Villa "Izvor" - Abandoned President Tito's Residency, Croatia
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Villa "Izvor" - Abandoned President Tito's Residency, also known (by secret agents, military and local residents) as OBJECT 99, located in Plitvice Lakes National Park, Croatia 21.06.2021 (2021-06-21) - read about place and history down in description... Ex-Yugoslav president Tito's residency - one of dozens he had around ex-Yugoslavia and one of the most expensive state residency at a time of its building which lasted 6 years - from 1948 to 1953 and costed around 160 million Euros in today's value. Allegedly financed by USA government as a gratitude to Yugoslavia and Tito for its resistance to Stalin in the 1948 crisis and for, say, "supporting" USA influence in this part of the world (but future years will show a bit different Tito's intentions...). The entire complex occupies 6500 m2 of forest with this amazing villa in the center. The building is named "Villa Izvor" with code name "Object 99" and was built mostly by political prisoners, used as a free labor. It is located at the top of the hill in Plitvice National Park above the stream of Plitvice (that's how it got its name - spring of stream = "izvor" in Croatian), the same stream that powers the famous Great Waterfall, which millions of tourists from all over the world come to see. Located 3km away from any park attraction and local houses, deep in the forest and hidden from any view it was secured and guarded. Only one narrow and now damaged, dangerous and closed forest road leads to it, and it is placed at the top of the hill on the edge of the cliff to be easily defended. Front side looks like a castle - with monumental thick stone walls. Backyard looks like luxury wooden and stone complex with a small park in the middle, which spreads to the edge of a cliff. It was extremely luxuriously furnished and, for its time, amazingly designed. It had cinema theater, ballroom, bowling room, conference rooms, restaurant, elevators for entering upper floors with lots of luxury apartments for the accommodation of guests. They even built secret underground 80 meters long tunnel for residents to escape in case of any attack (from, for example, Russians...) It was in function until Tito's death in 1980. Tito was there only 5-6 times - mostly to go on bear and boar hunting in the surrounding wood. Last time he was there in 1976. The rest of the time, the complex was used for (secret) meetings of politicians from ex-Yugoslavia and other friendly countries. They sometimes hold political meetings, sometimes just went hunting, and sometimes hold various "hedonistic events" (according to local citizens that lived nearby, various "things" happened there, but all is still shrouded in secrecy so even today after more than 40 years people still hesitate to speak)... Villa was devastated between 1998 and 2000 and turned into a monumental ruin. Unknown vandals broke in and during several years they destroyed and stole everything they could - furniture, silverware, even power wires are removed from the walls... They even tried to steal large marble plates from staircases but did not manage - so, out of frustration, they broke most of them. Some parts of building even looks like blown up by explosion - you can see impressive thick concrete blocks hanging from upper floors with big holes in the roof... Due to all decay and concrete that still falls from all over the place with glass everywhere, it is pretty dangerous to enter some parts of the building. So I flew only on secure spots... And not to mention spooky graffiti on the walls - especially impressive is drawing of some purplish blue devil-like head at the bottom of the main staircase (you can see it at the end of the video). Also, the building has at least hundred windows and glass on every single one of them is broken - so draft inside is horrendous. Incredible feeling... (and really hard to fly). This is another monument to past times in sad and horrific state, which future is still questionable. There are rumors that it might be restored as a resort for scientists with some scientific laboratories for exploring national park nature etc., but according to its current state, I am not sure it can be successfully "reanimated"... :( For more details about the place (due to its "secret" nature as a presidential residence, there are no pictures from "golden era" of the place except the few I found), just google "object 99" or "titova vila izvor"- there are lot of sites (mostly all are in Croatian) - but there are lots of Youtube videos you can check to see state of object before several years and now... Very interesting for bando lovers. The entire video is a bit color corrected. Flying videos are left in 4:3 - original AIO camera format. Additional videos are taken with my mobile phone (and with gimbal) and left wide screen. But sorry for jerkiness - due to different framerate between phone and flying videos and because I did not adapt anything during editing (I left it as-it-is), phone videos are a bit "jerky"... But, that gives some strange feeling (at least I think :) ) Flying in the backyard park is with fake audio (as you can hear). I don't like super realistic effects with brushed whoop analog AIO videos, so I think this fake (crappy) audio fits (crappy) video :) This is my longest video so far - but I hope you enjoy it. Hardware and software: 65mm 7x16 brushed whoop: Makerfire Micro Whoop frame (white/transparent one) Makerfire Tiny Lite FC with modded NFE Silverware Happymodel 7x16 17500kv motors - angled to reduce yaw washouts (it really helps!) 2x Gemfan 31mm 3 bladed props + 2x B03 PRO 31mm 4 bladed props - Oh yes - I mixed 2 by 2! And it works great! :) LST-S2 camera - with sponge canopy and modded antenna (monopole) TBS Graphene 300mAh HV 1S + GNB 250mAh HV 1S Radio: Devo 7e modded Goggles: Skyzone 03O - modded (added lenses from glasses over diopters for my old eyes :) ) and with Menace Patch and Menace Bandicoot antennas (it works fine for my style and range) Recorded on Skyzone built-in DVR Music: The Shape / by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio Something Wicked / by Ross Bugden Suspense / by Alec Koff