1JZGauQ

4: CASE STUDY 1: THE ITALIAN/SLOVENIAN BORDER
During the Cold War the section of the mountain closest to the border was
a closed military area both on the Yugoslavian and the Italian side. Soon
after the village of Gonjače a road leads up to the top of the mountain and
large concrete roadblocks that were once part of a barrier system here to
control movement of vehicles in and out of this closed area are now placed
on the side of a car park to make sure nobody drives too close to the steep
mountain edge.
At the end of this road, near the ridge of the mountain, former
Yugoslavian barracks are located 266 m from the border with Italy. No
information about these barracks are available in local archives and as
most of the guards who were stationed here came from other parts of
Yugoslavia not much is known of the place by people living locally. On
the side of the entrance to the barracks I find a gate barrier discarded on
the ground. It is blue, white and red with a faded red star on the square
weight (Figure 23). In its original place there is now an iron gate, stopping
any approaching vehicles.
Just on the other side of the gate there is a small guard hut, now without
direct purpose. The compound is not very large and consists only of two
buildings, 12x16 m and 9x15 m, and a large platform, 80x25 m at the widest
point, out front where several commemorative stones to the First World
War are located. The former Yugoslavian military barracks near the border
are not big enough to have housed a large group of border guards but
facilitated a constant, small scale border control force. Facilities to entertain
the guards can be seen in the basketball court still painted on the forecourt
to the barracks suggesting they spent time here when they were not in
service (Figure 24). The basketball nets have been removed but their
position is still clear in the ground where the metal poles have been cut off
and are now rusting into the tarmac. On the side of the basketball pitch
seats for viewers have been built into the slope behind it. A small museum is
held in one of the buildings with some objects relating to the First World
War history in the area but it was closed during my visits, both in 2008 and
in 2011, and therefore not possible to gain access to.
83