The Ohrid - Kičevo highway, a project that for years was a synonym for stalling, is finally starting to show its end. Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski announced that in the coming months the most complicated 10 kilometres of the route will open to traffic - the ones that hold the tunnels and protective galleries. Two galleries are already fully completed, and work on the third is intense.

„This was an abandoned project, this was a project no one believed in, but the end is already in sight”, Nikoloski said, recalling that drivers already use 34 kilometres of the stretch. In parallel, the Ministry says, work is under way on stabilising the ground, finishing the bridges and fitting out both tunnel tubes.

Building the galleries is, according to the minister, the best solution for stabilising the unstable terrain - the very problem that for years held up this part of the route. And there lies the heart of the story. These 10 kilometres are not long on paper, but they are the most expensive and the hardest, because they run through ground that is literally sliding. Every metre demands engineering, not just asphalt.

The announcements sound encouraging, but experience with this highway teaches caution. „Soon”, „in the coming months” and „the end is already in sight” are phrases we have heard before for the very same route, from different governments and different ministers. So we will not measure the worth in press releases, but on the day we get into a car in Kičevo and reach Ohrid without a hold-up. Until then, the 34 finished kilometres are real progress - but the ones left are those that for years have made the difference between a project and a road you actually drive on.