SOFIA -- More than 100 portable electric generators will soon be shipped from Bulgaria to Ukraine, where the Russian military's targeting of energy infrastructure has left millions without power or facing outages.
The money to buy the generators came from a crowdsourcing campaign organized by Manol Peykov, a publisher, translator, and former legislator for Democratic Bulgaria, an alliance of center-right political parties.
In just eight days, more than 2,000 people donated over 500,000 Bulgarian levs ($268,680), a princely sum in the EU's poorest country, where average monthly income amounts to about $900.
"For me, this is absolutely incredible," an elated Peykov told RFE/RL's Bulgarian Service. "It's probably the most exciting thing that's ever happened to me."
In his words, the outpouring of goodwill speaks volumes about the changes taking place in Bulgaria, and a hopeful sign, he says, that a vibrant civil society is finally emerging in the Balkan country of 6.5 million people.
Russia's attacks on critical civilian infrastructure, which experts say violate international and humanitarian law, have damaged or destroyed more than half of Ukraine's electricity network.
Millions of Ukrainians are without regular access to heat, electricity, and water in sub-freezing temperatures, Martin Griffiths, who heads the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, told the UN Security Council on December 7. Some have no access at all, he said.
Much has been made of the need for diesel generators whose buzzing motors create stopgap electricity for cellphone towers, restaurants, and especially hospitals, which are the Ukrainian government's highest priority. That need has sparked efforts, like Peykov's, to ship portable generators to Ukraine, including a similar campaign in Georgia.
Since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his country's unprovoked full invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Peykov has been closely following events in Ukraine, collecting data and other information, and turning his Facebook page into a news agency of sorts.
Objective information on Russia's invasion of Ukraine must compete in Bulgaria with "a steady flow of pro-Russian views" that colors the debate about the war.
Besides news gathering, Peykov has also organized donation drives, collecting medicine, clothes, and shoes for Ukrainian soldiers at the front, as well as medical bandages, which he sends to Ukraine.
Peykov is able to glean what is most in need by speaking regularly with volunteers in Bulgaria and Ukraine as well as digging on the Internet.
He got his crowdfunding idea after a friend told him that a theater in Rivne, a city in western Ukraine, was in need of a powerful generator.
"There are no generators in Ukraine right now; there simply aren't any," Peykov said. "All those available have already been dispatched somewhere."
The fact that weeks ago, the European Union decided to donate 550 generators as humanitarian aid to Kyiv, and at the beginning of this month also announced an additional 40 units to be sent, speaks to that shortage.
"Russia is trying to demoralize Ukrainians by attacking their energy infrastructure and using winter as a weapon against civilians," EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said at the time.
Like Bulgaria, Georgia has also witnessed a similar crowdfunding campaign. The Share The Light campaign is still ongoing and hopes to ship several hundred generators to Ukraine by mid-December, RFE/RL's Georgian Service reported.
Peykov said he initially had no idea how much money the crowdsourcing campaign would generate, but the results have blown him away. "The snowball started to roll down a hill that turned out to be very steep, picking up more snow along the way, growing bigger. It became much bigger than I ever expected in my wildest dreams," he marveled.
Originally, he had planned to end the crowdsource campaign after seven days. But with the donation stream showing no sign of drying up, Peykov extended it to an eighth day, ending the online donation drive on December 5, at noon.
At that time, the funds collected amounted to 534,710 Bulgarian levs. More than 2,000 people donated money, Peykov said.
WATCH: Residents of the Ukrainian port city of Odesa without power amid blackouts flock to cafes and libraries to take advantage of electrical generators.
"It's absolutely amazing," he enthused, adding that the largest donation was about 30,000 Bulgarian and the smallest, 1 euro. "But in my heart, they are all equal in weight," the publisher wrote in a Facebook posting.
After the end of the campaign, Peykov also published a detailed report in which he announced that by December 5, 118 generators had already been purchased with the collected money, and their transportation to Ukraine would begin next week.
One generator has already been delivered to Ukraine. Its history is impressive but also full of symbolism, says Peykov. The unit is located in Bolhrad, a city in southern Ukraine where much of Ukraine's ethnic Bulgarian community lives. It is generating power for a local movie theater there, bringing a bit of normalcy, Peykov said, to people suffering from hardships brought on by Russia's invasion, now compounded by energy shortages.
It was delivered by Tatyana Stanieva, an ethnic Bulgarian from Bolhrad who had traveled to Sofia to screen movies from a film festival she organizes every year back home. (This year's version was held in Poland due to the war)
She had hoped to show a few of the winners in Bolhrad, but without heat in the theater, she knew that wouldn't work.
Already heading home, Stanieva got word of Peykov's campaign and contacted him to ask if he might have an extra generator for the theater in Bolhrad.
Not only could Peykov secure a generator, but she could pick it up in Ruse, a town on the border with Romania. That meant she wouldn't have to detour from her route home.
"It was absolute luck," said Peykov. After the film screenings are over, Stanieva plans to donate the generator to one of the needy institutions in her hometown. In addition, she has connected Peykov with other ethnic Bulgarians in the Odesa region, known as Bessarabian Bulgarians, after the historical region.
Thanks to those contacts, Peykov plans to send more generators to Bolhrad, including to a high school that dates back to 1858 during the so-called Bulgarian revival, a movement to reassert the Bulgarian language and culture after centuries under Ottoman rule.
Elsewhere, Peykov said generators will be heading to Kherson, which Ukrainian forces liberated last month after an eight-month Russian occupation, with hospitals given priority, Peykov said, noting medical staff can't work without power.
"[Provision of electricity] is practically a matter of physical survival of the civilian population in the area," he stated.
Beyond the immediate, practical help, Bulgarians have proven with their outpouring of goodwill what Peykov believes is the "birth of civil society in Bulgaria."
Democracies, Peykov explained, are largely led by civil society rather than presidents and prime ministers. And lacking a strong civil society, Peykov believes, Bulgaria, ranked one of the most corrupt countries in Europe, has suffered.
"This gesture that people made now is absolutely incredible. It blows your mind about everything we know about Bulgaria," said Peykov. "It's super moving, super exciting, and super hopeful."
