The ground fountain on „Macedonia” square is being taken apart. The concrete slabs have been lifted out and lined up around the structure itself, and an excavator is working on the square - a scene that looks more like a building site than the most visited spot in Skopje.

The mayor of Skopje, Orce Gjorgjievski, announced that this is a thorough and permanent reconstruction. The equipment is specialised, manufactured in Germany, and the automation requires precise calibration and a full restoration of functionality.

The most interesting detail is what has been sitting under those slabs all this time. The existing load-bearing substructure was made of plastic supports, holding concrete slabs weighing around 100 kilograms per element. Plastic under a hundred kilos of concrete, on a square crossed by tens of thousands of people every day.

Those supports are now being replaced with a new structure of stainless steel profiles, designed to withstand significantly greater mechanical loads. The damaged tiles on the stretch from the „Macedonia” Gate will also be replaced.

Gjorgjievski said openly that the fountain „was left to decay because of years of neglect”. That is an admission worth remembering.

The ground fountain was built as part of the „Skopje 2014” project and put into use in 2015. Over the years it was damaged repeatedly, after trucks and other heavy vehicles drove across it - which is hardly surprising once you know what was holding it up from below.

So: a decade in which a fountain on the main square fell apart, cracked under the weight of vehicles, and now needs a full reconstruction with imported equipment. The question is not whether it is good that it is being repaired now - it is. The question is who designed it with plastic supports, who signed off the work, and what it cost back then.

The fountain will once again be a place for meeting up, for children to play, for photographs and walks, the mayor promises. It probably will. The question is for how long - and whether anybody will be held accountable if in another ten years the same story repeats.