The small and intriguing Tobacco Museum traces the origins of the deadly weed in Europe from the 16th century onwards. Exhibits include information about the history of the city’s tobacco factory, which opened in 1871 and in which building the museum is now housed, various machines for the production of cigarettes and a hauntingly life-like display of two 19th-century women rolling the factory’s renowned Ljubljana Virginia cigars. The factory remains an important part of Slovene history not least because it was here that the country’s women’s emancipation and rights were born. At its peak, the factory employed some 1,000 workers and was the third largest company in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Painfully difficult to find, look for the 1971 socialist-realist statue of a female tobacco worker and you’ll find the entrance behind her and to the right. The museum publishes a small booklet in English, which is well worth picking up.
