Sometimes vandalism isn't just broken glass - it's an attack on the memory of an entire region. In Kičevo, a 36-year-old man from Plasnica was caught in the act smashing a window on a carriage of the legendary narrow-gauge train "Ćiro," a museum exhibit more than a century old. Police filed criminal charges for damaging cultural heritage.

For those who don't know what "Ćiro" is - it's no ordinary old train. The locomotive was built in 1917, and from the twenties to the sixties it ran across western Macedonia, connecting Skopje, Tetovo, Gostivar, Kičevo, Ohrid and Struga. For whole generations it was the only link between mountain towns and the world outside. Today it stands as a monument in Kičevo, under constant protection and restoration.

The suspect is charged under an article of the Criminal Code dealing with damage to goods under temporary protection or cultural heritage. The National Museum in Kičevo confirmed it is a museum object of historical value.

The question that remains isn't legal but something else: what drives someone to smash a thing like this in particular? It's not valuable scrap metal to sell, nor stolen goods. This is pure destruction of something shared, something that belongs to everyone and to no one in particular. And when a society stops protecting the things that tie it to its own past, the question isn't only who will answer for it - it's what is left to remember.