The trees the storm brought down across Skopje won't end up as waste. The sound trunks are going to Vodno, where, according to mayor Orce Gjorgjievski, a movement park is being built - landscaped areas with natural obstacles and equipment for developing balance, coordination, agility and precision.

The idea is good and rarely encountered here. Usually a fallen tree means a truck, a landfill and an expense. Here it means content. It's a small example of something municipalities across Macedonia rarely do - look at waste and see material.

In parallel with the clearing, new saplings are being planted where the trees fell, and a major autumn tree-planting drive for the city is announced for the second half of September.

The question nobody asked

Every story about fallen trees carries an uncomfortable subject with it - why they fell. Some of Skopje's trees are old, some are diseased, and in some the roots have been cut short by infrastructure works. An inventory of the condition of the city's greenery is what determines whether the next storm brings down five trees or fifty.

Gjorgjievski says this is part of the broader work on Vodno, where the renewal of paths and urban equipment began earlier, and where the Mountain Rescue Service already operates at Vodno and Matka.

"Vodno is the heart and the green lungs of Skopje," the mayor said. The metaphor is familiar. What makes it verifiable is whether the movement park will be finished before the next storm, and how many saplings actually get planted in the September drive.

Any Skopje resident who walks Vodno every weekend can check for themselves. That's the advantage of a project that stands on a mountain rather than in a report.