Tito & his train

Hello subscribers!

In many countries today it’s Mother’s Day – so for this newsletter I give you a photo of a good-spirited Tito saying “cheers”!

On the DT Blog one new post went up on Tuesday, 4 May, as that was the 41st anniversary of the death of Yugoslavia’s leader Josip Broz Tito in 1980. The photo above was part of the post. It was taken in a former communism-themed restaurant in North Macedonia’s capital Skopje.

As we all know, the socialist federal state of Yugoslavia fell apart in the 1990s, leading to war and atrocities. There are now six successor states, or even seven if you count Kosovo (which isn’t yet recognized by about half the world, though). The break-up of Yugoslavia is sometimes in part attributed to the fact that Tito had mainly held the multi-ethnic entity together, so his demise was like losing the cement that glued the constituent parts together. That’s certainly a simplified view, but there may well be an element of truth in it. In any case, while Titocertainly had his dark sides (see esp. Goli Otok!) he is/was often seen as a kind of “benevolent dictator”, as he allowed his country’s citizens more freedoms than other socialist countries did. His lavish lifestyle was also legendary and he frequently entertained not only other politicians but also royalty and film stars.

The Tito blog post featured 15 photos, beginning with one taken at his tomb in Belgrade, Serbia, plus several images exemplifying the lingering cult of personality that surrounded, and to a degree still surrounds, the legend of Tito. The post also featured a couple of the many lavish abodes Tito had himself built all over the country, such as the Villa Izvor mansion above the famous Plitvice Lakes, now an abandoned ruin, while his former guest house on his formerly private summer island retreat of Brioni is now run as a hotel. The island also features a museum exhibition about Tito and the post featured a few photos on display there. My personal favourite is this one showing Tito with the USSR’s Leonid Brezhnev during what appears to have been a serious drinking session making both of them look decidedly worse for wear:

Writing about Tito also made me think of the time when I nearly got the chance to ride on the deceased dictator’s famous Blue Train. This was Tito’s private luxury train, originally custom built in 1959 and was in his private service until his death in 1980. In it he travelled around the different Yugoslav republics and also abroad. On board he entertained such illustrious guests as Queen Elizabeth II, Charles de Gaulle and Haile Selassie. After Tito’s demise the train was maintained and kept in perfect working order in a depot in the south of Belgrade. It has been used for special events and was once put into public service on a scenic route from Belgrade to Bar on the coast of Montenegro until landslides blocked the route. You can go on a virtual tour of the inside of the train via Google Maps photos (e.g. start with this one)

My own connection with the Blue Train came about when sometime in 2015 I was contacted via my website by a retired London railwayman and former member of the British military during the Cold War (in fact he was part of the team that compiled the documentation that the BBC’s Third-World-War series “Threads” was based on!). He was working on a grand project, putting together a “Cold War Express” luxury package holiday offer with a twist (or two, or twelve). The whole Blue Train would be hired and do a loop from Budapest to Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Leipzig, Prague and back to Budapest. At the stopover places various activities to do with with the Cold War would be included in the package, on top of full-board service on the train, plus entertainment (there was talk of a “burlesque party”).

The organizer wanted to draft in my help with putting the German parts together as he didn’t get responses to some of his initial English-language enquiries. So we agreed that I would see to that, in German, and in return I would either be paid commensurate to my time and effort invested, or, and that was the special offer he then made: instead he would invite me and my wife to come along on the first journey of the “Cold War Express” for free. And that was a smashing offer, given that we are talking serious luxury travel here. The starting price for the eight-day package was almost 7000€! Per person! And the price for the “royal” or “presidential suite” on the train were double that! Needless to say my wife and I agreed to that invitation and I got to work, as the first train was scheduled to depart in September 2016.

I was already deep into discussing arrangements with some people in Leipzig when all of a sudden the e-mail correspondence with the Cold-War-Express man stopped. Knowing that this man was of retirement age, I got worried and enquired with an associate he had given me an e-mail address for. That person confirmed that the organizer was fine, so I hoped I would eventually get some responses again. But they never came. I have no idea what happened, but found it rather un-British to simply stop communicating. I would have understood and accepted it if for whatever reason the plan had to be called off. But I would have appreciated being told. It had been vaguely indicated to me that one major investor in the project was an organizer of luxury train travel in Turkey and onwards into Iran, who was getting into difficulties because of the political developments in Turkey at the time. So maybe that investor pulled out and that couldn’t be compensated for? But I can only speculate. I’ve never heard anything else about this project ever again. But in my online searches now I found out that the company that was specifically founded for the project, “Cold War Express Ltd”, and registered in August 2015, was dissolved in January 2017.

Having written the blog post about Tito, I remembered the “Cold War Express” and dug out the documents I was sent back in 2015 including the latest version in PDF of the lovingly made 25-page (!!) programme that detailed every aspect of the package in often wonderfully witty, tongue-in-cheek style and that was richly illustrated with both historical photos and current images of the train’s luxurious art-deco interiors as well as of the various destinations on the trip. It is such a great shame this never happened.

But so much for that story and the blog.
  

As I said last time, I was already making good progress with filling the gaps on my main website about all those World-War-One sites I visited some years ago, and most of those for Belgium, especially Ypres and Yser, are now done and dusted and uploaded. The rest will follow tomorrow. Do take a look if this is an area of dark tourism you’re interested in.

Next I have to turn to the Somme and Verdun in France – that’ll be another twenty chapters to do … It’ll keep me busy for a while, that much is certain!

But that’s it for the newsletter for this week.

Have a good week and stay safe.

Best wishes

Peter