The plan is to produce 11,000 cars in the next 12 months, Soldatovic said, but he added that the company would need government assistance for about five more years. Still, on the factory floor the workers remain caustic in their opinion of the management and government, and the benefits of the restructuring have so far been slow to reveal themselves.
"We had two options in the referendum: 'Do you want the government program or bankruptcy?' It was blackmail," said Milenko Djordjevic, 45. "We trusted them, but you see there are no changes."
Nebojsa Dikanovic, 44, a trained mechanical engineer with 17 years experience working at Zastava, was one of those laid off. "Our debts for electricity are already big, so in the winter we will be in the dark and cold," he said, sitting at home in his living room with his wife, Jasminka, who lost her job five years ago.
"Seventy percent of families in Kragujevac have the same problem, and I am panicking because of that," he added. "If I was the only one, I could find some work, but when everyone is in that situation ..."
Soldatovic emphasized that however drastic the government's measures, those who have been laid off have been offered one of three options: to take a severance package, to sign on with the unemployment agency, or to join a retraining scheme for four years on a little less than half pay.
And Vlahovic insisted things look better on paper. "The entire international environment carefully watched us on this," he said. As a measure of their approval, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development was now offering to help on the program for Zastava, he said.
"Zastava became an example, I hope, of tomorrow's successful restructuring of the whole country," he said.
Some people, like Dikanovic, the engineer, are still waiting to see. "The former government made Kragujevac a city of hungry people, and the current government has not made a single step to change that image," he said.
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