Floods severely damage Serbian economy archives building

BELGRADE – The building of Serbia’s Business Registers Agency (APR) archives in Belgrade's Rakovica municipality, where a complete documentation of the Serbian economy is kept, has been damaged by flooding over the past few days and is now out of order, but part of the archival materials has been saved.

“A complete body of archival materials totaling 20 kilometers in length, made up of documentation for the entire industry and other entities, is kept in this building and this it what gives it the status of cultural property of great importance,” Gabrijela Petrovic-Jovanovic of the APR press office said Tuesday.

Petrovic-Jovanovic told a press conference that a severe damage was caused to the APR building after the spilling over of the Rakovica and Topcider Rivers.

Destroyed are the electrical installations, infrastructure, air handling equipment and an elevator, but worst of all, the very structural design of the building, whose foundations were shaken by huge quantities of groundwater passing below the Dvadesetprvi Maj (DMB) engine factory in Rakovica.

“Colleagues from the Archives, firefighters, police and the municipal emergency administration in Rakovica prevented the destruction of part of the archival material housed in one of the depots on the ground floor of the APR building,” said Petrovic-Jovanovic.