Category: Poland

I think that this is the best pre-war that I’ve seen of Warsaw, showing the normality of the city in 1937.

There are numerous video clips of the Old Town Market Place and specifically what is now the Museum of Warsaw. Just a few years later, the square was destroyed, although fortunately carefully reconstructed.

Just a short post because, as the title suggests, I’ve written about this bar in Warsaw twice before (visit 1 | visit 2). But, I very much like the welcome here and I visited a few times during my latest sojourn to the city. It might not have the most beers available compared to some other craft beer bars in Warsaw, but it has some of the most innovative and interesting.

This is the insanely good Noa Pecan Mud Cake Stout from Omnipollo, beautifully decadent and the aftertaste was exactly the same as eating a rich chocolate cake. It’s 11% and is reviewed at 4.22 on Untappd, which is towards the higher end of the scale. On a visit on my own the week after, I had Podbipięta from Browar Łańcut, another superb beer which is 12% and has been finished in Bourbon barrels. That beer was just as decadent and also scored 4.22 on Untappd. And beer of that quality during my recent visits has to be noted….

And the chorizo pizza was as good as ever, keenly priced (just over £5) and a beautiful complement to the beer.

As a craft beer bar, this is definitely one of the best in Warsaw, with the service being friendly and the environment clean and comfortable. All really rather lovely.

This statue has become something of an icon of Warsaw in recent years and is located just outside of the external defensive  wall of the Old Town. The imagery was designed by Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz in 1944, before later being used in this statue.

The monument commemorates those child soldiers who found themselves in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. The helmet is deliberately over-large, to show the innocence of youth.

The military equipment is German and was used by those in the Polish Home Army after they had seized it from the occupiers as part of the Warsaw Uprising.

The old town wall is visible in the background and the statue is located on the former eighth tower of the perimeter.

The bronze statue was funded by the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association, hence the plaque on the side. Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz, the original artist, allowed the imagery to be used for free, with the Scouts collecting 1 million zloty (around £200,000) from fundraising to pay for it.

The plaque which notes that the statue was unveiled on 1 October 1984 and the guest of honour was Jerzy Świderski (1929-2017) who fought in the Home Army at the age of just 14. Jerzy lost his brother Bohdan Świderski during the Warsaw Uprising, but he survived it and became a Professor of Medical Science. It was unusual for the Soviet authorities at the time to allow this sort of imagery and depiction of the Warsaw Uprising, they’d spent some decades trying to belittle the bravery of the Polish Home Army.

On another of my flights of fancy for this blog, this building seemed to stand out a little to me in Warsaw and it felt like it had a bit of heritage to it. Unfortunately, the destruction of the city during the Second World War makes buildings like this seem relatively rare.

Fortunately, there was an intepretation board available to give some extra information about its history.

Here’s a photo of the building being constructed in the mid-1930s, so it is a pre-war construction. What is perhaps the most interested element of its history, or is to me anyway, is that it was used by the Polish Home Army when they were trying to take control of Warsaw from the Germans.

It was used as a bastion and was under the command of Captain Witold Pilecki (above in his Auschwitz photo) who I can only describe as a completely heroic person. This is a man who volunteered to get captured in 1940 to be able to infiltrate Auschwitz and he was one of the figures who was able to tell the world what was going on there. He then promptly escaped before coming back to Warsaw to fight in the Warsaw Uprising, a man of immense bravery. Unfortunately, the Soviet controlled communists didn’t take to this Polish hero and he was executed in 1948 following a show trial, despite Pilecki having had the chance to escape Poland and save his life. Since the collapse of communism, Pilecki’s reputation has been restored and he is a national hero.

The street that the property is located on is Plac Starynkiewicza, named after this man, Sokrates Starynkiewicz, a Russian general who also served as the 19th President of Warsaw. By all accounts, he seemed to have been pretty competent, delivering the city’s first horse-drawn trams, the first telephone lines and Warsaw’s first sewer and water supply. When he retired from office, he decided that he’d like to stay in Warsaw and he remained there until he died in 1902.

This was one of the few remaining museums in Warsaw that I hadn’t been to, so when Richard was in the city for a few days, we had a little meander along on the free admission day which is on Mondays. It’s a fascinating building in itself, which was constructed after the Second World War and was the city’s main railway station until Warsaw Centralna opened in the 1970s.

And that’s what it looked like during its period of operation.

It’s quite sad really as the Poles had built themselves a lovely new railway station, as shown in the above photo, which was nearly finished by the outbreak of the Second World War, but the Germans destroyed it. That meant that the Poles had to use these temporary facilities for way longer than they perhaps needed to.

This is the entrance to the museum and was also the rear entrance to the railway station when it was in use.

We were given our free ticket passes by a friendly staff member at the entrance and the main waiting hall is the first sight for visitors to the museum.

There are plenty of small trains on display, with the information being available in English and Polish.

This is the same room when the building was being used as a railway station.

A reconstruction of the railway station’s cafe arrangement.

An old signalling installation.

Some of the equipment which would have been in the signal box.

A recreation of a ticket office.

And a collection of clocks. There are two main rooms in the museum and it takes around thirty minutes to go around these. But then there are the outdoor displays, which are relatively substantial. It seems that the future of the museum has been confused for a few years and there has been talk of them moving out of these building somewhere else. I very much like the heritage of this building though, it seems to be a location that should be used as a museum. However, it’s also clear that there isn’t enough external space for all of the trains and carriages that they have, which they claim is the largest collection of rolling stock in Europe.

This is a postal train that before the Second World War was used by a private railway company in Lower Silesia, which was then part of Germany. That part of the country was given to Poland after the end of the conflict and this train was seized as part of that process, becoming part of the Polish State Railways. The train remained in use until 1976 when it was then used in a number of films, before eventually becoming part of the collections of this museum.

The old post-box on the train.

It wasn’t possible to go in most of the trains, but this was one of the exceptions.

There are some sizeable engines in the collections of the museum.

This is a steam locomotive that was constructed by the Germans and brought into usage in 1940, with a maximum speed of 150kmph, which was later reduced slightly. The Polish railways took nine of these over after the end of the Second World War, with this one remaining in use on the network until 19 February 1967.

I’m more interested in the railway network and carriages than the actual steam engines, but this is a beautiful looking train. It was built by the Polish in 1926 for passenger use, with some assistance from the Austrians. During the Second World War it was first taken by the Soviets for their usage, then it was taken by the Germans for their usage, before being returned to the Polish State Railways on 20 July 1948. It remained in use by them until 17 April 1970, the last surviving of its kind. Given that it was used by three different nations during its history, I do wonder what cargo it hauled during its time in operation.

This was one of my favourite outdoor exhibits, a slightly rickety diesel carriage which was manufactured in Budapest in Hungary in 1954. It remained in use until June 1986, at which point it was given to this museum. It hasn’t yet been restored and I personally rather hope that it isn’t, as there’s something more authentic about seeing it in this state. Although it’s a shame that it can’t be covered somehow to prevent any worsening of the condition, particularly the peeling paint.

It was possible to peer inside the carriage, and it’s fair to say that the interior isn’t the most decadent.

It did though have a toilet.

It was possible to look into this train.

And here’s a photo of Richard having a little look in, after having bravely climbed up.

This was quite a substantial museum in size and I thought it was an enjoyable place to visit, although it’s clear that they need some more financial assistance to take it to the next level. I hope that they remain on the same site, it was actually quite exciting (I accept that I need to get out more with comments like that….) to be in what was effectively the country’s most important station in the 1950s and 1960s, despite being of a relatively small size. Although we visited on free admission day, the entrance is otherwise cheap to get in (14zl, which is under £3), so is very much worth a visit.