On Saturday (November 2), kiosks in Serbia were covered with black and white print. People go about their business more quietly than usual, there is no music from the coffee shop. It is a day of mourning.
Many things remind of May of last year, after the mass murders in the elementary school "Vladislav Ribnikar" and the youth villages of Dubona and Mali Orašac. Still, then, sadness was mixed with disbelief.
And now, after of the fatal fall of the canopy at the Novi Sad railway station, as if it were a cocktail of sadness and anger.
Fourteen people died under the concrete on Friday, this may not be the final balance of victims because there are some seriously injured.
That's the "old" canopy
Many critics of the government they oppose Black Friday in Novi Sad being called a "tragedy". It is, they say, a "crime", the result of corruption, systemic corruption, expulsion of expertise from all spheres of life.
"What disturbed the statics of the canopy if not the third reconstruction (read: budget robbery) of the railway station in four years?" There hasn't been rain and snow in a long time," Professor Bojan Pajtić, former Prime Minister of Vojvodina, asked in a tweet.
Namely, the Railway Station was ceremonially "opened" again this July, although the works are not yet completely finished.
But not an hour after the death of people, while there were still people buried under the shelling, a number of media close to the authorities changed the news headlines on the portals and further emphasized that it was the "old canopy" of the reconstructed station.
The subtext is not difficult to understand - something that we are has not fallen mi worked, but something old, which has not been changed since 1964, when the station was built.
A "crime" for which you go to prison
But, critics ask, how could that possibly justify anyone? Prime Minister Miloš Vučević and ministers Ivica Dačić and Goran Vesić appeared on the scene, all announcing investigations.
President of Serbia Aleksandar Vučić spoke in prime time on television demanding "political and criminal" responsibility.
For Pajtić, it is clear what that responsibility should look like. Especially since, as it is written on the X network, it is not visible at the station where 60 million euros were spent on reconstruction, and it is unclear why, with that money, at least the canopy that collapsed like a house of cards was not repaired.
"Because of such tragedies, which are an obvious consequence of corruption, arrogance and ignorance, governments in the civilized world not only fall, but collectively go to prison," wrote Pajtić.
Who reconstructed the station and how?
The client for the reconstruction of the station was the Railway Infrastructure of Serbia, and the works were carried out by two Chinese companies. All as part of the high-speed railway that now connects Belgrade and Novi Sad, and one fine day - with dozens of promises that have already been broken - it will go to Budapest.
That deal, like many other deals with the Chinese, was shrouded in secrecy.
Only, Infrastructure announced that the canopy was not included in the reconstruction. It was done around, on the facade. Some would say - the canopy is made up.
Professionals notice strange things - the added steel and glass elements on the canopy, and the gallery inside the station building, which leans against the same wall.
The question is whether the canopy fell because "it was prone to falling" or because someone overlooked something during the reconstruction and changed the statics.
Heedless of warnings
Geological engineer Zoran Đajić, who until last year worked on the reconstruction of the station as a consultant to the traffic institute CIP, claims that it is the latter. And that despite the warnings.
He told N1 television that in March of last year he personally sent a report to the contractors and the competent ministry in which he requested that the marble slabs be removed from the facade of the building and the foundation be checked, and that everything be repaired and replaced "which was otherwise foreseen in the project".
"The fact is that that part was not done and the contractor decided only to repaint the panels that needed to be replaced," claims Đajić.
Political consequences
The line minister Vesić promises that it will be determined why the canopy was not reconstructed. As he said, the construction permit was issued three years ago and that process had to include a static assessment. It should be seen why it was decided not to reconstruct the canopy, said Vesić.
But Vesić himself, according to the announcements of the Higher Prosecutor's Office in Novi Sad, should be interrogated among twenty people this Saturday.
It may be that the answers to "why this happened" and "who is to blame" are easy to find, unlike the carnage last year, the amok, when it was impossible to get inside the killers' heads.
Now you can enter the documentation and the money trail, if you want. But critics say that then, like a canopy, the entire government system would collapse.
"We are left to fear, every day more and more, what the mighty Potemkin villages that the Vučići people build will look like over time." Experts say - God forbid a serious earthquake", writes "Vremena" journalist Nedim Sejdinović.
The question is whether the political situation will resemble the one after last May, when months-long "protests against violence" brought a record number of people to the streets, and then quietly died down.
For now, the opposition has only invited citizens to gather in Novi Sad on Saturday at 17 pm in order to unite in pain and solidarity. Until the conclusion of this text, no one has yet resigned.
