The Belgrade clock on Republic Square, announced as a new symbol of the city and an investment with a hundred-year guarantee, lasted only six days before it broke. Two of the four mechanisms have already been dismantled, with city officials claiming the breakdown is "a common occurrence".
Not even a week has passed since it was on Republic Squareplaced long-awaited Belgrade the clock – the new symbol of the city, and it broke.
So passers-by these days can check the exact time, but only if they look at it from the right angle. The mechanisms on two of the four sides of the clock, which was paid for around 10 million dinars, broke down after six days, so the masters dismantled them and took them for repair.
The watch has a hundred-year warranty, Aleksandar Šapić said before its installation in the middle of the roundabout on Republic Square in Belgrade. He did not, however, explain whether that 36.525-day warranty applies only to the construction or to all parts of the watch.
IMG_3114For days on two of the four mechanisms, time stands still
It's like when you buy a new car, only a little different
The clock was set in the early dawn of February 22, and the craftsmen already had to dismantle the two broken mechanisms on the 28th, when it turned out that the time was not in sync with the other two. The elimination of the problem will be carried out within the framework of the valid guarantee, said city planner Marko Stojčić.
"It has been established that sometimes two mechanisms do not work properly. Whether the reason is an error in the mechanisms themselves, damage during assembly or something else, will be determined. The watch is certainly under warranty and the repairer is obliged to solve the problem. Bearing in mind that it is a renowned manufacturer, we have no doubt that it will be so," he said.
He also added that this kind of situation is not uncommon: "When you buy a new car, it happens that something doesn't work, so the car is returned to the seller to solve the problem."
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićThe watch cost about 10 million dinars
He also said that such situations are not uncommon even with significantly more complex and technologically advanced systems, and that "the douchebags do not lie to the people and do not make things up", as well as that the watch was purchased from an "eminent manufacturer".
The eminent manufacturer from which the mechanism was purchased is the French company Bodet, Stojčić said earlier.
There was controversy after setting the watch to look like a cheap variant from Alibaba. On the occasion of those allegations, Stojčić offered to resign "as the first among equals who participated in the selection of the type, details and materials for this watch", if those who "state these falsehoods and prove or, even better, get an identical watch at the prices they stated".
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićTwo of the four mechanisms broke
The clock mechanism is worth around five million dinars.
For Stefan Simić, a councilor in the Belgrade City Assembly, setting and breaking a clock in just a few days is a paradigm of the state of affairs in the capital.
"When we put everything together, the clock on Trg republike is perhaps a mirror of how everything works in Belgrade at the moment. Personally, as a councillor, I did not believe that it happened, but when I saw that the city's urban planner Marko Stojčić confirmed that it was true, that the clock would be repaired under the valid guarantee, one should not be surprised when bigger things happen. This clock is a canopy in miniature, proof of how projects are implemented in the capital", explained Simić for the new issue of "Vremena", which on newsstands from Thursday, March 5.
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićThe mechanism broke after six days
Is the tender rigged?
The representative of the French Bodet, the Serbian company Electra M&V, was previously awarded the job of setting the clock in a tender, writes New economy.
Before the contract for the procurement, manufacture, assembly and commissioning of the Belgrade Clock was awarded to the companies Electra M&V and Livnica Jeremic 1927, the technical specification contained a detailed description of how the clock should look, as well as which mechanism should be installed.
According to the specific description of the mechanism, it is explained in detail what thickness the glass should be, the frame, the protection index, and even the type of clock mechanism, which fully corresponds to the Baudet model "780".
As New Economy writes, based on this, it can be concluded that even before the tender was announced, it was known that the mechanism would be Bodet's, and the company that is Bodet's partner in Serbia is the one that got the job - Electra M&V.
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićA watch that doesn't exactly tell the time
Two contracts
The City of Belgrade twice awarded the contract for the installation of the Belgrade Clock on Republic Square. The first time was in the middle of last year, when the companies Electra M&V and Primus BMJ doo got a job worth 10 million dinars without VAT.
However, the company Primus BMJ could not perform this work, so the City again called for procurement at the end of December 2025 and found a new company that will do it - Livnica Jeremic 1927 doo, writes Nova ekonomija.
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