Gondola lift from Zlatibor center to Tornik peak costs EUR 10 million - Cajetina's largest investment moves closer to implementation

The center of Zlatibor mountain and its highest peak Tornik will be connected by a gondola lift, the construction of which should start this summer. This panorama gondola lift system will feature 80 passenger cabins, making it one of the longest aerial lifts in Europe.

Its construction will cost EUR 10 million, and it is most likely that the municipality of Cajetina will have to provide that money.

- We have not given up the construction of a gondola lift between the tourist center and Tornik, despite the fact that the National Investment Plan (NIP) refused to back the project. As of this year we will be working together with local hotels on this lift, and all the expensive equipment will be procured by the municipality. We will take out a loan to finance the project. It will be the first municipal loan ever - Cajetina Mayor Milan Stamatovic explained recently.

(Photo: Aleksandar Parezanović)

As it was earlier announced by the municipality of Cajetina, they've been preparing this project for as many as three years now. Municipal authorities treat it as an investment of national importance. An invitation to bid for the execution of works should be announced very soon.

When it comes to the required equipment, a tender procedure is still underway, meaning that the supplier of cabins has not been chosen yet. Four foreign companies are interested in delivering the equipment. One of them is France's Pomagalski, whose six-seat ski lift has been connecting the foot and the peak of Tornik for four years now, while the other three are companies from Austria, Germany and Italy. An agreement with one of them is expected to be signed in June.

Route of the gondola lift

According to the project documentation, the starting point of the future gondola lift will be on the slope of Obudojevica hill, right next to the Zlatibor marketplace. Along the route nine kilometers long, this gondola lift will be transporting tourists above the sports facilities of Palisad hotel in the settlement Triangle, over the lake Ribnica, to the very peak of Tornik.

It will take the lift about 15 minutes to transport passengers from one end terminal to the other, running from the base station at the height of 960 meters to the summit at the height of 1,490 meters, only six meters below the highest point of Zlatibor mountain. Eighty enclosed eight-seat cabins will be connected to two cables strung over forty intermediate supporting towers along the route.

Each cabin will feature a special compartment for ski equipment. It will be the first gondola lift with enclosed cabins in Serbia and one of the longest gondola rides with no intermediate stops in Europe. With the capacity of 1,500 tourists per hour, this gondola lift will transport skiers during winter and serve as a panorama lift for the rest of the year.

When the company Skijalista Srbije started the renovation of Tornik Ski Center, which was destroyed in NATO bombing, there were people who opposed that project. Many of them believed that the investment of about EUR 7 million in such complex project would be wasted. However, Tornik has been making between 1 and 3 million dinars of profit a day over the last few months, while even higher profits have been turned by local hotels, stores, restaurants, ski clubs...