The Stone Bridge, the Skopje landmark linking Macedonia Square with the Old Bazaar, is lit up again. The bridge has new decorative and architectural lighting that highlights its stone arches - after years of sinking into darkness every night.

Why darkness? Because the lighting had been in poor shape for years. All that was left of some lamps were the cables, because the lamps themselves had been stolen, and almost all the lights along the path on the inner part of the bridge had been either smashed or carried off. This is the first overhaul of the bridge's lighting in several decades.

The light came from Esenler. The project wasn't carried out by the City, but by the Turkish municipality of Esenler, with which the City of Skopje signed a Protocol on Friendship and Joint Cooperation in March this year. The City entrusted it with installing the lighting, and Esenler, as the donor, chose the contractor through the Turkish public procurement system. When the project was announced, mayor Orce Gjorgjievski said the cost would be covered by the Macedonian-Turkish Chamber of Commerce, MATTO. The City now clarifies that the chamber handled logistics and facilitated the deal, while the donor is Esenler.

Esenler's mayor, Mehmet Tevfik Göksu, announced the works on social media. "We are finishing the lighting works on the historic Stone Bridge in Skopje, which spans the Vardar River, was completed in the time of Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror and had been in darkness for years. Our historical heritage will now light up Skopje with its own light as well," he wrote.

The bridge is beautiful at night. But two questions remain open. How much did the lighting cost - there is no figure in any of the statements. And who will protect the new lamps from the same hands that took the old ones? If the answer is "nobody", in a few years we will be waiting for a donor again.