Montenegro Girl x
The story behind the abandoned Hotel Planinka in Montenegro
“Time travel back to Sixties socialist heaven”. This is how one reviewer spoke of the now abandoned Hotel Planinka in Montenegro in 2015.
“Visit Poland or Berlin & you can shell out for a trip into the country’s communist past complete with Trabant, steel factory and a workers’ cafe. Visit this hotel & you get the time-travel for free.
The experience starts as you approach the imposing, brutalist towering facade. Continue into the cavernous lobby; dimly-lit, long reception desk, shades of brown, a stuffed wolf (!) On each floor the same long dark corridors, brown paintings hung on brown walls, peeling paint & paper.
And once in the room, the balconies and the rear of the hotel have to be seen to be believed. Untouched since the sixties, concrete crumbling away, tiles loose and holes appearing, unloved & ugly.
But the views! The entire Durmitor range spread before you – absolutely spectacular. Yes, we only stayed here because other places were expensive/ full and only stayed one night, but it is an experience we will remember far more fondly than many a bland, modern hotel. Go now before it falls down!”
Thanks to Ged B. I couldn’t have said it better myself!
Coming across the abandoned Hotel Planinka in North Montenegro
I discovered the abandoned Hotel Planinka when I visited Zabljak and the Durmitor National Park in north Montenegro earlier this year. I am becoming more and more fascinated with the old abandoned socialist hotels that I keep stumbling across as I explore Montenegro.
That’s the thing with this little country. You can be gazing in wonder at chic multi-million euro developments swathed in glass one minute and at the next turn be faced with the leftovers of old Yugoslavia in all its former glory.
I sadly never came to Montenegro when I lived in Zagreb as a student in the eighties, but it always charms me to see these remnants of old Yugoslavia. They are reminders of a time that was very special to me.
Hotel Planinka was built in 1983 in a spectacular setting close in the centre of Zabljak, the entry point for the Durmitor National Park and ski resort. The 1980s was a bygone era when Montenegro was still part of Yugoslavia, the currency was the dinar and inflation was an eye-watering 15- 25%.
In its heyday, the 3-star Planinka had 132 rooms, 11 apartments, along with a restaurant and night club. It was a “must see for business travellers and tourists” with “retro and mountain style furnishings”. I can picture it now.
When I got back to the UK after my trip, I decided to do a little research into this rather memorable piece of alpine-brutalist architecture.
I had just one burning question I wanted answered. What happened to the Hotel Planinka?
It didn’t take too long until it became apparent. It turns out it’s not that dissimilar to the kind of story behind Hotel Fjord in Kotor. And it seems to be emerging as a recurring theme behind the derelict hotels of Montenegro.
It seems that behind every great Yugoslav hotel, there’s a great lawsuit.
Hotel Planinka – born in old Yugoslavia & abandoned in Montenegro
Consortium HLT Fund and HTP Primorje bought Hotel Planinka from the Ski Centre Durmitor in 2006 for EUR 2m with a commitment to invest EUR 8.77m euros in the next 3 years.
Ski Centre Durmitor was founded in 1955 as TUP Durmitor and operated as a social enterprise until 2002, when it registered as a joint stock company. However, apparently the courts were not happy with the way this had been carried out and annulled the registration, leading to the company subsequently filing for bankruptcy.
11 years after buying the Hotel Planinka, the owner of Primorje, Božidar Draganić, announced in 2017 that the redevelopment of the hotel was planned to start that year. (About time too, I’d say). It would include a spa and bring the hotel up to a 4-star rating.
So, the hotel closed for the renovation in September 2017.
But nothing happened.
Well, not to the actual building anyway. But quite a lot was happening behind the scenes.
Other abandoned hotels in Zabljak, Montenegro
The Ski Centre asked Primorje to return the hotel, but the trouble was that Primorje had founded the company “Planinka Zabljak” in the meantime and moved the property into that. So, as they couldn’t get their hands on the hotel, Ski Centre Durmitor set about suing Primorje for damages of EURO 2.5m instead.
It seems that Planinka is not the only hotel lying left and seemingly forgotten for years in Zabljak. The sale of 3 other hotels in the mountain resort – Jezera Hotel, Zabljak Hotel and Durmitor Hotel – were also sold at the same time as the privatisation process began in 2004. These hotels were also sold with contractual obligations to invest a certain sum for regeneration, just like Hotel Planinka.
Zabljak Hotel is the only one where the money has been invested and is up and running. Durmitor Hotel was demolished in 2018 and the Jezera and Planinka have remained derelict.
What next for the abandoned Hotel Planinka in Montenegro?
As for Hotel Planinka, the verdict was passed in 2018, according to the tourism minister, Pavle Radulovic and after this has been finalised in the courts, the hotel will return to the Ski Centre Durmitor bankruptcy estate. And the search for a new investor for Planinka will be back on.
Boy, it is a complicated and long drawn out process sorting out these great relics from old Yugoslavia.
And sad to say, that it seems on this occasion Zabljak may just have to wait a little bit longer for the rebirth of their beloved Planinka Hotel.
But when the big day comes, I’ll be checking in and writing my own review on Tripadvisor!
Montenegro Girl x
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Thank you very much for this update, though it’s a sad one. We’ve stayed at this place in 2016. Totally unplanned we arrived in Zabljak and all hotels were full, except for this one. We loved it! We adored it! The servants were all (very) old, and looking a bit dusty and fragile in their socialist uniforms. English was a language they didn’t speak! I took many pictures everywhere because I tried to capture the grandeur of the entry, and the deterioration of the rooms and balconies etc. What a pity it’s closed. Let’s hope there’ll be a day that it opens again and that the old grandeur will have been preserved! Cheers, Paul
Hi Paul That must have been a really interesting experience! Wish I had seen it then. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!