The gondola on Kalemegdan will be realized on the condition that it does not endanger the cultural and historical heritage of Kalemegdan, Mayor Aleksandar Šapić said recently in response to a journalist's question whether the 500.000 dinars in this year's budget for the gondola is a sign that it will still be built, even though the project was stopped last year .
Although it does not answer the question, this announcement is important because it is probably the first time that some of the city officials, talking about the gondola, mention the threat of cultural values.
Šapić reminded that the gondola construction project was launched in 2018 but was not implemented, because it needs to be determined in court whether it threatens the cultural and historical heritage of Kalemegdan.
He also said that "the project is not so expensive that it would have to be abandoned if it can be implemented."
The gondola was part of the Detailed Regulation Plan from 2018, and since then the city government has passed (read Goran Vesić) talked about it as a safe project and judging by the allocated budget money, she did not give up despite the court injunction.
Namely, the Administrative Court in Belgrade annulled the building permit for the preparatory works, which was approved in April 2019 by the Ministry of Construction, Transport and investors to the Ski Resort of Serbia and the City of Belgrade. The lawsuit was then brought by the Renewable Energy Regulatory Institute (RERI).
With the decision given by the Ministry to the mentioned investors, it was allowed to carry out preparatory works for the construction of the Kalemegdan gondola station, which involve drilling and digging the Belgrade Fortress.
This court, as pointed out by RERI at the time, concluded that the performance of works on Kalemegdan could have irreparable consequences for the cultural property - the Belgrade Fortress and the environment, and that it would cause damage to the wider interests of the public, which would be difficult to compensate.
In the public, this decision of the Administrative Court was welcomed as a voice of reason against the city government, which advocated for the construction despite the experts, who claimed that it would damage Kalemegdan. They assessed that this project is in conflict with professional standards, international obligations and laws of Serbia in the field of cultural heritage preservation and would irrevocably threaten the Belgrade Fortress as a cultural asset of the highest importance for Serbia.
The Department of Historical Sciences of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts also opposed the construction of the cable car, judging, among other things, that the project would "grossly damage the entirety of the unique monument and the vision of the position of the Belgrade Fortress at the confluence of two great rivers, which no other medieval city has."
The strongest argument against the gondola is the fact that the Belgrade Fortress and its surroundings are on the list The "7 most endangered" cultural heritage sites in Europe in 2020, published by the largest pan-European heritage network, Europa Nostra, and the Institute of the European Investment Bank.
The Belgrade fortress is "threatened by the harmful project of the construction of the Kalemegdan-Ušće cable car (gondola), which would drastically threaten the integrity and authenticity of this extremely important cultural property", the explanation stated.
To all the arguments of the profession and criticism of the public city leaders countered by claiming the objections were unfounded. They said that the walls of the fortress under which the Belgrade gondola would be built have no historical value, that many trees on the fortress will not be cut because of the cable car, and that the gondola will be another tourist attraction of the capital.
Since last April, when the construction was stopped by the court, the gondola stopped being talked about both in the public and in the relevant ministry until the aforementioned Šapić's reply.
The investor appealed against the decision of the Constitutional Court - this is the court process mentioned by Šapić. It is not entirely clear why the city allocated money for a project that may be canceled again, but Šapić would certainly have some answer for that. For now, it is commendable that he is taking care of the heritage at all.
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