Military Historic Park - Pivka, Slovenia

[upnorth]

Hello all,

Last week, my girlfriend and I were in Slovenia. It was a lovely place and I highly recommend a visit.

We had our hotel in Ljubljana as it was there that my girlfriend had some business meetings to attend to on the Monday and Tuesday. While she was in in meetings, I visited places she had no interest in. From Wednesday on, we were both on holiday for the rest of the week.

On monday, I paid a visit to the Military Historic Park in Pivka which is about an hour and a half train ride from Ljubljana.

It's a very well put together and fascinating place with a very eclectic collection of gear from both east and west as well as domestically developed stuff. The exhibits cover air, land and sea from the Second World War to the founding of modern Slovenia in 1991.

There are three indoor pavilions, an outside display area for oversized exhibits, and the main building where you pay admission and can find the gift shop and restaurant.

I started with the outdoor area:


The largest exhibit in the collection is thiss WWII German military steam train. It was given to the former Yugoslavia as a war reparation and was instrumental in rebuilding the country:



This Italian designed and built fast patrol boat served the Slovenian Maritime Police from 1995 to 2021:


An IAR-93 Vultur, the Romanian variation of the strike aircraft jointly created by Yugoslavia and Romania. The Yugoslav variation was the J-22 Orao:



The first indoor pavilion I visited was dedicated to WWII and early post war armour:




This pavilion also houses a display of the wreckage of a RAF Spitfire that was excavated near Ljubljana in 2019. The aircraft was shot down by German anti-aircraft fire in 1944, the pilot survived and spent the rest of the war as a POW:


The next pavilion as dedicated mostly to artillery:



This pavilion also contains a pair of post-war Yugoslav developed trainer aircraft, one of them is this SOKO 522:


My next stop was the third pavilion. It's the largest of the pavilions and is dedicated to the Cold War. It starts with a fascinating timeline presentation of the rise and fall of post-war Yugoslavia and the rise of the independent Slovenia we know today. Once through that, you enter the main display hall:


This Gazelle is a quite special piece in the collection as it was the first aircraft of the Slovenian military. It was license built in the former Yugoslavia:



These are some examples of the Domestically developed BOV vehicle. The BOV has been produced from 1985 to the present:


Some old eastern armour in the markings of free Slovenia:


The star of the collection is the Zeta, an Una class special operations midget submarine. It was designed and built in Yugolsavia, a total of six were made:


Amongst the armour was this M 53/59 anti-aircraft vehicle from the former Czechoslovakia:


An F-86D Sabre and F-84 Thunderjet are also on display in this pavilion:





That's just some of what you can see there, I didn't have time to get to the rest. This link to the park website will give you a fuller picture of what's there:
https://www.parkvojaskezgodovine.si/en/

[kerick]

A very interesting collection! Thanks for the pics!

[Rick Lowe]

Thanks. 

[PR19_Kit]

What a superb place, thanks for recording it all for us. How amazingly CLEAN it all looks too. 

[Dizzyfugu]

Cool, thanks for sharing! 

[perttime]

A great variety of things!
A couple of things caught my eye, looking fast just sitting there: the fast patrol boat, and the MiG-21 F-13 (I think).

[Nick]

That looks like a great museum! 

I stopped for one night in Ljubljana in 2012 and we found the city was very pretty with a good nightlife scene. Will have to go back now 

[Captain Canada]

Thanks for sharing ! That's a neat place with a bit of everything !

[kerick]

I've heard that area can be a wonderful vacation spot. Not all touristy, great places to visit and not touristy prices!

[Rick Lowe]

A great variety of things!
A couple of things caught my eye, looking fast just sitting there: the fast patrol boat, and the MiG-21 F-13 (I think).

Yeah, the Patrol Boat was cool. 

[NARSES2]

Great photos, many thanks for sharing