The former authoritarian ruler of Yugoslavia and the glue that kept the multi-national “South Slav” state together for such a long period in the postwar, (Josip Broz) Tito, had a penchant for collecting things while he ruled the roost in that erstwhile country. While some people might content themselves with collecting stamps or coins or even 17th century antique French clocks, the president’s passion for accumulating was on a much larger and lavish scale. The perks for Tito that came with the job would be the envy of any ambitious 21st century CEO.

Kumrovec (Tito’s birthplace/statue)

Balkan “head honcho” with 34 addresses
Marshal Tito’s possessions in the Yugoslav property market ensured that he was never short of a bed to sleep in for the night. At one stage the Predsednik had an estimated 34 villas scattered all over the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslav. Some were residences—official and otherwise—some were holiday homes, some he lived in substantially, some he occupied only fleetingly and some he never go round to living in. There was hunting lodges galore and a castle or three, grand and opulent living was a common denominator with the Tito properties.

Beli Dvor, Belgrade

Tito’s happy hunting grounds
There were several Tito villas in Belgrade alone, the Vila Mir (the “Oval House”), the Presidential Palace and the most famous of all, used for a different kind of hunting, “diplomatic hunts”, Beli dvor (”the White Palace”), the former Karadordević royal family residence seized by the communist government♝. Within Bosnia and Herzegovina Marshal Tito had several hunting lodges in the mountains where he apparently was very partial to hunting bears, one was close to the regional hub Sarajevo. Tito also presumably liked to be close to his roots as one residence was in Tito’s childhood village, Kumrovec in Croatia. Croatia was good for hunting grounds too. Then there was Vila Dunavka, a very spacious 100-acre estate with room for a vineyard, wine cellars, a forest and of course hunting grounds, all part of the president’s fiefdom (Tito’s Legacy: Surveying the Yugoslav Leader’s Real Estate’, Milica Stojanovic, Samir Kajosevic, Anja Vladisavljevic and Malden Lakic, Balkan Insight, 28-Jun-2019, www.balkaninsight.com).

Tito, mixing the drinks in his Brijuni villa bar

Tito’s island getaway
Tito even had his own private island retreats in the Brijuni Islands, a small archipelago on the northern Adriatic. The Brijunis have been described as Tito’s ‘Xanadu’, as evidenced by his spending on average four to six months a year at the two residences—the “White Villa” on the main island Veli Brijuni and another villa on Vanga Island—which served as both his playground and his office. The 3,000 square metre Bejila vila was Tito’s principal summer palace where he held business dealings and diplomacy with world leaders and hosted other members of the glitterati of the day (Sophia Loren was a regular visitor). When Bejila vila became too public and open, Tito had Vanga Villa built which served as “a secluded hideaway” with two purposes, to conduct “sensitive political dealings”, and for private entertainment of VIPs (Haile Selassie, Elizabeth II, etc) and celebrities (Orson Welles, Sophia Loren, Taylor and Burton, etc) (Niebyl).

Tito with Liz Taylor & Richard Burton (who portrayed Tito on the big screen)

Gradu Brdo (Photo: siol.sl)

Other Tito villas were located in Split, Dubrovnik, Zagreb and in Serbia (including in Karadordević which functioned as a sort of Winter Palace for Marshal Tito), Slovenia (a villa on picturesque Lake Bled and a 16th century mansion Castle Brdo), Montenegro (including the Galeb ‘Seagull’ Villa) and North Macedonia. Since the collapse of Yugoslavia some of the myriad of residences have fallen in a state of disrepair and some have become museums (pulling in the “Yugo-nostalgic” tourists), ‘Yugo-Nostalgia Thrives at Tito Memorials’, Marisa Ristic, Balkan Insight, 25-Jun-2013, www.balkaninsight.com).

Presidential palace on wheels
In addition to the real estate there were the large moveable objects, Take Tito’s famed Blue Train (Plavi voz). The luxury train was “built as a peripatetic presidential palace to impress (visiting) international heads of state”, dictators and democratic leaders alike♗. The train had sleeper cars for over 90 people, elegant wood paneling, plush banquet rooms, conference rooms (all tastefully decorated), restaurant, bar, etc, even a specific train car to transport the president’s personal (bulletproof) Mercedes. After Tito’s demise the Blue Train wasted away in a Belgrade hangar for yonks, however in the past decade it has been resurrected and well-heeled tourists can traverse the 476-kilometre journey from Belgrade to Bar (Montenegro) on what some Yugoslavs use to call the “Blue Miracle” (‘The Return of Tito’s Train: From Serbia To Montenegro – A Track To The Past’, Michael Williams, Independent, 13-Jul-2013, www.independent.co.uk; ‘All Aboard! Explore the legendary and luxurious private train of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito’, Donald Niebyl, Spomenik Database, Upd. 13-Apr-2020, www.spomenikdatabase.org).

Tito’s Douglas DC-6B (Source: Pinterest)

Air Tito
Similarly, when travelling by air, Tito made sure he didn’t skimp on comfort and luxury. In 1958 he took possession of two specially built Douglas DC-6B planes, one for use by JAT Airways (the national carrier) and the other, his private jet. The luxury aircraft was used by Tito for diplomatic missions and state business trips…the first official mission took him to India, Africa and the Middle East to connect with potential fellow NAM leaders. When the DC-6B started to age the Yugoslav strongman traded it in for a new Soviet Ilyushin Il-14 and continued to upgrade his personal carrier, French Süd Aviation SE 210 Caravelle followed by a Boeing 727♚ (‘From Red Star to Red Bull: The History of Tito’s Douglas DC-6B’, Donald Niebyl, Spomenik Database, Upd. 16-Feb-2020, www.spomenikdatabase.org).

‘Galeb’, now docked & rusting (Source: Tendanceouest)

Have yacht, will visit
Galeb (‘Seagull’), Tito’s Italian constructed luxury yacht, rounds out the trifecta of luxurious presidential transporters. As with the personal train and aircraft, Tito used it to entertain his A-list of international political associates and celebrities on voyages. Originally acquired as as a training ship, Tito sailed it to London in 1953 for talks with British PM Churchill, a watershed meeting heralding Yugoslavia’s opening to the West, following Tito’s split with Stalin and the Eastern Bloc (‘Galeb Ship’, Muzej Grada Rijeka, www.muzej-Rijeka.hr).

Tito’s “lux-cars”
Another of Tito’s prized possessions was his 5.6m-long Cadillac Eldorado Convertible, located on Veli Brijuni, which he used to take guests (actors, artists, diplomats, politicians) on tours of the island’s national park and safari park/zoo between 1953 and 1979 (‘Tito’s Cadillac’, np-Brijuni.hr). The “Caddy limo” was just one of Marshal Tito’s 13 luxury cars including a 1960 Rolls-Royce Phantom and the Merc mentioned above (‘Ex-President Tito’s Caddy Convertible? Oh, Yes’, Eugene S. Robinson, Ozy, 03-Jun-2014, www.ozy.com).

Tito with his fourth wife Jovanka, “pressing the flesh” (Source: blis.rs)

The bulk of Tito’s possessions were not owned by the president but by the state—or so the courts say—as his relatives have now ruefully discovered. The ruling by a Serbian court in 2016 put paid to the hopes of the late president’s heirs who had pursued inheritance cases for over 30 years. Some 70,000 of Marshal Tito’s belongings have been stored in Belgrade’s Museum of Yugoslav History♔ (‘Court leaves family of Yugoslav leader Tito empty-handed’, The Daily Star (Lebanon), 25-Jan-2016, www.dailystar.lb).

House of Flowers (Photo: Ex Utopia)

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♝ Tito’s current ‘residence’ is also in Belgrade, his final resting place, the House of Flowers, the presidential mausoleum
♗ among the dignitaries to enjoy the extravagant palatial interiors were Gaddafi, Yaser Arafat and Mitterrand
♚ these days Tito’s personal DC-6B is owned by the Red Bull company
♔ including some moon rocks, a gift of US President Nixon from the Apollo missions