{"id":48214,"date":"2022-05-03T08:22:02","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T08:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=48214"},"modified":"2022-05-03T08:22:02","modified_gmt":"2022-05-03T08:22:02","slug":"blackouts-force-syrians-to-return-to-old-ways-to-keep-lights-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=48214","title":{"rendered":"Blackouts force Syrians to return to old ways to keep lights on"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Abu Mohamed, a Syrian man in his sixties, walks down Homs\u2019 Al-Hamedya Street carrying a vintage kerosene stove, which he says urgently needs to get fixed. When he reached the store from which he bought the tool not so long ago, he was told the reason it had stopped working: extensive usage and poor quality fuel.<\/p>\n

Syrians, who are experiencing their worst bout of economic hardship since their country was ravaged with war more than a decade ago, have been increasingly relying on vintage kits and old ways to cope with fuel shortage and long hours of electricity outages.<\/p>\n

Without electrical power, Syrians, an unprecedented 90 percent or more of whom have fallen below the poverty line, are without warmth and unable to cook or wash. Instead, many have had to turn to an antiques market that they had long ignored.<\/p>\n

As with everything in the country, the Coppersmiths Market of Homs, which is dedicated to the manufacturing and sale of brass lamps and old stoves, among other antiques, has lived through drastic change<\/a> over the past decade, as a result of the war in Syria.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore 2010, our customers were Western or Arab tourists who purchased these items as souvenirs and paid for them in dollars. It was a period of prosperity for the market and we did so well,\u201d Abu Khaled, who said he inherited the handcraft from his ancestors, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

As the violence engulfed Homs, the market was severely destroyed and businesses came to a halt, said Abu Khaled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe returned<\/a> and reopened our stores in 2015, and since then, our client base has changed and so did our income. Customers have since been impoverished Syrians who mostly want to fix their long forgotten brass stoves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The more frequently-wanted task, he added, is replacing the heads of the stoves, which can cost about 10,000 to 15,000 liras, or $2.55 to $3.8 according to the current official rate, a small amount compared with the sales the traders made in the old days, he said.<\/p>\n