21 years of life in a mountain wilderness

(8 Feb 2017) LEAD IN:
Many dream of leaving the city for a more simple life in the country.
But how about going to live in the wilderness 4000 feet up a mountain?
A Bosnian couple are celebrating their 21st year doing just that.
STORY-LINE:
Their home most certainly has a view.
Ramiz Palos and his wife Zemina fled the hardships of urban life in Bosnia as soon as the country had emerged from a 4-year-war two decades ago.
They choose to live on Mount Vlasic in central Bosnia at 1,300 meters above sea level, separated by kilometres of dirt road from the nearest inhabited place.
Palos says he is not a recluse and was not looking for an escape from traumatic memories. Instead, he says, he wanted to take control of his life.
After 21 years of primal existence in the wilderness Palos feels in control and happy, insisting he would never return to "civilisation".
"I had several reasons to move here. I came here to secure means for existence, but also to live an exciting life, to not have a boring life," he says.
Life in the wilderness has many challenges, but Palos insists embracing it was easier and more productive than if he had waited for the government to create a job for him.
"People here (in Bosnia) are too willing to surrender responsibility for their own life to somebody else, they are not thinking. People need to think to come up with ways to find work for themselves. I don't have to worry about the work of the government or anyone else," he says.
While he sometimes has to fight off bears and wolves and to endure pouring rains, winter storms and strong winds, Palos has an abundance of food, fresh air and a warm home.
"You need to know how to behave (in nature) because we get heavy rains, winter storms and strong winds. You need to know how to behave in such circumstances," he says.
"Sometimes it gets so cold that I cannot leave home for two months, but I have enough food and everything else I need so it does not matter. Winter comes and goes."
With an unemployment rate of close to 30 percent, finding a job in Bosnia can be hard and close to a fifth of the country's population lives in poverty.
The country is failing to fully capitalise on the good climatic conditions and an abundance of fertile land that make it one of the most favourable spots for farming in southern Europe.
But Aleksandra Nikolic from the Sarajevo Faculty of Agriculture and Food Science believes that a growing number of Bosnians are recognising the advantages of rural life.
"Agriculture is a way of life; it is no longer identified with the image of an exhausted man farming a rough patch of land in the middle of nowhere with the help of emaciated farming animals," she says.
"Agriculture is a sector of economy that helps people in local communities to weather the periods of financial, economic, political or any other crisis by securing a source of income that helps them get through hard times."
Palos might be the best example of that. When he first moved into the mountains in 1996 he lived in an old van and then in a makeshift tent. But after just a few months, he had built a simple house for himself and was joined by his wife.
They still live in the house with no running water and off the electricity grid. But they grow their own vegetables and corn, raise goats and farm fish in the wild mountain river.
Palos used local wood and stone to build his barn, hatching tanks and the watermill where he grinds his corn.
The couple have a wood burning stove to protect them from the freezing winter temperatures and they feed it with the logs they collect in the forest.
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[@musictube3780]

Man lives life the way it was meant to be lived.

[@oldshooldamir8658]

jedan od rijetki koji se snaso u vremenu kontrolisanog haosa.

[@vinkovincenzzo8690]

Svaka njemu cast :)

[@bhfana]

Svaka ti cast!

[@doveposlanika]

Bosnian Hill Billy :) cool i like it...

[@winterblue8887]

I wish I could do this.....

[@Teskantawa]

Bravo Amigo

[@leonardodogan1832]

Sve je lako kad si mlad

[@jacobeksor6088]

I am Montagnard jarai I like the way how he live

[@no-ns1zt]

Kamerman se smrzo😂

[@inoxinox2306]

no. 1 zadihao se kamerman

[@nolimit3663]

Ovo Cowboy neki....

[@najk0581]

Sve se prevrćem od smijeha.

[@markojotanovic1123]

Ł

[@mixertorca7917]

Ota krka jide barem 25 put na dan😢