In the village Do in the Trebinje municipality, everything used to be bustling with life. Today, only a few houses are inhabited. Slaven Škrba, one of the few who lives in Do, remembers that there used to be six mills on Bregava River and they all belonged to the Škrba and Brkić families.
“One of the mills was built in 1892, it has six mills, two pillars. It worked until 1967, until the electric mills were introduced. As our ancestors told us, there were around 20-30 horses in front of the mill every day. They came from everywhere, from here all the way to Čapljina and on the other side, all the way to Gacko. Before, people used to wait five or six days to buy grain. Now, unfortunately, it has been destroyed. We submitted an application to the Institute for the Protection of Cultural and Historical Monuments to do something about it“, says Škrba.
Restored mill
He says that he decided to return to his roots and restored the mill of his ancestors a few years ago, so the old mill wheel grinds grain again.
“According to legend, my mill is more than 200 years old and it worked until 1973. I renovated it with my own funds“, points out Škrba.
People from western and part of eastern Herzegovina grind grain here.
Daily earnings
“They bring they grain in order to have real homemade flour. Most of them are those who have some health problems, so they do combine and make their own flour“, says Slaven.
He adds that flour is also on sale for those who do not have their own grain, and the price is 1.5 BAM per kilogram.
“Sometimes I earn 10 to 20 BAM a day, and sometimes 50 BAM, and then I earn nothing for days. But these are small earnings and no one can live doing only this job“, explains the hard-working host Slaven Škrba.
