LIFE STANDS STILL IN BERKOVIĆI

They have no bank, no newsstand, no restaurant. The factories and companies shut down long ago. Very often, they don’t even have clean water — they still carry it in plastic canisters. The children’s playground is empty, and the café half-deserted. In Berkovići, it feels as if life has come to a stop.

PHOTO: Trebinje live

Luckily, the land is fertile, and the people are honest and hardworking — but there are fewer of them every year.

“When I worked at the school in Berkovići, we had 450 students. Today there are fewer than 200. That says a lot — people are leaving and not coming back, because life here simply isn’t good,” says Milenko Kojović, a retired teacher.

“The death rate compared to the birth rate in Berkovići is one to a hundred. Young people are leaving,” adds Dušan Đurica, president of the local Pensioners’ Association.

This is Ljiljana, soon to become a Master of Pharmacy. She loves Berkovići more than anything and would gladly return — but she doesn’t know what she would do there. The town’s only pharmacy already has enough staff, and even medicine is often in short supply.

“I didn’t want to stay in Mostar. This is my home, and I’d love to remain here, perhaps in that same pharmacy — or, God willing, in a private one if it ever opens. I did my internship here, and it was really nice, but I honestly don’t know what will happen — whether Berkovići will even exist in a few years,” says Ljiljana Antunović, a pharmacy student.

Berkovići hasn’t seen any major investment in years. It’s the last moment, say the residents of Dabar village. They don’t complain much about local authorities — they just wish the Republic government would notice them.

“If I started listing everything that’s missing, it would take a while,” says Đurica honestly.

“A lot is missing, mostly the basics — like you mentioned, a newsstand, a bank. We have to travel to Stolac, Bileća, Trebinje, or Mostar for the simplest things,” says Ljiljana.

Better roads are also needed. The one to Stolac is currently under repair.

While Berkovići residents openly talk about their problems and what they lack, political quarrels are not in short supply. The opposition wants to criticize but avoids appearing on camera — instead, they send messages. The local SNSD leader wrote to us on Instagram; the mayor, from the SDS party, replied via Viber.

Mayor Bojan Samardžić says he expects stronger and more meaningful support from the Government of Republika Srpska.

“Politicians usually promise miracles before elections — castles and palaces — but in the end, it all stays just promises,” says retired teacher Milenko Kojović.

In recent years, the construction of the Dabar Hydroelectric Power Plant has brought at least some benefit to the municipality — a few people found jobs there. If nothing else, the presence of Chinese workers has, for a short while, increased the population of Berkovići.