Slavik Koper at the Customs Post in Trieste

Coaches from Croatia with West Europeans on board leave the Communist East on a day trip to Italy, and Trieste that beckoned was notable for being at the end of the Russian controlled Iron Curtain.

Buses in Pula

Magrius Deutz Brioini of Pula

Not very exciting but a bit different nonetheless were the buses to be seen in the former Yugoslavian city of Pula which is much more famed for it Roman Historical remains than it's much more mundane German influenced bus scene Still where in Britain can we find a bus station overlooked by a Roman amphitheatre. I rather liked Magrius Deutz buses though they have that  quirky small manufacturer feel about them, a bit rough and ready but thoroughly reliable a bit like our own Foden's used to be.

M.A.N Brioni Pula 114

Not many bus stations can boast majestic Roman remains as a backdrop, usually it's J.D.Sports or a multi-storey car park but Pula in the Croatia certainly can. This Seventies MAN might have been new here but I suspect the earlier generation buses alongside came from some German city.

Kompas MAN in Pula

I liked this generation of rather angular MAN coaches like this one with Kompas from Yugoslavia on a Cosmos contract in Pula.

Ikarus in Pula PU577-43

An unusual Ikarus in Pula

Autotrans Deautz in Pula

A Deutz bus of Autotrans in the Croatian city of Pula, and it went like a rocket on the journey from Rovinj.

Old MAN750 Chariots ready to do battle

In Britain we can find some fine interesting backdrops for our bus photographs but the Croatian city of Pula could provide us with a host of secondhand MAN750 buses posed on the huge bus parking area in front of the magnificent ruins of the Roman Arena in 1982.

Slav Mercs: Brioni of Pula

Yugoslavia was one of the more 'relaxed' communist countries and life was comfortable under the much loved General Tito whose image we can just see pressed like an icon to the first Mercedes Benz windscreen. But my father said quite rightly that once he had gone all hell would break loose with bloodshed as old tribal hatreds came to the surface. I think places like Pula and Rovinj in the north were largely unaffected by the civil war but it must have ruined the tourist trade and even the nudists wouldn't come. Secondhand buses from the wealthy Germans were commonplace but there were a few up-to-date coaches to please the visitors.

Zagrebachi Transporti: Just metres from freedom

I don't think the people of the tourist areas of Yugoslavia were as materially or spiritually impoverished as other poor souls imprisoned far behind the Iron Curtain in the middle of a cold and dusty nowhere but the greater affluence of Italy and Cosmopolitan Trieste just the other side of this ugly checkpoint must have been tantalizing for these people from Zagreb who had made the long pilgrimage on this well used Mercedes O303 coach. Of course like myself they might have just been the lucky ones, either way how quickly we have forgotten the old divided Europe twenty-years-ago.

Turist Kosova

Of course the Independent States that once formed the old Yugoslavia are now firmly etched on our minds following the years of unrest in the Balkans. Here is an view of a smart Mercedes 0302 from Kosovo taken in Rovinj in more tranquil times when President Tito was still alive holding it all together in this beautiful but fragile country.

MAN that's great! Impressive or What?

Double-deckers are always eye-catching especially in these days when in parts of Britain they have become increasingly uncommon. But in most of Mainland Europe they will be quite a novelty and this MAN visiting Copenhagen in 1982 offering wonderful panoramic views whilst working for Kompas of Yugoslavia must have turned a few heads.

The Old and The New

When buses are parked up in Britain one is lucky to get anything more beautiful than an old rusty gasometer as backdrop but go to Pula in the former Yugoslavia and one can also capture an impressive Roman colasium. The less prosperous countries of Europe still rely on their more wealthy neihbours to provide them with secondhand buses and these would have come from Germany I expect.
Before the Ruinification of Germany Berlin in particular was a lot more prosperous with generous grants coming from Central Goverment in Bonn. This meant regular spending on the infastructure including the transport system and No. 3500 the first of a new generation of buses arrived in 1981. In total by the end of decade over 850 of these double-deckers were delivered and these were to be the last major type as their operation would be scaled down to the busy central area of Berlin and a few major trunk routes with the rest replaced by single-deckers and other forms of transport including new tram routes and trams.