Expo 2027 invites citizens to choose the names of the mascots of the exhibition and decide whether they will be called, for example, Milica and Rastko or Eci and Peci. However, they cannot find out how and how much someone is paid to create and design a boy and a girl in folk costumes.
The company Expo 2027 invited all citizens to participate in choosing the name of the mascot specialized exhibitions through their official website.
The mascots represent a boy and a girl in Serbian folk costumes, and the suggested pairs of names are: Rastko and Milica, Momčilo and Tamara, Beo and Bela, Zmaj and Lira, Viktor and Ada, Knight and Aria, Miha and Nika, Volt and Luna, Ringe and Raja, Eci and Peci, Rhythm and Dinamika, Sava and Nada, Zvrk and Čigra.
"It's not easy being a mascot without a name. They call you 'Hey, you,' 'It.' EXPO'... And you dream of becoming someone. That's why we're finally starting our search for names," Expo Belgrade wrote on its Instagram profile, along with an illustration of the exhibition's mascot.
The voting system involves several rounds in which citizens will choose their favorites from the pre-suggested pairs of names, via a link on the official Expo 2027 Belgrade website.
"Demons of Sleep Paralysis"
The Expo 2027 specialized exhibition mascots were presented back in April at the Expo 2025 World Exhibition in Osaka.
"Twinned by a game that gives them superpowers, they find fun wherever they find themselves. Their imagination pushes the boundaries, and with you they go on an adventure to Expo 2027 Belgrade! Your new friends are here!", the organizers of the event in Serbia said at the time.
However, aside from the animosity that is present in the part of the public critical of the government towards the Expo exhibition, people on social networks were not satisfied with the very appearance of the mascots.
"The mascots of EXPO 2027 in Belgrade are my demons of sleep paralysis. You can clearly see that ChatGPT made this for them, and they didn't know how to describe what they wanted," wrote one user of the X social network.
Another user stated that "to them, the mascots for the EXPO look like they escaped from Ćaciland."
Oh my… Msm, tastes are not up for debate, but thankfully, I'm pretty sure we have a consensus here – ouch, what the hell is this!?
[Source: Official Mascots of EXPO 2027 https://t.co/nunRsy82C7]
PS When they already have something similar to a Serbian costume, they could have at least put on the opanka?! pic.twitter.com/vL1PiejSqG
— Vladimir Savić (@firusvg) April 14, 2025
Who is the author of the mascot?
Although the official Expo website reports that the mascots of the exhibition are waiting for names, the statement does not say who the author of the mascots is, nor how much they cost the citizens of Serbia.
It is known that the visual identity (branding) of the Expo - including the logo and related elements - was designed by the Serbian designer Saša Vidaković with his London team SVIDesign, and the project won international recognition.
"The Silver Award was presented by the Graphis publishing house as part of the traditional annual Design Awards for 2025 and will become part of the 'GRAPHIS Design Annual' print edition, one of the most important global publications in the field," the company announced in July last year.
It is not known if the same design team was involved in the mascots.
Also, there is no indication on the Public Procurement Portal that a public tender was announced for the production of mascots, nor how much that work cost.
After all, there is no data that the company that made the company's logo was hired for it after the public procurement, but everything indicates that the work was contracted through a direct contract.
That would not be a surprise, because the special law for the Expo (full name: Law on special procedures for the implementation of the international specialized exhibition Expo Belgrade 2027) provides an exemption from the Law on Public Procurement.
According to the special law for the Expo, a public invitation to all interested economic entities will be published only in procurement procedures for goods and services whose estimated value is greater than 12 million dinars, i.e. in procurement procedures for works whose estimated value is over 24 million dinars.
For the sake of comparison, in the "ordinary" law, those thresholds are one million dinars for goods and services, or three million dinars for works.
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