In honor of the soon-to-be demolished factory in my city, I have decided to share its sad story, which is also the story of forced privatization and destruction of industry in former socialist countries.
SOUR-Incel (short for "industry of cellulose") was a gigantic chemical-industrial complex housing dozens of Yugoslav OOUR-s (Organization of Combined Work). The first factory was founded in 1954 (Celuloza), and the complex was substantially expanded between 1971 & 1981(pic: 1979)pic.twitter.com/KpGeLYOCHY
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Aside from the main one, Celuloza, the complex had the factories “Viskoza”, “Elektroliza”, “Energetika”, “Industrijske plantaže” and the only surviving one, "Celex". It expanded to a ridiculous size (it had its own rail grid!), employing around 6,500 workers.pic.twitter.com/sN8xZcR0lS
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Unfortunately, as the war started and Yugoslavia fell apart, like most industries, it was quickly sold at a ridiculously low price to some local oligarch, who proceeded to sell the machinery for a quick buck, and rent storage facilities, stopping all other operations.
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Since the main complex was too large and was a serious competitor for European industry (it was exporting products to Germany!), someone high up in European politics probably paid local authorities to let the main objects decay, and let smaller facilities stay operational.
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The only one still making paper-based products today is Celex, which was privatized and bough by a Slovak company in 2001. Other, unrelated businesses (mostly 3rd sector ones), have also been founded in former facilities of the complex (like a newspaper agency)pic.twitter.com/qHj9WW2AXe
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In the end, it seems like the demolition of the main factory facilities (housing the iconic, 150m tall chimney), is in progress, which is a bs move, considering it can be renewed for use, is on its way. A sad day for all, but the saddest for the workers who lost their jobspic.twitter.com/c3PDryeQ1z
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To see how many workers were really employed: The upper part of the chart shows the number of workers in 1993, the bottom, today. Incel is colored red. The other colors are other former city factories.pic.twitter.com/7jyH3QurDz
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And the sheer size of the complex (which will probably be turned into an area with cheep, poorly and hastily build residential buildings that are showing up everywhere across the country) can be seen here:pic.twitter.com/lA6QoGfvkO
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That's all. The destruction of the symbol of industry may go unnoticed by the ignorant general public who are too busy not doing anything except irrelevant affairs, and it may bring profit to greedy politicians, but at least this thread will exist to commemorate the fallen giant.pic.twitter.com/hZhj8U5QzW
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