These plaques list Lublin’s partner cities, with “Miasta partnerskie Lublina” and it seems that the authorities have been busy here. The names stretch from Nancy and Münster to Windsor in Canada and Jiaozuo in China, each accompanied by a year. Lublin’s first formal partnership was with Nancy in 1988 and matters seem to have escalated from there. Some people struggle to maintain contact with three friends, but Lublin appears to have an entire department for it.
The British representative is Lancaster, partnered with Lublin since 1994. It sits amongst places including Tilburg, Viseu, Timișoara and Tbilisi, a respectable selection of destinations for anyone planning their holidays by reading a wall. I rather like seeing these connections displayed so prominently. There is a substantial Ukrainian presence, with names including Lviv, Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Rivne and Sumy appearing in their Polish forms. The bottom right plaque records Kryvyi Rih, whose partnership agreement was signed in February 2023.
Not every municipal friendship has lasted. Lublin ended its cooperation with the Russian city of Omsk following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, also severing links with Brest and Vitebsk in Belarus. Omsk’s relationship had only reached the letter of intent stage, rather than full twinning. Hopefully in the future there might be better relations, although that feels quite a long way off.
The practical purpose is to encourage links between schools, cultural organisations, sports clubs, businesses and local communities. As with any list of cities, it has also given me several more places to consider visiting. I had thought that photographing a wall was a reasonably economical activity, but apparently there can be substantial ongoing costs. I now feel the need to visit Tilburg in the Netherlands.