Five times a week, and sometimes six, Jovana Stojsavljević from Novi Sad stood under the canopy of the Railway Station before it was closed on November 1, 2024. crashed down on people and took 16 lives. Among them, it could easily have been hers. It was only due to a combination of incredible circumstances that Jovana did not go to the station on November 1.
"The night before, I ran to get there before the train to buy a monthly ticket, which I did every month for a year ago," Jovana remembers in an interview with "Vreme".
She arrived at the last minute, but if she hadn't, she would have had to postpone it for exactly that November 1 around noon, when she normally goes to Belgrade by train every day. At that time, the station collapsed.
"Something looked at me, whether it was God or the universe, whoever believes in it, it doesn't matter," says Jovana in September 2025, almost a full year after the canopy at the Railway Station in Novi Sad collapsed, taking human lives and changing the political life as we know it in Serbia.
While the students and disaffected citizens rose up and have not rested since then, the regime seems to be preparing for the anniversary of the human and political tragedy in the country - the opening of the railway station.
Grand opening
Mayor of Novi Sad Zarko Micin he stated at the session of the City Assembly that on September 15th one could expect the opening of part of the main railway station in that city, that wing D, which is located some 100 to 150 meters from the entrance to the railway station, where the canopy collapsed on November 1st last year, could be made operational and citizens could board the train safely and without hindrance at that carriageway.
However, in order to open the station, they have to finish checking the statics of the building, they learn from N1, which is necessary in order to carry out the adaptation of the car passage that exits on both platforms, and this would serve as an optimal solution for the railway station in Novi Sad.
Professor of the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad Ilija Tanackov told N1 that, considering the circumstances, the proposed solution will be adopted when it is checked by the profession and approved by the Prosecutor's Office.
"So, the fact that the station was not opened on September 15 is the prevalence of the profession over politics. Due to the overall conditions of movement and everything that caused the process with the canopy and the prosecutorial process, which certainly goes with the support of FTN experts, this should be respected in order not to repeat the negative examples we have in our practice, and recent ones, such as, for example, at the Međerovo station, where the prosecutorial process was not good," he explains.
Tragedy in Novi Sad: A life-threatening system
Protests as medicine
Jovana cannot take back the day when the canopy fell. Countless people called her - just to hear that she is alive, because they know that she travels by that train every day. The moments when she returned to that train were especially difficult for her.
"I went in the very next day, the day after the tragedy. I didn't want to, but I had no other way to get to work on time," she remembers. "The conductor cried the whole way. I will never forget the look on her face. I had to spend some painful time on that train that day, and it was her workplace."
She cried, she says, every day for two or three months, and all the protests she went to acted as therapy and medication because she felt that people shared her sadness, that she had become the sadness, but also the anger of the entire nation.
Sara from Belgrade also loved that train to Novi Sad 15 years ago, even when it was not fast. Her extended family lives in Novi Sad and she used to travel exclusively by train twice a month.
"Over time, the sets took on more modern clothes and it was more comfortable compared to 2010, when I first traveled. I think I knew every corner of the former railway station, and even when it was renovated. A few old kiosks in front of it, a cafe on the upper floor that didn't always work, a few counters in front of which the queues went to the front door. That picture was completed by an old locomotive - a meeting point with my closest people," Sara remembers.
The student rebellion had a similar effect on her, perhaps because of her specific connection with the city. With every gathering, every walk or slogan, the feeling is, he says, "anger, followed by a question - is it possible that after everything, no one still thinks about the consequences and that everything is taken lightly, and forgotten even faster?"
Photo: Vreme/Katarina StevanovićHow will it be marked one year since the fall of the canopy?
Who will set foot on the station again
The authorities do not plan to open the part where the canopy collapsed, but people who would come to the platform and take the train will be only 100 meters away from the scene of the crime.
Jovan has completely mixed feelings that he cannot distinguish when he hears the news that the station will reopen. She loses almost an hour every day in the journey because the train now goes to and from Petrovaradin.
"I can't imagine going back to that place, as if nothing had happened," she says. "My thoughts are crazy, because on the one hand I can't wait for the station to open, so that I don't have to take a taxi, bus and waste time to come from Petrovaradin. But, again, I'm not sure if I want to and if it will be safe? It bothers me even more - who can we trust?"
Where is the way out of here?
Sara still travels by train to Petrovaradin, but she says that the feeling is no longer the same.
"I go out and it's like I'm unconsciously looking for that locomotive and the old kiosk near it," he describes.
She will not return to the station in Novi Sad, at least for a while.
"Given what happened, I wouldn't really feel safe passing by and coming," she says. "I also feel uneasy every time I come to Prokop, now the main railway station in Belgrade. At first, I looked where the canopy was and I would constantly turn behind me looking for an exit sign."
