in desperate times.
Also lack of hygiene things killed a lot of people, I’ve seen that.
You gonna need to have some simple things, like for example lot of garbage bags, I mean a lot, many uses for that, and a LOT of duct tape, many many uses for that (too).
In case of weapon keep it simple. I mean now i always carry a Glock 45 with me, because i like that gun, but it is not a usual gun and usual caliber here…
… so I also have two 7.62 mm TT Russian pistols hidden, because almost everybody has that gun here and a lot ammunition (is available).
I don t like Kalashnikov, but here there is that rifle on almost every 3rd house so…
Most of the time I collected my water from roof in 4 big barrels during the war, then boiled to disinfect it, we also had river in that town, but it was far too polluted but if you can’t choose…
I don t think I am an expert, I am here to learn.
I guess, it depends how far you going to go to survive with your actions, you need to be prepared to do some ugly things.
Oh yes… it changed my perspective on life.
I know now that bad things can happen, and one more important thing, actually I believe it is most important:
I no longer believe government and authority, not at all.
When they really doing their best to assure you that everything going to be fine, you can be sure that something bad is happening.
Do not just believe, (do your own) research.
Q: What about the civil war…and the religious fighting? Did gold and silver help much and how did you get the alcohol and other supplies?
Hello to all. It is me again.
I believe in some point this discussion gone the wrong way, and no I am not offended, everybody have right for opinion, so here are few of my opinions:
It was a civil war, yes there was a great influence of religion, but somebody mentioned “what did you do with people of other religions?”
Well in my family there are people with different religious beliefs so what do you mean with that?
I’ll try to explain you simply; it was an attackers and defenders war. (There were a) lot of switching sides; a civil war.
The war ended without winners, it ended with a truce, thanks mostly to USA.
It was a wrong war, (all for the) wrong reasons.
I did not fight for religion or ethnicity, I fought to keep my family and myself alive.
For the last 15 years we have had peace. We live with people who used to be our enemies. I do not to want to have war and enemies again because ethnicity or religion or for any other reason.
Please do not try to generalize anything about that war, there was no good or bad side, we all suffered and (now) we all try to live together again.
And yes every side did bad things, and every side had both good and bad guys.
I am here for one and only reason- survival, I want to learn, and I can share some useful stuff with you. I don’t think (want to know) about your religious beliefs, your ethnicity or your politic opinions.
Few words about my city before war, it was the usual Bosnian town. (It had a) normal life, decent people, schools, theaters, and parks. (It had a) college, airport, crime rates were very low. (The) town was like most of the smaller towns in USA (I think). I was a young man, just like any of you are maybe.
Now very important think: I am not here to discuss about war reasons, or sides, religion or anything similar.
Thanks to the war, in my town was REAL SHTF situation, and we can discuss only about that, only that is important.
You have a lot internet pages, you can learn everything about that war, and you can choose side if you want. OK that’s it.
About survival.
I don t know about other people on this forum, but I have lot of alcohol stacked now.
At the beginning of the war a tank grenade smashed front wall of small distillery (alcohol factory) close to my house. (It opened up and we were able to access it) so we took something around 500 liters of rakia (it is something like Bosnian whiskey, I guess, it’s made from grapes, and very strong)
It was great stuff for trading, people used alcohol a lot, desperate times I think, we also used it for disinfection.
About hygiene, cups and plates, paper or plastic, your gonna need a LOT, I know, we did not have it at all.
My opinion is that hygiene things are more important maybe than food, you can easily shoot pigeon. If you have a grandmother she may know (about) some of the eatable plants on nearest small hill (my experience) but you can not shoot hand sanitizer
Water purifying pills, all kind of cleaning stuff, sanitizers, lot of soap, bleach, gloves, masks, all disposable. (All are important and needed.)
Here, I copy and edit this in the middle of the cornovirus event inside of China. And this advice is spot on, I'll tell you what.
Take very good care about (getting) first aid training. Learn how to treat smaller cuts, burns or even a gunshot wound. There will not be any hospital (available), even if you found a doctor somewhere he probably will not have any meds, or (perhaps) you won’t have stuff to pay him with.
Learn how and when to use antibiotics and have a lot of it on hand.
Believe me with (some) good knowledge and goodly amount of meds you are gonna be rich.
About gold and silver, yes, me personally gave all my gold for ammunition in that time, but it wasn’t worth too much.
About pets, i did not have any, I did not notice a lot pets in that time, did somebody ate them? I don’t know… probably.
About a small family, hmm, not good.
Usually a few smaller families would get together in the biggest house available and stay together, all relatives (my case).
A small family or a single man, (is) not good (an ideal arrangement) for survival in town (during a) SHTF event.
Maybe in the wilderness (but I don t have experience in that).
Even if you keep a low profile, hidden in your house with lots of food etc, sooner or later the mob will come. And you have maybe have one or two guns… (it’s going to be) very hard (to make it oout alive).
I agree with the low profile policy, it is very important not to attract people with anything. But when they come, (and they will come) you will need to have numbers, people and guns, your best people is your family.
About moving through the city: always move during night time as I mentioned earlier. Never alone. 2-3 man. Move very fast, never attract anything. Look like everybody else. If most folks look desperate, poor, and dirty you need to look the same. There is no need that everybody else knows that you have a good amount of food, ammo, clean clothes and everything else back at home. Look and act like everybody else. (Blend in. Be inconspicuous.)
When somebody attacks you or your family then (is when) you need to show them that you are very ready.
I never walked in big groups, in that time and that situation, (the only) big groups are gangs.
Now, this is all my experience, it was then. I made a lot of mistakes. I am no expert. I am here just like any of you, to learn and share.
For example i don t know too much about wilderness survival, I am here to check learn about it.
Oh yes, few things to the Sedoy: my wife is different ethnicity, and she is also a Catholic, I am not, and to answer you: no I am not going to shoot her.
Q: What happened to those who died? Where did people get firewood?
Well, who ever died or get killed in that period, did not get a proper funeral.
Folks used used every peace of free land, close to their house for burial. Sometimes even in the garden. 2-3 city parks turned to graveyards. After the war most of them are exhumed and properly buried.
There was not nothing like burning bodies or anything similar, as far as I know.
Oh one more interesting thing about fire. Some people used to travel a few miles during the night just to find fire somewhere so they can light a peace of wood and bring it home, and start a fire for cooking or heating. Lighters and matches were really precious, and most of the folks did not have enough firewood to keep a file or embers burning. For most of the people it was constant search for something, fire, wood, food, ammo…
Q: Was salt valuable?
It was valuable yes, but not too much, for example coffee or cigarettes were worth much more.
Q: What about cigarettes?
Hm, I had a lot of alcohol as I mentioned before. I traded almost everything without any problem, let me say it like this: consumption of alcohol was probably 10 times more than during normal times. Not to mention cleaning and disinfection.
On the other hand, you made a very good point, if you have money and time and you have a storage it is probably better to store cigarettes or candles and batteries for trade, or food.
I was not a “prepper” at that time, we did not have time to prepare. A few days right before the SHTF politicians on TV stated that everything is fine. Then, when the sky fell down we just take what you can.
Q: Tell us more about cooking and the foods you were able to prepare. Were you concerned about the smell getting around and alerting people that there was food over there?
About cooking, before the SHTF I used in my house electricity for both, cooking and heating. So when everything started I traded some stuff for some kind of old wood stove. I put it in the kitchen and fix exhaust pipe (right word?) through a hole in wall. I used that for both cooking and heating.
During the summer I cooked in my backyard (walled fence, brick, luckily).
Concerning the smell of the food, hum. I’ll try to (describe for you a) picture (of the) situation: no electricity, no running water, sewage off for months, dead bodies in ruined houses, grime and mess, believe me it was very difficult to smell something nice.
It was not like in movies, it was ugly, dirty, and smelly.
Yes I had a few problems because of cooking, only a few, but as I said before, enough people, properly armed and with the will to defend…
… and you can manage most of the problems with that.
Probably, the situation would be (quite) different in the wilderness.
I ate mostly some kind of pancakes with local herbs (it does not require cooking oil and too much firewood), and of course, everything what I could get and trade (we ate). Rice was good to eat, not too much firewood for that.
I think I had (a lot of) luck, only a few times (did) I eat funny things like pigeons.
I always had something to trade, I guess that saved me…
… and guns of course.
Q: 1. Why would the night be safer than daytime? Outside of the obvious of being easier to hide at night, but were the gangs more out during the days? Also, why only small groups of 2-3? What happened to larger groups?
2. Why would you have to go out at night? For instance, where were you going and why?
3. How did you handle the mob situation when they came for you, or your family?
4. You mentioned trading for bullets, etc. How much shooting were you doing during that time and how much ammo did you have, or would like to have had?
5. How were you able to determine who was an enemy and who wasn’t? How did you manage to get out there trade with people and when/where?
6. What fortifications did you do to your home and what kind of guard, or protections did you have in place?
7. Finally, how did you avoid snipers? What precautions did people take against them?
Firstly, almost nobody went out during the day because of snipers, the line of defense was very close, so whatever you have to do, you do it during the night.
(You) trade something, look for firewood (I can’t express how much this was important (to us) in town, and hard), looking for anything, check somebody, to go to hear news (very very important, lot of people get killed because they go somewhere just to see what happening, or what’s new) remember, no news, no radio ,no TV, nothing, rumors fed lot of people.
Already (as I) explained, you can stay home and die of hunger and cold, or even by infection of some small wound or go out and risk your life, try to find – trade anything useful
I did have situations concerning my house only, there is no need (to get into) too many details, we had more fire power, and (a) brick wall.
Also we had something like a street watch, people from my street were well organized, in case of gangs, now there were a lot shootings.
There was pretty much shooting all over town, I did not have enough weapons at the beginning. (I had) one rifle and one pistol (old world war II vintage), maybe 100 bullets total. Later I traded some things for more rifles and ammo. I remember that I gave away a car battery for 2 rifles.
How much ammo ?
A LOT, as much as you can (get a hold of).
Most of the time you are not able to determine who is enemy or friend. Expect my family and few real friends. Everybody else is a potential enemy. When your friend must choose between his child’s death and your death guess who (he) is going to choose.
Rumors, somebody tells you that some old guy a few blocks away has some cans and he is looking for ammo or whatever. You go there, as I say you are always looking for something. Same some people would came to my street as traders, with some goods.
There was something like trade street during the night, actually it was in the big ruins of sport center. You can go over there and look for something or offer something. However, it was not controlled by anyone so it was too dangerous.
It was primitive pretty much, a brick wall around the house, bags of sand on windows and doors, over that bags we used whatever you can. (There were) big pieces of metal, stones, (everywhere). Inside the house we put all kinds of stuff on the windows, (leaving) only a small opening left for a rifle. (We had a rule) always 5 members of family ready for fight, one always outside on street hidden.
Stone age situation.
To avoid snipers, we would stay home during the day, there were not so many night snipers, even during the night we never walked openly on the streets if we can avoid that, always (using) shortcuts, trough ruins, fast and quiet.
Q: What was your bathroom situation? Where did you go? Did you have anything to wipe with? Sorry ask such personal questions, but this is something that I’ve wondered about in this type of situation.
We used shovels and any piece of land close to house, (yeah) it sounds dirty, and it is dirty; washing with collected rainwater, sometimes (we would) go to the river (most of the time that was too dangerous) Most of the time we did not have toilet paper, even if I had it, I (would) trade it.
It was a bad situation all the time.
If i can give some advice: first to prep is a weapon and ammo, then everything else.
I mean everything, depends how much money and space you have.
If you forget something no problem there is always somebody ready for trade, but if you forget guns and ammo then you may not be able to get to trading places.
I do not see big family or group of really (I mean really) good friends as more mouth to feed, I see them as more guns and strength, it is in people’s nature to adapt.
And keep it simple and use common sense. In the first period (of the war) the weak people vanished, others fought.
Go with small things, lighters, candles, flints.
It is great idea to have a fuel generator (electrical generating unit) but i think a better idea is to have 1000 BIC lighters. A fuel generator is great, but in a SHTF scenario in town it is going to attract a whole army. But, 1000 BIC lighters don’t take up too much space, (they’re) cheap, and you can always trade it for something.
Real SHTF scenario demands a complete change of the normal mindset, (it’s) hard to explain, I’ll try through examples.
Q: How easy/hard was it to get weapons AFTER the SHTF and what could you trade for weapon and ammunition (I remember you saying a car battery for a rifle) and where would I go to find the people who trade in weapons?
Hum, you re right, after the war every house here had a weapon from the war, and yes the police did take some action to take illegal weapons from the population. It depends from man to man I guess, a lot of people find ways to hide their weapons somewhere, just in case.
I also have legal weapon (license), and the authority here has some thing they refer as “temporary collecting”. It basically says something like: “in a case of unusual event (riots, unrest, etc) government has the right to temporary collect all legal weapons”. So I keep always in mind that fact. And I acted like some other people.
You know some people have legal weapon for everyday carry (I have a Glock 45 and Taurus 38) but some people with legal weapon also have illegal weapons hidden somewhere just in case SHTF and “temporary collecting”.
It is not hard to get weapon in SHTF if you have good stuff for trade,. However, the other thing is important. The very first days of SHTF is worst in terms of chaos and panic. So, maybe you’re not gonna have time to get a gun. And to be unarmed in chaos panic and riots is bad.
In my case, the man needed a car battery for a HAM radio I think, and he had some extra rifles, so we traded.
Q: What about medical care for people who were shot or became injured?
Wounds was mostly gunshot wounds of course, without specialists and everything else, if wounded manage to find a doctor somewhere he had like 30% chances to live.
Again it is not (like a) movie, mostly they died.
A lot of people died even from minor cuts infections, I had antibiotics maybe for 3-4 treatments. Of course for my family only.
Simple things killed people. Diarrhea can kill you in a few days without meds and re-hydration, (fluid therapy, IV) especially small kids. Lot of fungal skin diseases, and food poisoning, we could not do too much. Basically we treated diseases mostly with local herbs, and if you had a wound, put rakia (whiskey) on it and tried to find antibiotics somewhere.
So i was good at fixing wounds in term of emergency help, but longer procedure…
…bad prognosis.
What I learned? Hygiene again, and a lot of meds, especially antibiotics. You need to learn to treat lot of stuff, go online, finish some training, EMT maybe, first aid etc.
In SHTF things are different, learn how to open IV, when to use certain drugs, or antibiotics.
Get your self ANA TE (anti tetanus ) shot injections , snake poison kit, adrenaline kit (allergic reactions, different kinds) tick removal kit, (tick related illness can kill you, learn how to remove tick)…
Get in Supply your prepper storage some reanimation kit (simple one) like a small oxygen cylinder, a BVM mask etc. It is not really hard to learn to use all of these.
OK let’s be clear about something, of course you can not use anything of this in the “real world” unless you are certified and trained for that ( EMT, nurse, physician ).
But in SHTF nobody will ask you for your license, just learn and have it in your storage big part for medical things.
So to answer question how did I help and treat others? Most of the time everyone was very poor. I helped some with the resources that I had. I took food or something else for exchange, I was badly prepared for that, now I have what I need to have.
Q: Did your local currency/money still hold value? Were you still able to use money to purchase items from other people?
No, not really. I mean sometimes you can use foreign money if you had it to buy something, (dollars or German marks) but even in that rare occasion the rate was unbelievable. For example 1 can of beans for 30-40 dollars (normal value was maybe 0.50). I guess somebody had connections with outside world, black market you know, so he can earn a lot of money. But it was very rare. Trade was main thing to get something.
Local currency crashed very fast, in few weeks or month maybe.
Q: How much space should I keep for alcohol storage? What was security like?
About alcohol first, you are right but you are right in both ways, people needed alcohol more in desperate times then usual, so it is a kind of gambling I guess, it is very good item for trading. I never had problems with alcohol trading and having than problems with trading other things.
Also I am thinking about something else, maybe it is better to fill my storage with something less space consuming but still interesting for trade, like batteries, antibiotics etc.
Thing is I had all that alcohol for free, I did not buy it. I don t know about this.
In most of the situations people attacked me because they thought they are stronger, they did not know for sure what I really had.
About ammunition trade, it depends how much ammo you are going to have, sometimes I would trade ammo for food, and in few weeks again food for ammo. However, I never never conducted trade at my home, and never bigger amounts, very few people knew how much of anything I had in my house.
The point is to store as much of anything as you can store (space , money). (Then) later during the situation you ll see what is most popular. Correction – ammo and guns always gonna held first place for me, but who knows maybe number 2 for trading gonna be for example masks with filters.
About medical issue , I’ll write in my next post what do I have now in my medical part of storage
Defenses were very primitive, again we were not prepared. We use whatever we could, windows were broken, roofs mostly damaged from shelling, all windows were blocked with something, sand bags and rocks. Every night I blocked my yard gate with junk- rubble from the street and I used an old aluminum ladder to get over the (brick) wall, when I came back I called somebody from house to get me with that ladder so I can move back in.
A guy from my street barricaded his house completely. If he goes out at night, he used a hole that he made in one room that was connected with his neighbor’s house, and then go trough his (ruined and destroyed) house out. So, actually he had secret entrance.
It may look weird to say but most secured houses are gone first, of course we had some very nice houses in neighborhood, with walls, dogs, alarms, steel bars on windows, alarms. And you can guess what happened, mobs attacked those houses first, some were defended other not, depend how many guns and hands they had inside.
So i think security is great, but be sure that you keep it low profile. Forget about alarms, if you live in town and SHTF you gonna need simple looking non-interesting secured house, with a lot of guns and ammunition.
Just keep it low profile and not interesting.
On my apartment door now I have a steel door for security reasons, but only to keep me trough the first (brief) short period of chaos, then I am ready to move out to connect with a much bigger group of armed people (family and friends) in the country (I hope).
Well in my case migration did not happen because it happens very fast. The other army just closed up the city in a ring and that’s it. If you ask me where was that army and how we were unable to see them coming, the answer is simple. That army was an ally of the army of my side and people…
… one day we woke up and figured they are the enemy now and they are closing all the ways out. Politics. It is true, it’s one more side of civil war.
But I heard from others parts of country, and my friends who stayed in villages in the other parts in state, that they had much better situations. Their countryside had land, corn, wheat, fruit trees, farms etc. They had enough food, it was bad, but much better than in the city.
I know one thing if we had some way out from the town, we would use it, (unfortunately) we did not have it.
Q: What was the situation with banks and stores?
About banks, loans, credit cards. Complete monetary system died for about one year, so nothing works.
It is complex question in many ways, I’ll try it to answer it in some future posts, (I) need much more time and much much more space to describe it.
Even now, almost 20 years later, folks are in European court suing banks, because they don’t want to admit their savings in banks.
A lot of different things happened in that period. They changed money, I mean (the) monetary name, they changed it 2-3 times , hyperinflation occurred. (All manner of things were lost), lost (all the) paper trails about savings, loans … I remember some people use that situation to get rich, they are still rich.
So I’ll try to describe that in separate post.
There was a lot of problems with proving peoples property after everything. For example: my father had a nice apartment and because of the war he had to leave it. Now, after the war ended he was at court for about 4 years proving that the apartment was his.
Now, the reasons for that were different, because politics in that time, but also he did not have enough paper work to prove that apartment was his (he did not take papers from the apartment when he fled), he had more important things to care about.
On the other side during the worst period, people just moved in the empty house, and that’s it.
I mention rural areas in another post. As far as I remember it was better there.
In that period there wasn’t any running vehicles. Actually I remember a tank at the front line, and Lada Niva (check it on web) with cut off doors and roof and installed machine gun (I think it was an old m53) and those two only moved when they fired (they keep it hidden behind ruined houses).
For let me call it “civilian population” there was no moving with vehicles, streets were mostly under rubble and unusable and fuel was too expensive.
Not to draw attention was a big thing, about clothing, there used to be some sort of town defense, it was not like a real military, mostly mixed civilian clothes with parts of uniforms, different types of weapons, so no rules.
But as soon as we start to go in to those things and try to talk about two armies, their strength, war crimes, politics I am not gonna like it any more, because people gonna start to choose sides, and I think it is not important for us here.
As I said before there wasn’t an organized army, but we all had been like soldiers, we had to, most of us carried weapon and tried to protect ourselves from the enemy army and robbers.
Inside the town you did not want to look fancy because somebody would shoot you and take all your good stuff, you did not want to have a fancy rifle, because probably you not gonna find ammo in that caliber and also you are drawing attention to yourself.
So let me try to put it this way: If SHTF tomorrow, I will try to look like most of the people outside, scared, desperate, confused and I’ll scream maybe, no fancy looking stuff, I’ll not go out in fancy new uniform and yell “I am here, you are finished now looters and robbers”.
I’ll stay low profile, heavily armed and well prepared waiting to see my options, even if I have to go out with all my gear to do things I’ll go out in the night, with my best friend or brother. Maybe it sounds ridiculous, but from my experience it works, be very well prepared, but let nobody outside your house know or see that.
No matter how good your house security is, how good your weapon is, if people see that they have good reason to rob you they probably rob you in town SHTF. It is only matter of time and number of guns.
Don’t ever give them reason to be interesting in robbing you. Stay uninteresting. Now this is my opinion, maybe is not working in different situation.
About robbing grocery store and gas stations; it happened very very fast, as soon as shooting started all valuable things were emptied. There was some effort of authority to keep it together but everything fell apart in the first few weeks.
Bernie Carr from ApartmentPrepper was fascinated with the story and had even more questions, and was able to reach Selco.
Q: On the forum where you described your experience of being under siege, you mentioned that you had no electricity or running water. How did you and your family handle the toilet (sanitary) conditions?
We had a small yard and dug holes for toilets, we thought it was temporary so the holes were small but later on we dug bigger ones because we realized this is long and world might have forgotten us. It was not nice but at least we did not do it in the house like many others did. Whole area started to smell bad anyway, stench from dead people is worse than a bit of poo.
Q: A lot of my readers are women and they would want to know what did the women, children and elderly members of your family do on a day to day basis during the time your city was under attack?
The roles were back to hundred years ago. Before war we were modern society, but as soon as SHTF the women, kids and elder stayed mostly at home. They wanted that, no questions. Happened automatically.
They did the washing, cooking, cleaning and taking care of sick people. Just sometimes when shelling was a bit less some women came along to gather herbs or MRE if food aid was coming that time. Not often. We always had some man protecting the home, women, children and elderly.
Q: From all the weapons that you used, what was your preferred weapons for when you went out into the street OR when you were staying at home and why?
Always had the same weapons, TeTe gun / some Russian gun and AK47. Simple choice, most ammo for these weapons. We had only a few of those so we exchanged them among us. Did a good job, very reliable weapons. AK47 has good stopping power, just not very good on fully auto. Can make a mess out of a human.
Q: A lot of apartment preppers will probably decide to stay in their homes and this has raised a lot of discussions on the pros and cons of staying in the city. Some people say that by staying in the city, the infrastructure will be restored first, and that those living in the countryside would be attacked by roving bandits. The other side states that those living in the countryside have greater chances of survival as they would be more self-reliant and not dependent on resources from the city. Based on you and your family’s experience, which would you prefer and why?
RUN! If you lucky yes, city might be better off but if not it is so much worse. Bug in for a few days until first madness settled and then bug out. Also depends on the weather. Might stay at home in winter and risk getting robbed / murdered instead of going out and freezing to death. Only run if you know where you run to.
Daisy Luther from The Organic Prepper also contacted Selco for an interview. We highlight a couple of the Q&As and you can go to her site if you’d like to read the rest (she focuses on politics and the US situation).
Q: What parallels do you see with events in the US and Bosnia before the SHTF?
US and Yugoslavia (in 1990) on first look do not have anything in common because people are going to say, “The USA cannot have anything similar to any socialistic system.”
This is true but only on first look.
Yugoslavia had somewhere around 20-22 million citizens, six republics (similar to states in the US), 3-4 main religions, and many national groups (ethnicity).
The official state policy was to build Yugoslavian “nationality” (from the end of WW1) and through different ways that effort was successful until the 90s.
We were “something big, united through differences with a strong connection to make something big.”
And then those differences were used to make chaos.
In the late 80s and beginning of the 90s (when democracy came) the problems started and ended up in series of wars and cases of complete collapse.
Things that I experienced in my case prior to SHTF, and things that you might recognize:
- Things that make differences between people are more and more problematic (race, religion, political opinion).
- Polarization is getting obviously stronger.
- People want to come to your country, but they do not want to “assimilate” or contribute to the greater good. They want to preserve their way of life which is often absolutely contradictory to the way that your country (society) works.
- The political way of solving those problems often fails, because, in essence, those problems are hard to solve in a democratic way (in the spirit of democracy).
- Your freedoms are “shrinking” as a result of that.
- Calls for “radical solutions“ for the problems are stronger and stronger.
- The media is absolutely working a dirty job, and it is hard to find out what is the truth anymore.
- Suddenly people and events from history are “brought back” so people can judge and argue about it, to write history again, to build myths sometimes.
Q: Anything else to add?
I have seen many people killed, a lot of women and children too, civilians. A huge number of people suffered, were hungry and cold and were terrified through that period.
But I can count on one hand the dead or hungry politicians in that time.
Things were good for them through that period. Some of them ended up even richer. A lot of them are still powerful in the same or different parties, and are still talking about “their people” or “ causes” or “fear from others”.
It is the way it works.
Conclusion
This is good stuff, don’t you think?
Take heed, SHTF can come in many forms. Like the biological warfare with the coronvirus here in China. (Just a second ago I stepped outside to check with the apartment complex police. We are still under lock-down. No one can come in or leave the complex.)
- Make sure you have a tight group of friends and family.
- Stockpile food.
- Stockpile sanitary and anti-bacterial supplies.
- Have skills or items to barter.
- Be able to defend yourself with equipment that you know how to use well.
- Lie low key, and hide.
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