Due to the needs of the investor who is developing the project of the nautical-tourist resort Porto Montenegro in Tivat, but also the simultaneous complete indolence of the state as the owner of the exhibits, i.e. competent institutions that should deal with culture and heritage preservation, the Naval Heritage Collection (NHC) in Porto Montenegro is at a crossroads that will entail a likely significant reduction of that museum exhibit.
Namely, according to "Vijesti" information, construction work will soon begin on the adaptation of the hundred-year-old protected building of the sawmill of the former Tivat military shipyard Arsenal, where the NHC is located, in order to literally cut the area intended for this collection in half.
The intention of the company Adriatic Marinas, which develops and manages Porto Montenegro, is that the entire ground floor of the building, which now houses most of the museum exhibits related to the history of the Arsenal, but also the military and naval past of Tivat and Boka from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 21st century , turn into office premises that will be rented out to third parties.
One part of the exhibits will be "moved" to the floor of the former sawmill building, where before that the mezzanine structure will be strengthened and filled to the extent that it can withstand the weight of some of the exhibits now on display on the ground floor, such as several old machines from the Arsenal workshops dating back to end of the 19th century.
Up until now, the floor of the NHC has housed a multi-purpose exhibition space where, through panels and several smaller exhibits, the history of Arsenal was presented, but numerous other cultural manifestations were also held here - documentary and museological exhibitions, art exhibitions, literary evenings, book promotions and movies, concerts... In the future, this space will be home to some of the exhibits on the ground floor, but by no means all of them, because there simply isn't room for that here, nor do the management of Porto Montenegro consider some of those artifacts attractive enough for a wider audience.
The intention of that company is to, apart from the most attractive exhibits that will be kept and which technically (because of their size and weight) can be "raised" to the floor of the old sawmill, and by using a series of interactive electronic panels and modern audio-visual aids, create a literally new, a smaller museum that, apart from the past of the Arsenal itself, will talk much more about the wider military and naval history of Boka during the 118 years of existence and operation of this military overhaul institute in Tivat.
That history and events that took place here in the whirlwind of two world wars and the replacement of as many as nine states that managed Boka from 1889 until 2007 are attractive enough for the management of Porto Montenegro that the new NHC can build an interesting and meaningful museum about them. the story, which can be presented to guests and tourists from various parts of the world who come to Porto Montenegro through modern presentation methods, and people from many European countries will find in it a link and link with their own historical and cultural heritage.
"It is in our interest that as many people as possible come and visit Porto Montenegro, among other things, because of the attractive contents and the unique experience that they can see, experience and 'feel' in this new NHC as well. Otherwise, the collection, as a segment of Porto Montenegro, does not earn enough money from its activities to cover even its own expenses, let alone provide income for the company. However, aware that we must have various contents in our settlement that will attract visitors and that not everything is only in residential and office buildings, and that we must pay adequate tribute to the rich local history of seafaring and shipbuilding, we believe that after 12 years of its functioning in its current form , the time has come to change the concept on which the HNC works by introducing additional modern multimedia content, attractive for young visitors in particular, and the concept on which the HNC should in the future tell extremely attractive and interesting stories from Bokele's maritime past", the management told "Vijesta" company Adriatic Marinas, presenting us preliminary design solutions for how the entire complex around the current NHC should look in three to four years.
However, both the former HNC and the people who led it are in limited financial circumstances provided by the previous functioning of the collection as part of the Adriatic Marinas company, in recent years they have done a lot in this regard. This is evidenced by several high-quality museum exhibitions dedicated to various events and anniversaries from the naval wars in the Adriatic, which have received international recognition in Austria, Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia, and international affirmation by the fact that some of these exhibitions were also seen by the public in Vienna. , Belgrade, Rijeka...
According to the new concept of the NHC, the building of the old sawmill, which is the only still preserved example of industrial heritage in Tivat, should not undergo exterior changes, but its interior will be changed in such a way that the entire ground floor will be used for offices in the future, i.e. space for so-called . innovation center Porto Montenegro, where the company rents business space to other interested companies or entrepreneurs for their activities.
From that rent, in the future, most of HNC's operating costs should be covered, because as Porto Montenegro managers point out, the owner of Adriatic Marinas, the Investment Corporation of Dubai, will certainly not invest hundreds of thousands of euros of its own money in something that is not a profitable segment. of her project to develop a luxury real estate and nautical-tourist complex in Tivat.
"Aware that we still have a responsibility towards the history and heritage of the city in which we operate, we are ready to further develop the NHC and create content in and around it that will attract a much larger number of visitors than has been the case so far. However, we do not have the means and means to do this without repurposing part of the space in the old sawmill building into an office space. The surface area of the NHC will not change, because anyway, only one floor of the building has been used for museum exhibits, while exhibitions and similar events have been held on the second floor," explains the management of Porto Montenegro, which is in advanced preparations for implementation. of the new concept of NHC.
According to him, NHC will keep two of its main attractions in the future - the large diesel-electric submarine P-821 "Heroj" and the small, so-called pocket submarine P-912 "Una" of the former Yugoslav Navy.
The entire area around the sawmill and the submarines will be horticulturally improved with more green areas where there will be a place for exhibiting some larger exhibits such as old ship anchors, parts of weapons and equipment, while a water surface will be formed under the submarines themselves - a larger pool that will contribute to the visual the attractiveness of the presentation of submarines to visitors, but also contribute to reducing the temperature inside the submarines, especially during the summer months.
For now, the designers did not foresee the old-timer boat "Barbara" remaining in the place where it is now displayed near the submarines, but the management of Porto Montenegro are ready for "Barbara" to find an adequate place if the Municipality of Tivat, which owns the ship, considers it therefore it should remain part of the NHC.
"We are ready to cooperate closely with the Municipality of Tivat, which we have informed about our intentions, in the implementation of this new concept. Since the Municipality also intends to significantly expand the local city museum, we are ready, in coordination with the competent state authorities, to give them part of the exhibits of the NHC in which they express interest, but also to work with the Municipality on the realization of the so-called thematic historical trails through the Great City Park of Tivat, which will connect the city museum facility in the complex of the medieval summer house Buća-Luković, with our NHC. On that track, a part of larger exhibits related to the military and naval past of Tivat and Boka was exhibited, which would make the Tivat park even more attractive because it would reaffirm the entire unique story surrounding its continuation in 1892, when it was created as a Naval Park", they explain from management of Porto Montenegro, adding that they intend to reaffirm with their clients in the future the concept according to which, at one time, the commander of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the founder of the Arsenal and Naval Park in Tivat, admiral Maximilian Daublebski von Sterneck enriched the plant fund of the park.
"We intend that, just as Admiral Šternek obliged the commanders of Austro-Hungarian ships returning to Tivat from trips to various parts of the world to bring with them specimens of plants characteristic of the regions they visited, so that they could be planted in the Tivat Naval Park, we are also organizing a similar action with the captains and owners of yachts that will come to Porto Montenegro. The plant material thus collected will be planted in the area of the settlement, but also on a special new park area that we intend to build in the northern part of our complex", said the management.
As much as some of these intentions of the company implementing the Porto Montenego project sounded interesting and potentially attractive, it remains a bitter taste due to the fact that the state, which gave the company the land complex of the former Arsenal for 90 years and sold all its construction facilities, shows no interest in providing protection and adequate presentation of the rich cultural and historical heritage of the Arsenal and naval activities in Tivat and Boka.
This is confirmed by the admission of the manager of Porto Montenegro that for years no one from state authorities - ministries and other institutions has even responded to their inquiries related to the extremely valuable archive of the Arsenal, especially the one from the Construction Office, which contains thousands of old blueprints of ships, their equipment, weapons and other technical means manufactured or overhauled in Tivat for decades.
The State of Montenegro, i.e. the Ministry of Defense is still the formal owner of almost all the exhibits exhibited in the NHC or those still languishing in depots, including both submarines, but for years it has shown absolutely no interest in using the HNC as an embryo of the Military- maritime museum that Tivat and Boka really deserve. Therefore, it is not surprising that the story of the preservation and presentation of this part of the cultural and historical heritage of Montenegro has been completely left to the good will (or lack thereof) of the investor for 12 years, to whom the state once gave the Arsenal as a plot for the construction of a marina and apartments for sale. on the market.
Not wanting to go along with the strategic investor, the state turned a blind eye to several cases of explicit violation of plans and obligations regarding the protection of certain segments of Arsenal's profession and cultural-historical heritage during the construction of Porto Montenegro, which was done during the time when the Adriatic Marinas company was under control its first owner - a Canadian businessman Peter Munk and his business partners. Without any consequences for the investor, several buildings were then demolished which, according to valid spatial planning documentation, should have been protected and preserved, such as the first workshops of the Arsenal, the stone wall surrounding the institute complex, old cannon barrels - mooring cleats for ships, metal gates which had a hole from the first Montenegrin shell that fell on Arsenal in 1914...
Although he himself says that the current setting of the NHC, due to the speed and incompetence with which the exhibits were chosen when in 2007 there was a rush to close the Arsenal as soon as possible and hand it over to a new owner, is not representative when it comes to the rich history of the Arsenal and the navies in Boka and Tivat, the curator HNC, historian Drazen Jovanovic emphasizes that in the past 12 years it has been an extremely notable and important part of Porto Montenegro, but also a reference point on the cultural map of the entire Tivat.
This is confirmed by the fact that in the tourist record year of 2019, according to Jovanović, as many as 25.000 visitors from all over the world visited the NHC, which is a level of visitation that cannot be boasted by a number of much larger and more famous museums in Montenegro. Despite this, as the years passed, Porto Montenegro allocated less and less for the functioning and maintenance of the NHC, which continuously reduced the number of employees from as many as five, as many as the NHC had at the start, to only one who has been working in it since 2016. today.
"NHC started its mission 12 years ago, as in a way, an unwanted child of the transition of investors, but also of the local community, because it reminded many of other times, social circumstances, and decisions made in the recent past. On the other hand, the vast majority of people primarily from the local area, but also people from other regions, welcomed and welcomed the start of the work of the NHC with the hope that it will make a worthy and representative contribution to the preservation of Arsenal's heritage. Tivat, as it is today, would not exist if it were not for Arsenal, and one cannot talk about Tivat without talking about Arsenal and vice versa", pointed out Jovanović, adding that the HNC, through its settings and activities, has managed to do this so far, despite complete carelessness. state for this segment of its own past, culture and identity.
"It is an illustrative and interesting example that, let's say, the extremely rich archive of the Arsenal Construction Bureau, which consists of the original technical drawings of ships that were built or overhauled in Tivat and Arsenal, when Arsenal was handed over to its new owner in 2007, no important state institution wanted to take over - neither the State Archives in Cetinje, nor the Maritime Museum in Kotor, to which it was offered during the study of the Arsenal archive, with the explanation that this material allegedly has no archival and historical value. By sheer chance, this archive was packed away in a warehouse and by a combination of happy circumstances I came across it, after a colleague told me that they were cleaning out that warehouse which also contained 'some metal boxes with some old papers from Arsenal' as he said so then, and invited me to look at them before he threw them away. It's an understatement to say that I was very happy when I realized what was actually in those boxes and how important this material is for the history of our city. The designs created in the time span of Austria-Hungary, the First World War, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Second World War and the modern era are the most important remaining testimony of the maritime-industrial heritage of Tivat and Boka from the end of the 19th and during the 20th century and are certainly the richest and most valuable a technical, but also maritime-historical archive that refers to the said period in these areas", Jovanović points out, adding that this material was later the backbone of part of the exhibition of the HNC, as well as several thematic exhibitions that this collection created, and the foundation on which she built enviable international cooperation with similar institutions abroad.
He states that the HNC has not only a cultural and educational role of public interest for the wider community, but is also a kind of tourist attraction, especially because of its two largest museum exhibits - two submarines, which makes the HNC in Tivat one of only four places in the world where visitors can visit not one, but even two different submarines.
"Irrespective of the fact that, say, in 2019, primarily because of submarines, the NHC was visited by as many as 3.500 foreign tourists who came here on purpose from cruise ships that sail into Kotor, the NHC should not be seen as a tourist and seasonal attraction, an additional content that should complement space or as a place for informal meetings, and not what it should actually be - the heir and guardian of the industrial-maritime heritage, and an educational and cultural center", concludes Jovanović, adding that it is up to all of us to decide whether the rich preserve the legacy of Arsenal and the military-naval Boka in an adequate way.
"Museums as institutions have an unavoidable and crucial role in the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage, at least in more orderly societies and countries. The real question that arises, however, is whether we as a society want to preserve our heritage at all or do we want to give it up lightly and construct some new 'heritage' that may be more suitable for us today", concludes Jovanović.
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