Tito’s Tank Engine

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nginx/1.14.0 (Ubuntu) Feeling a little nostalgic for communist-era Yugoslavia? Travel back to the ’60s in the luxurious Blue Train, the favored vehicle of Marshal Josip Broz Tito, the WW II partisan leader and big boss man of Yugoslavia from 1945 to 1980. Built in 1958, it was where Tito hosted such heads of state as Leonid Brezhnev and Jawaharlal Nehru of India. It’s recently been restored to all its cold war-era glory and is available for rent in Belgrade, Serbia, where the impoverished state rail system is doing what it can to earn extra money. The locomotive was last used in its original capacity 25 years ago, carrying Tito’s remains cross-country during his funeral parade, and has been kept in a Belgrade engine hangar ever since.

The Blue Train reflects Tito’s hedonistic lifestyle: it features the finest woolen carpets and car walls lined with mahogany carvings, and compartments furnished with silk drapes and burgundy leather armchairs. It’s a true hotel on rails, including a dining car, cinema and three elaborately designed saloon cars, one of which was made especially for Charles de Gaulle in the late ’60s. The legendary French President never actually used it, but Britain’s Queen Elizabeth did — she slept there during her 1972 visit to Yugoslavia (it’s commemorated on a bronze timetable on the car’s side). True Tito buffs will be disappointed to learn that his personal cabin and sleeping compartment can’t be rented due to their historic value.

The Blue Train accommodates up to 200 for day trips (tickets cost $65 and up) and up to 90 guests in its sleeping cars; individual cars can be rented and hooked up to other trains headed for various local and international destinations. Passengers can also be entertained for $260 per group by an actor impersonating the former communist leader — nothing like the Marshal himself to bring you back to the good old days. tel: (381-11) 361 69 28