TITO'S MEMORIAL

Tito's Memorial

After WW I Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia became known as Yugoslavia. Various countries were added until in 1946 Yugoslavia consisted of the original three countries plus Montenegro, Bosnia, Herzegovinian and Macedonia.           

Joseph Broz Tito, who spent a lifetime as a public servant, first in the army then politics, became president of Yugoslavia in1953.       After becoming president, Tito had a special train built for his exclusive use.  This rolling presidential palace was known as the Blue Train.  It allowed Tito to continue state business and to travel among the Yugoslav states.  Over the years he traveled more than 350,000 miles on his train.  The train interior was finished in mahogany, pear and walnut woods and was refurbished in 1972 in anticipation of Queen Elizabeth’s visit.  Tito was much loved by his people.      

 While in Serbia, we visited Tito’s Memorial.  After his death a huge mausoleum was built. The whole complex is a good example of the personality cult, so widespread in Yugoslavia under Tito.  The name House of Flowers comes from the fact that many flowers surrounded the tomb until it was closed to the public. Today only white rocks are where the flowers used to be. It was internally called "flower shop" during Tito's life when it served as his auxiliary office with a covered garden.           

After the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the entire complex, including the tomb and the memorial museum, was closed and military guards removed. However, today it is again open to the public. Many visitors are from the former Yugoslavia. The museum houses an extensive collection of gifts presented to Tito from his many visits with foreign dignitaries.

He was given a symbolic Olympic sword after every set of games and one room of the museum was devoted to displaying them. Each one was different. Another room displayed gowns, uniforms, swords etc. The grounds were well kept as were all the grounds we saw. The grass was cut everywhere which was not the case in Romania and Bulgaria. In fact we wondered if those countries even had mowers.                                                     

 After Tito’s death among the rulers was the hateful dictator, Milosevic. After the elections of 2000, major street protests occurred resulting in the ouster of President Milosevic.