The Pivka Park of Military History (sl|Park vojaške zgodovine Pivka) is a military museum in the town in Pivka, Slovenia. It is operated jointly by the Municipality of Pivka and the Military Museum of the Slovene Armed Forces.[1]
The museum's exhibits mainly date from the late WWII era and the Cold War, the timeframe of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.[2] [3] The core collection consists of a large number of armored vehicles and artillery; there is also a small aviation collection, with five fixed-wing aircraft and two helicopters.[4] The museum's most popular exhibit is the Zeta, an ex-Yugoslav Una-class infiltration submarine.[5]
The complex was built by the Italian army as a frontier barracks during the interwar period, when much of what is presently southwestern Slovenia was part of the Kingdom of Italy. A fortress of the Alpine Wall, built to guard the Italian side of the pre-1941 Rapallo border, is an annex of the museum grounds and is accessible by hiking trail. After WWII, the Pivka barracks were successively inherited by the militaries of Yugoslavia and Slovenia. In 2004, the facility was transferred from the Slovene Ministry of Defense to the Municipality of Pivka, with the understanding that it would be converted into a military museum.[6] The initial exhibit (the tank and artillery pavilion, with exhibits transferred from the Military Museum of the Slovene Armed Forces) opened in September 2006.[7]
| Exhibit | Origin | Manufactured | Role | Notes | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Combat aircraft | ||||||||||||||||
| 1943 | partial wreckage of Royal Air Force fighter, salvaged from the Ljubljana Marsh in 2019 | |||||||||||||||
| 1953 | Ex-Yugoslav Air Force, supplied to Yugoslavia after the 1948 Tito-Stalin split. Acquired 2013; the museum's first fixed-wing aircraft placed on display. Formerly a gate guard at Brnik airport. | |||||||||||||||
| late 1950s | reconnaissance aircraft/ fighter | Ex-Yugoslav Air Force, supplied to Yugoslavia after the 1948 Tito-Stalin split. Uncommon Yugoslav-modified reconnaissance variant. Acquired 2014; formerly a gate guard at Brnik airport. | ||||||||||||||
| 1965 | fighter | Ex-Czechoslovak Air Force. License-built version of the MiG-21. Acquired 2011. | ||||||||||||||
| Romania / | 1980s | fighter-bomber | Ex-Romanian Air Force. Joint design with Yugoslav SOKO J-22 Orao. Acquired 2014; gift of Romania. | |||||||||||||
| Trainer aircraft | ||||||||||||||||
| late 1950s | Ex-Yugoslav Air Force. Unrestored. | |||||||||||||||
| late 1960s | STOL/ utility trainer for J-20 Kraguj/paratroopers/ light attack | Ex-Letalski center Maribor remote located at LJCE airport inside the Air Base | ||||||||||||||
| late 1950s | basic trainer | Ex-Yugoslav Air Force. Unrestored. | ||||||||||||||
| Helicopters | ||||||||||||||||
| / | 1979 | utility | TO-001 VELENJE. Ex-Yugoslav Air Force, ex-Slovenian Air Force. License-built Yugoslav version of the Aérospatiale Gazelle. Acquired 2012; Slovenia's first military aircraft, the pilots having defected from the Yugoslav Air Force during the Ten-Day War. | |||||||||||||
| transport | Ex-Polish Air Force. Acquired 2019 in a barter arrangement with the Military Museum of the Polish Armed Forces. | |||||||||||||||
| 1980 | police | Ex-Slovenian National Police Force. Acquired 2022 upon retirement. | ||||||||||||||
| Maritime | ||||||||||||||||
| / Croatia | 1987 | P-913 Zeta. Ex-Yugoslav Navy, ex-Montenegrin Navy. Acquired 2011; gift of Montenegro. | ||||||||||||||
| Avionautica police speedboat | 1994 | P-111. Ex-Slovene Police. Acquired 2021. | ||||||||||||||
| Tanks | ||||||||||||||||
| 1940s | light tank | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army, First Partisan Tank Brigade. Supplied to Yugoslav resistance forces during WWII. Examples of M3A1 and M3A3 variants. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | medium tank | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army, supplied to Yugoslav resistance forces during WWII. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | medium tank | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army, Second Partisan Tank Brigade. Supplied to Yugoslav resistance forces during WWII. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | tank destroyer | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| early 1950s | main battle tank | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1944 | tank destroyer | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1950s | main battle tank | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1950s–60s | amphibious light tank | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1970s | main battle tank | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1980s | main battle tank | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. Improved Yugoslav-built variant of the Soviet T-72. | ||||||||||||||
| Armored Personnel Carriers | ||||||||||||||||
| 1940s | armored car | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army, supplied to Yugoslav resistance forces during WWII. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | armored car | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army, supplied to Yugoslav resistance forces during WWII. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | armored personnel carrier | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army, First Partisan Tank Brigade. Supplied to Yugoslav resistance forces during WWII. | ||||||||||||||
| 1970s–80s | infantry fighting vehicle | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1980s | armored personnel carrier | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1980s | armored personnel carrier | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. Examples of military and police (BOV M-86) variants. | ||||||||||||||
| late 1980s | armored personnel carrier | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| Artillery | ||||||||||||||||
| 1930s | anti-tank gun | Ex-Royal Yugoslav Army, ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1930s | anti-aircraft autocannon | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | anti-aircraft gun | Ex-Wehrmacht, ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | anti-aircraft gun | Ex-Wehrmacht, ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | anti-aircraft gun | Ex-Wehrmacht, ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | anti-aircraft gun | Ex-Wehrmacht, ex-Yugoslav People's Army. Acquired 2022; gift of Northern Macedonia. | ||||||||||||||
| late 1930s – early 1940s | howitzer-gun | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| early 1940s | field gun | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| early 1940s | field gun | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | self-propelled artillery vehicle | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | mountain gun | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| late 1950s | self-propelled anti-aircraft gun | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1963 | self-propelled anti-aircraft gun | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1960s | self-propelled anti-aircraft gun | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| gun-howitzer | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | |||||||||||||||
| 1960s–70s | multiple rocket launcher | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1970s–80s | self-propelled howitzer | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1970s–80s | automatic anti-aircraft gun | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| / | 1980s | surface-to-air missile system | Ex-Slovenian Army. | |||||||||||||
| Auxiliary | ||||||||||||||||
| 1940s | artillery tractor | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| auxiliary armored tracked vehicle | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | |||||||||||||||
| 1963 | trench-digging vehicle | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| 1970s–80s | bridge-laying vehicle | Ex-Yugoslav People's Army. | ||||||||||||||
| Transportation | ||||||||||||||||
| early 1940s | Baureihe 52 No. 33-110 / JŽ 33 (Yugoslav designation) | Ex-Deutsche Reichsbahn, ex-Yugoslav Railways. Acquired 2016. | ||||||||||||||
| 1940s | motorcycle | Military version of civilian WL model. | ||||||||||||||
| 1971 | ambulance | In service during the Ten-Day War. Donated by Velenje Medical Center. | ||||||||||||||
| 1980s | four-door hatchback | Displayed being crushed by a tank in a diorama of the street barricades raised by civilians during the Ten-Day War. | ||||||||||||||