Power Crisis, Rising Prices Deprive Lebanese of Suhoor Ambiance

Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
TT

Power Crisis, Rising Prices Deprive Lebanese of Suhoor Ambiance

Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Men fill a private generator, which provides electricity with diesel oil in Beirut, Lebanon January 21, 2022. REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

Ramadan is known for its special Suhoor time, during which friends and family gather for fun. It’s also an unmissable time for prayer and rest after a long day for many fasters. But today, with the absence of electricity in Lebanon, Suhoor ambiance and preparations are not the same, as private generators owners cut the power off before midnight, forcing many Lebanese to return home early.

Abu Nabil, a man we met in a supermarket in the Lebanese capital, says he uses candles during Suhoor. “I buy a 500-gram pack of candles for 40,000 LBP (1$=25,000 LBP). Our days and traditions have significantly changed. It’s sad and nobody hears us or tries to understand our struggle,” he adds.

The prices of most ingredients including cheese, grains, and flour have skyrocketed, so the families that can enjoy a decent Suhoor are now far fewer.

These products are Suhoor table essentials, as they are healthy and can be used in making pastries and plates fasters need.

In a quick tour of restaurants and cafes in Lebanon, you would notice they’re fully booked at Iftar time, but empty during Suhoor due to the electricity crisis controlled by private generator owners in the capital’s neighborhoods.

“Streets of Beirut are empty as of 10:30 pm. People return home before the generators go off, and the state-run power grid rarely provides us with one or two hours of power during Suhoor time. We have decided to close early, because visitors who come after 10:00 are few,” Ismail, who works in a restaurant in the Sodeko region, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

The power crisis in Lebanon has heavily affected the holy month, causing people to skip many traditions and compromise much of their daily lifestyle.

Jana, a mother of three who lives in the Beirut Mazraa area, states that the power crisis prevented her from freezing food like she used to do. “In the past, we used to find whatever we wanted to cook for Iftar and Suhoor in our freezers. Today, however, our freezers have turned into empty cupboards that we rarely open. The lack of power and the increase of meat and vegetable prices have turned our refrigerators into an obsolete accessory,” she explains.

“The generators’ owners are manipulating our life. I struggle to deliver many orders everyday because the power hours differ from one region to another,” Mohammed, a delivery driver, told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“When I finish my work, I take a hookah break and a light Suhoor with my friends, then I prepare myself to climb the stairs to my house on the sixth floor because the generator owner in Mar Elias, where I live, turns it off at 10:00 pm,” he adds.

Suhoor plates include cooked beans, chickpeas, pastries like cheese rolls and vegetable pies.

Samira Hammoud, who works as a salesperson, says she’s unable to prepare beans with some chickpeas for Suhoor like she used to do because she cannot afford to buy vegetables, grains, and cheese anymore. “It’s a main course on the Suhoor table. To enjoy it, it should be served with veggies like parsley, radish, spring onion, and tomatoes,” she told Asharq Al-Awsat.

“But today, I eat it without veggies. I can barely eat a cucumber; one kilogram of cucumber costs 40,000 LBP. I totally forgot the cheese rolls, the frozen packs of those are unattainable,” she added.

In some Beirut neighborhoods, some coffeeshop owners insist on opening their doors for Suhoor, serving thyme, cheese, and Kishik manakish, and meat pies alongside some juices and Ramadan desserts like Kallaj and cheese kunefe.

Samer, who works in a coffee shop, says most of their customers come after Iftar and right before Suhoor to enjoy a cup of tea with a ‘kaake’ or a thyme mankoushe because that’s what they can afford.

“The Lebanese used to celebrate Suhoor, enjoying a hookah and chit chatting around a table full of local popular plates including meat, cheese, and veggies. However, today, we miss this scene due to the power crisis and the skyrocketing prices,” he added.



1st Car Made during Soviet-era in Poland Goes on Display 73 Years Later

This Warszawa M-20 car with serial number 000001, based on a Soviet Union's model, was the first vehicle to leave a car factory in Poland after World War II, on Nov. 6, 1951 and now, 73 years later, it goes on public display at a private museum in Otrebusy, central Poland, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
This Warszawa M-20 car with serial number 000001, based on a Soviet Union's model, was the first vehicle to leave a car factory in Poland after World War II, on Nov. 6, 1951 and now, 73 years later, it goes on public display at a private museum in Otrebusy, central Poland, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
TT

1st Car Made during Soviet-era in Poland Goes on Display 73 Years Later

This Warszawa M-20 car with serial number 000001, based on a Soviet Union's model, was the first vehicle to leave a car factory in Poland after World War II, on Nov. 6, 1951 and now, 73 years later, it goes on public display at a private museum in Otrebusy, central Poland, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
This Warszawa M-20 car with serial number 000001, based on a Soviet Union's model, was the first vehicle to leave a car factory in Poland after World War II, on Nov. 6, 1951 and now, 73 years later, it goes on public display at a private museum in Otrebusy, central Poland, on Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)

The very first car produced in Soviet-era Poland after World War II went on display Friday near Warsaw after it was tracked down in Finland during decades of searching and acquired after years of negotiations.

The chunky 1951 Warszawa M-20 bears the serial number 000001 it had when it left the FSO Passenger Car Factory in Warsaw on Nov. 6 of that year, exactly 73 years ago. It is a relic of the period of Poland’s post-war subordination to communist-ruled Soviet Union.

“We are extremely proud because now we count among the very few people in the world who have retrieved the very first vehicles of the series made in their countries,” said Zbigniew Mikiciuk, a co-founder of the private museum in Otrebusy.

The car was first given to the Soviet army marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky, who served as Poland’s defense minister after the war to seal the country’s dependency to Moscow. It eventually was discovered in the possession of the family of Finnish rally car driver Rauno Aaltonen, though the car's history in between remains unclear, Mikiciuk said.
It took more than two years of negotiations to obtain the vehicle from the Finnish owners, The Associated Press quoted him as saying.

The car's original light color has been painted over with a shade of brown that was fashionable in the 1970s and bears marks of once-intensive use that the museum has preserved to keep it authentic, but it is still "holding together” and is “cool” despite its age, Mikiciuk said.
The now-defunct FSO factory intensively sought the original model during the 1970s in hopes of using it to mark an anniversary. The company even offered a new car in exchange for it, at a time when cars were still a luxury in Poland, but to no avail.
The FSO factory was originally built in the late 1940s to make Italian Fiat 508 and 1100 cars, but Soviet leaders in Moscow objected to the ties with a Western company during the Cold War. They ordered production to be based on the Soviet Union's Pobeda (Victory) cars, with Moscow providing the technology and the production lines.
The car now joins the museum’s many historic vehicles, including a 1928 US-made Oakland brought to Poland before the war by a doctor’s family and a 1953 Buick that belonged to Poland’s communist-era Prime Minister Jozef Cyrankiewicz. The former leader brought the car to Poland via the Netherlands apparently to avoid a direct connection to the US during the Cold War.
The museum also displays a Volvo that was used by Poland’s communist leader, Gen. Wojciech Jaruzelski, known for having imposed martial law in 1981.
“We have been doing this for more than 50 years and we are not collecting cars you can see in the street but cars that have their history, their soul and their legend,” Mikiciuk said.
The museum owners hope that by displaying the initial Warszawa M-20 they can encourage members of the public to come forward and fill in more details of its history.