An excavator moved in on a 1927 building in Ohrid, right next to the "Grigor Prlichev" primary school. Activists from the civic initiative "Ohrid SOS" declared the scene to be site preparation for a new residential block - on a spot for which they had already requested formal institutional protection.

The numbers are small and tell a lot. Around 1,000 citizens signed a petition for the protection of the 20th-century architectural heritage. Last year the initiative filed a substantiated objection against the environmental study - and to date there is no reply. When the institutions go silent, the excavator speaks.

The activists are especially raising the alarm over safety - the excavators are working right up to the school fence, with no visible markings, and pedestrians walk past the machinery. "Ohrid SOS" say the proposed large residential building directly contradicts the Management Plan for the Natural and Cultural Heritage of the Ohrid region. The question - who is going to answer if something happens to a child leaving school?

What "Ohrid SOS" is doing, with simple tools like a petition and social networks, is what the institutions should have done ten years ago - documented, registered, protected. And now, with an excavator entering the yard of a building that has survived nearly a century, the question is no longer whether it will fall - but how much time will pass before the Ministry of Culture says a word.