Concrete Ghosts of the Adriatic

I stand on the shore where the turquoise blue waters of the Adriatic kiss the white sand. Behind me rise the silent witnesses of recent history – the concrete shells of abandoned hotels, their empty windows staring out at the sea like the eyes of ghosts from the past.

Kupari: Paradise in Ruins

The first chapter of the story began in 1919 when a Czech investor built the Grand Hotel in the bay of Kupari. Today, its façade, which has retained a hint of Austro-Hungarian architecture, tells a tale of a time long gone. I photograph the crumbling balconies behind which guests once admired the sunset over the Adriatic Sea.

I walk among the collapsing concrete monoliths that rose during the times of Yugoslavia. In the 1960s, under the rule of Josip Broz Tito, Kupari underwent a major transformation into a luxury holiday resort for the military elite of the Yugoslav People's Army and their families. In the Pelegrin hotel, once a symbol of modernist Yugoslav architecture, I now stroll through empty hallways whose walls are covered with graffiti and whose floors are littered with rubble.

I pause at a window, where the sea air flows between the broken panes of glass. Below me, people sunbathe on the beach as if the concrete colossi above them were just a natural part of the landscape. It is a strange contrast – life and death separated by only a few meters.

In the Kupari hotel, I photograph a staircase leading into emptiness. After the war, it was left abandoned; the extensive damage and economic troubles of newly independent Croatia made restoration impossible. As the years went by, nature began reclaiming the building. Today, trees grow through cracks in the floors, and climbing plants cover the concrete pillars like green curtains.

Hotel Belvedere: Luxury and Downfall

The next day, I set out on the other side of Dubrovnik, to a cliff where another silent witness stands – the Belvedere hotel. This luxury hotel operated for only six years in the late 20th century. Since then, it has been left to its fate, crumbling into the sea.

I climb the stairs along the cliff, and in front of me unfolds the view of the monumental building that once was the pride of the region. The Belvedere hotel boasted a heliport, a private beach, and panoramic views of the Old Town of Dubrovnik and the island of Lokrum. It was a paradise for Yugoslav entrepreneurs and elites.

In the lobby today, I encounter only cats that have made this abandoned hotel their home. I walk through a broken staircase to a terrace with a breathtaking view – Dubrovnik laid out before me, its walls glowing in the afternoon sun. How can such a place remain abandoned?

I find a small amphitheatre where nature and people are engaged in their silent struggle for dominance. After filming the series Game of Thrones, local football fans left the emblem of Hajduk, a football club from Split, painted here. History overlaps in layers like geological formations – first a luxury resort, then a wartime refuge, a film set, and finally a canvas for graffiti.

Witnesses of Time

Both of these places are stops on my journey through the traces of Yugoslav history. In the abandoned hotels of Kupari and Belvedere, I seek the stories that the empty hallways and broken rooms tell. Just a short distance from the tourist-packed Old Town lies a grotesque reminder of the bloody recent history of this seaside resort.

In the light of the setting sun, the concrete façades become golden and red. Bullet holes create patterns of light and shadow like some modern art. I photograph every detail – the staircase leading into emptiness, the rusted elevator shafts, the bathrooms with remnants of mosaic.

My images capture the transience of human ambitions, the fragility of peace, and the power of nature, which always finds its way back. I leave the concrete phantoms of the Adriatic with the feeling that I have gazed into a chapter of history that is slowly closing. I leave behind only footprints in the damp sand and carry away photographs of places where time flows differently.