The Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Heritage has sent an initiative to the Inspectorate for Cultural Heritage to remove an illegally placed advertisement on Poets' Square in the very heart of the Old Town by the Swarovski company, for which the conditions for placement were not issued by that state institution.
This was confirmed to "Vijesti" by the director of the Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Heritage. Petra Zdravković.
The placement of the advertisement was raised as early as two months ago by the director of the Public Institution "Museums and Galleries of Budva". Biljana Brajović, which also made an announcement on social media in early August, stating that none of the authorities had reacted.
Zdravković is categorical that, if the investor does not remove the advertisement himself, the Administration will issue a decision to return the space to its original condition.
"In relation to this case, following the report received, we sent an initiative to the competent inspection for cultural goods, from which we have not yet received a response. In parallel, we had an appeal from the investor to issue conditions for placing the advertisement, however, they were told that we cannot issue the conditions retroactively, that the case has been sent to the inspection and that until the illegally placed advertisement is removed, we cannot issue conditions for placing it, because that would create the possibility of potential 'legalization' of the existing one," Zdravković emphasized.
According to her, the Administration will wait for the inspection's findings, and if the investor does not remove the advertisement independently in the coming period, the Administration for the Protection of Cultural Heritage will issue a decision to restore it to its original condition.
Budva's Old Town has been an example of disregard for legal provisions and the devastation of cultural property for decades. The failed action from March 2023, when the city was governed by Milo Bozovic, when the then-unified municipal service, the Municipal Police and Inspection, ordered the owners of shops within the walls of the Old Town to remove shop windows, awnings, advertisements and everything else that was inappropriate for that protected cultural monument.
The deadline was four days, and the fines were 500 euros if they did not do it themselves. Warnings were handed out, and the Municipal Police and Inspection formed a team of three inspectors to carry out the action.
However, instead of improving the situation, the Old Town has become even more devastated, as passersby can see at every turn.
Three years ago, the Secretariat for Social Affairs, in cooperation with the Municipal Police and the Inspectorate, launched a campaign to "clean up" the Old Town in light of the fact that Budva was in the finals for the selection of the European Capital of Culture 2028. Budva did not win, and with that the whole idea "fell apart".
Years ago, "Vijesti" wrote about the catastrophic state in which the two-and-a-half-millennium-old city on the Adriatic is located, because devastation is present at every step inside and outside the ramparts, from wild construction to minor interventions.
Five years ago, the Directorate for the Protection of Cultural Heritage informed "Vijesti" that a study was being prepared for the purposes of revaluation of cultural heritage, which includes the Old Town of Budva with its ramparts.
"The study will document the current situation in detail, and protective measures will be imposed in relation to it. The revaluation process, however, is taking place at a slower pace, due to a lack of financial resources," the Administration said at the time.
The last state inspection by the Commission of the Administration for the Protection of Cultural Property was in 2014. At that time, the Commission determined that the Old Town had nine new houses, 22 floors raised and more than 1.200, conditionally speaking, minor changes to the cultural property that is protected by law. These include new balconies, new gazebos, expanded shop windows, plastic and aluminum windows, doors, street windows and showcases, roller shutters, iron grilles, awnings, various columns and triumphal arches. By all criteria, the Old Town should be 'removed' from the list of protected cultural monuments.
From 2003 to 2006, the former Institute for the Protection of Monuments filed 11 criminal charges for "unlawful construction", but the prosecution did not prosecute any of them.
One of the most brutal examples of the devastation of the Old Town, under the patronage of local authorities, occurred in 2015, when the then DPS administration approved the decision of the Secretariat for City Infrastructure to place an illumination by designer Karim Rashid on the city walls.
Rashid's illumination in the form of a double row of light pipes, 250 meters long, was installed on the eve of the 2015 celebration. The problem arose because the illumination was installed on 1,4-meter-long metal supports, which were fixed with screws into the centuries-old stone walls.
The “Old Town” local community then filed a criminal complaint. A year later, the municipality had to remove the illumination and repair the damage, admitting that devastation had been committed. The repair of the ramparts and the removal of the inappropriate illumination was led by the then current director of the Museum and Gallery, Biljana Brajović.
What the current municipal administration, headed by Nikola Jovanovic, and what the previous ones failed to do, is to remove the metal awnings that were put up by caterers around the walls of the Old Town.
In preparation for this year's season, caterers were required to remove the metal railings that literally surrounded the old town walls and replace them with umbrellas, exclusively in beige.
As a reminder, the awnings formed a ring around the walls nine years ago, when the city authorities, despite the clear position of the Cultural Heritage Protection Administration, which requested the removal of the metal awnings, allowed their installation.
The pylons still "serve" as a shoe rack in the boutique
As part of the failed campaign launched three years ago by the Secretariat for Social Affairs of the Municipality of Budva, one of the priorities was to "liberate" the pylons, which, although an exceptional trace of the urban structure of the Hellenistic city, had been a shoe rack in an old town boutique for years.
The 6th-century pylons, the gates of ancient Budva, have been degraded by being part of a boutique's inventory. The city fathers have repeatedly promised to "liberate" the monument and allow tourists and other visitors to Budva to see it unhindered.
Eight years ago, the "Old Town" local community called on the authorities in the Municipality to expropriate a commercial building that houses a valuable cultural and historical monument.
"When discovering the ancient gate in 1985, the municipal authority did not take into account the law from 1945, according to which everything found 20 centimeters below the surface of the earth belongs to the state. By exchanging the premises, one owner was given a premises in another place, and the private owner remained the owner of 2/3 of the area, although he cannot be the owner of the space that was subsequently excavated under his ground floor. No one dealt with this problem, so one of the oldest cultural monuments in Montenegro is now used as a boutique," the "Old Town" local community stated at the time.
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