| Josip Broz Tito turned the 117-meter beautiful steamship “Galeb” (“Seagull”) with a displacement of 5,100 tons into a symbol of his Balkan empire. The marshal, who preferred sea travel to air travel, spent a total of almost a year and a half on board the ship, circumnavigating the globe four times, visiting India, Indonesia, Egypt, and many European countries. Tito did not hide the fact that he liked the snow-white robes of the sailors, the volleys of ceremonial fireworks and the marches of military bands with which the Galeb was greeted in foreign ports. Tito saw nothing wrong with sometimes being away from the country he ruled for three or four weeks and spending those days on the deck of a comfortable ship.
In fact, the Galeb, built by the Italians in Genoa in 1936 under the name Ramb-3, was intended by its creators to transport southern fruits. During World War II, the ship was converted into a minesweeper and given the German name “Kibitz.” In 1944, Allied aircraft sank the Kibitz in the waters of the port of Rijeka. In the early 50s, the ship was raised from the bottom, repaired again at the shipyard in Pula, and in 1953 the Yugoslav Navy was replenished with the military training ship Galeb, the “floating residence” of Marshal Tito. The heads of 90 states of the world, including Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, boarded the Galeb. Accommodating 300 passengers and crew, the ship is equipped with two restaurants, a bakery, luxurious reception rooms and a clinic.
Old Yugoslavs still remember the first campaign of "Galeb" and the fuss in the press that arose when Tito went to Great Britain with great fanfare at the invitation of William Churchill. In the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, the ship was escorted by ships of the Yugoslav Navy, and in the Strait of Gibraltar, the Galeb was met by a British guard - three destroyers, two aircraft carriers and several dozen combat aircraft. And the last time Tito visited the Galeb was about a year before his death - already seriously ill, in the summer of 1979, the marshal took a ride on the Galeb from his summer residence on the Bruini archipelago to the port of Zadar.
After the death of the leader, “Galeb” shared the fate of the country - it became a subject of interethnic contention. The Croats considered the ship theirs, because its home port was Split. However, after the start of the armed conflict, Yugoslav sailors took the ship to the Montenegrin Bay of Kotor. The Yugoslav army soon exchanged the Galeb for 136 apartments for officers' families, and the ship became the property of the Montenegrin government. The plan to open a museum on board was not successful, and soon they decided to sell the famous “Galeb”. In 1995, an American millionaire of Hungarian origin, Zhizef Madol, showed interest in Tito’s inheritance, but did not pay the agreed amount of 3 million German marks. The Galeb rusted at the pier until last summer it was purchased for $750,000 by Greek businessman John Papanikolaou, who wanted to turn the Tito ship into “an exclusive vessel for elite tourism.” "Galeb" with great difficulty reached the Croatian port of Rijeka, where it was laid up - to be repaired at the Viktor Lenac shipyard. “It’s clear that not a penny has been invested in this ship over the past ten years,” stated port engineer Ognjen Antunac. “He’s in even worse condition than we expected.” "Galeb" is just a pile of iron! Josip Broz Tito's "Seagull" is unlikely to ever fly again. Tatiana SHARAYA
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