Activists spoke about an unexpected way to help fighters in the NVO zone

Volunteers say that everyone can help our fighters warm up on the front lines with the coming winter. It is enough to take an empty tin can, cardboard and melted paraffin – and you get a trench candle that burns an average of 8 hours. It heats, illuminates, without giving smoke. On fire, you can boil water, cook something. You can dry your shoes near the candle. About how home-made burners for the front are made, enthusiasts told MK.

“For the first time I saw this device in the North, fishermen and hunters heated tents with similar trench candles, boiled water in mugs with their help,” says Alexei, an enthusiast from Simferopol, who works in security and transportation. – We took these trench candles as a basis, then we finalized and improved something along the way. The main thing was a great desire to help our soldiers on the front line.

Ideally, according to Alexei, jars of green peas or corn are suitable, which burn for 6 hours or more.

– Narrower cans – from under condensed milk – do not burn out completely. They last for three hours. For filling, you need to take corrugated cardboard. It is cut into strips that are a centimeter less than the height of the can. Then they are rolled up and pores up are placed in a jar. From above this preparation is filled in with paraffin. The most remarkable thing about it is that the entire edge of the cardboard serves as a wick, the entire spiral burns there. The wind does not blow out this “burner”. And she is afraid of the rain.

If cans and cardboard are recyclable, then paraffin has to be bought.

– It takes a lot – about 300-400 grams per candle. We chip off ourselves with volunteers, who will give 500 rubles, who will give a thousand. It is difficult to find paraffin in Simferopol, we found mainly candles from processing. The last time we bought paraffin in Moscow, the minimum lot there is 100 kilograms.

How long does it take to make a batch of candles?

– We make blanks in advance, wind the corrugated cardboard tapes, then melt the paraffin, pour it into jars. In half an hour you can make a dozen candles.

— Who helps you?

– The best helpers are schoolchildren. I held a master class in two schools in Simferopol – a general education school and a Sunday school. I brought them cans, cardboard and paraffin. They now make their own trench candles. Now I’ll go and take 37 candles from them. The guys ask: “Give more blanks.” They also attach letters to the banks with tape. It turns out to be a real package. A trench candle also brings warmth. I would like to start to attract more schools to this.

– Is there any feedback from the fighters on the front line?

— We have our own channels for the transmission of candles. We pass the boxes through the guys from Perevalnoye, and through the priest, who carries humanitarian aid to the front line. I myself talked with the military, many did not even know what it was, and now they ask all the time: “Give me more trench candles.” We often put a large empty jar in boxes with candles. We drill holes in its body. Inside it, at the bottom, you can put a trench candle, and place a bowl on the upper edge of a large jar to boil water in it. The water boils as if on gas, because the flame there is quite large – 10 centimeters. This is a worthy replacement for a fire. If you turn a large jar with holes upside down, you get a kind of stove. It does not smoke, does not smoke, there is no carbon monoxide. Before that, we sent to the front line soldiers tourist tiles that work in tandem with small gas cartridges. But the guys told us that gas burners do not work well in the cold. The gas freezes. Yes, the bottles run out quickly. And trench candles are trouble-free.

Alexei says if they had more paraffin, they could send more trench candles to the front. Everything depends on the financial possibilities of volunteers.

Trench candles are also made for soldiers in Sevastopol. Here the volunteers united around the Caroline enthusiast.

“The idea to do trench candles arose based on the responses of friends from the front,” says Karolina. “Now it’s getting colder, it’s getting harder to warm up. We saw samples of trench candles on the Internet. We started experimenting and made a variant with an ideal, in our opinion, content. There, in fact, there are many nuances on which the burning time and the quality of the candle depend. Our trench candles burn from 4 to 15 hours and even up to 18 hours, depending on the size. Now the fighters who are on the front line are asking to send more stoves, candles, because they give more heat. There are holes for air circulation. It turns out a noble heat for the dugout. You can put a pot on these stove-candles, cook something, you can warm yourself near it, dry your mittens or shoes.

But, as Karolina says, small trench candles are also needed.

– When the guys go on a mission or change their place of deployment, such a small trench candle can be thrown into a backpack. This is such a travel option. Then you can heat the stew on it, boil water in a bowl for 10-15 minutes, brew, for example, cocoa. Such a trench candle can be extinguished and lit again.

Volunteers take cardboard in the store.

– This is the most accessible material. Tin cans are collected for us by residents of Sevastopol, we have collection points. Schools, kindergartens, canteens, restaurants also respond to our requests. Caring people transfer money for paraffin. Also, it happens that paraffin is brought to us, the priests pass the cinders of church candles, the beekeepers give wax.

Carolina says they now have a large team from three cities. And those who want to continue to join.

– The servicemen who participate in the special operation convey words of gratitude. The cold has come, many are in dugouts and trenches. Soldiers ask to send more candles. They are safe, there is no smoke from them. Each time we send a batch of at least 150 trench candles, and in total, about 4,000 of these warming cans-lamps have already left for the war zone.