Former Yugoslav Countries Mark Tito's Death

After it was announced that Tito had died at the Clinical Centre in Ljubljana on May 4, 1980 at 3.05pm, many Yugoslav citizens cried openly in the streets.

Four days later, some 700,000 people and 209 delegations from 128 countries in the world gathered in Belgrade to attend his funeral, making it one of the most attended funerals of a statesman in the 20th century.

The anniversary has been marked in Belgrade today with the laying wreaths at a ceremony at his burial place in Kuca Cveca. A commemoration was also held in the village of Kumorvec, Croatia, where Tito was born, organised by the Anti-Fascist Association of Croatia.

In Sarajevo, an event was held in front of a monument to Tito, at what was formerly a military barracks and is now the university campus. The ceremony, which was organised by the Josip Broz Tito association, brought together both young and old Bosnians to commemorate Tito's death.

At another gathering in Sarajevo marking the anniversary, the Croat member of the country's tripartite presidency, Zeljko Komsic, told those in attendance: "what we are fighting for today is to (re)build Bosnia on the model built by Tito, the Communist party and all anti-fascists."

Many believe that the death of the charismatic Yugoslav leader marked the beginning of the break-up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFRY.

During his 35-year-long reign, he was accused of the imprisonment and murder of political opponents and a poorly-advised economic policy, which some observers say led to high foreign debt and a fall into an economic crisis in the late 1980s, but his legacy is complex and still debated today.

Nevertheless, there is still much nostalgia in Yugoslav successor countries, where Tito's rule is also remembered by many as a time of unity and peace, and relative prosperity.

Tito's life has always been surrounded by various speculation, including about his ethnic origin and the women he married and had children with.

Historian Predrag Markovic told British daily The Independent that there were no mysteries about Tito's position in the world or his charisma. "Tito was one of the greatest magicians of self-promotion, a Communist dictator popular in the West," the daily quoted Markovic as saying.

Kuca Cveca, the site where he was buried and the location of the Museum of History of Yugoslavia, is still one of the most visited landmarks in Belgrade. Some 17 million people have visited the site since 1980.

Two North Korean girls sing for 'Comrade Tito' in this 1978 footage from TV Novi Sad.