Posted on 09/03/2006 9:53:02 AM PDT by lizol
A revolution in the city of solidarity
Shipyards were the hard face of industrial Gdansk, but now Tom Lappin finds a city revelling in its hotchpotch of old and new culture, architectural splendour and retro bars
So where is Anna’s crane? That’s one of several questions that spring to mind when you gaze on the site of the erstwhile Lenin shipyards in Gdansk, even if the area is now just another European postindustrial wasteland waiting for the funds to turn it into an office and leisure development. Back in July 1980, the dismissal of a crane operator called Anna Walentynowicz for political agitation led to the occupation of the shipyards by the burgeoning Solidarity movement led by Lech Walesa. They delivered a charter called the Twenty-One Demands, which, astonishingly, the communist regime was forced to accept by the following month. The writing was on the shipyard wall.
If you subscribe to the casual view of catastrophe that has a butterfly flapping its wings causing the entire population of China to stamp their feet (or something like that), you can’t help but be drawn to the seductive historical resonances of the Lenin shipyard and wonder whether Walentynowicz’s recalcitrance led, by incremental challenges to a decadent authoritarian system, to the downfall of the Soviet socialist system.
A quarter of a century after that first flexing of the Solidarity muscle, Gdansk is a vibrant central European metropolis with an air of chic energy. Visitors drawn by its iconic position in recent European history might expect to find a tough Baltic port, a Polish Liverpool or Glasgow.
They will be happily amazed by the pristine beauty of the old town, an atmospheric quarter redolent of the aesthetic delights of Amsterdam or Prague.
It would be an easy mistake to assume the fabulous medieval and Renaissance lines of old Gdansk are well-preserved. In fact they were levelled by the Russians in the second world war, a conflict that had started when the Germans arrived at Westerplatte at the northern edge of the city on September 1, 1939. In the years after the war the citizens collected the rubble and replaced every brick where it had come from.
For an instant sample of Gdansk’s rich heritage, start in the benign tourist-trap splendour of the Dlugi Targ, part elegant avenue, part town square. The town hall is an imposing testament to the city’s wealth and importance from the 14th century, when it was built. Inside you will find a museum that will fail to conceal that Gdansk’s history is almost entirely German. Ever since the start of the 14th century, when the Teutonic Knights established themselves here, until 1945, when the victorious allies arbitrarily picked up Poland and shifted the entire country 125 miles to the west, this was Danzig.
The Germanic origins of the city is recognisable in the architecture of the restored townhouses lining the picturesque streets running parallel to Dlugi Targ.
Looming behind the town hall is St Mary’s, the largest brick church in the world, its scale defying visitors to take an adequate photograph of its towering mass. It served as a refuge and rallying point during the days of martial law in 1981, accidentally confirming the church as the focus of opposition to the state.
You can climb the tower and survey the full extent of the city over the shipyards, up the river and canals towards the Baltic.
Head northwest into the old town, the Stare Miasto, and encounter the Great Mill, the Teutonic Knights’ most imposing civic legacy to the city, the biggest medieval mill in Europe. The knights weren’t the most enlightened of employers, using slaves to turn the mill wheels. It was still milling flour until the middle of the last century. Now you can admire it from the canalside bars and coffee houses before taking in the merchants’ mansions and Renaissance houses that give way rather abruptly to Soviet-era housing blocks and a scruffy shopping centre.
More by luck than design, my visit coincided with the annual St Dominic’s Fair. A festival of joyful consumption, you could be more inclined to associate it with the Mediterranean until you encounter the Polish food stalls.
The temperatures might be pushing the high 20s, but the locals are queuing up for daunting-looking golonka, pig’s knuckle in thick sauce with cabbage and dumplings, fat kielbasa sausages, or bigos, the salty cabbage and meat stew.
Poland simply doesn’t countenance the possibility of a light summer lunch. Grannies tuck into calorific platefuls while from the main stage a local band kicks into a heavily accented version of Prince’s Sexy MF. A little girl weaves around the tables wearing a T-shirt with a mock-up of the cover of the first Clash album picked out in bright pink glitter. You get the idea the Poles are enjoying postmodern consumerist confusion.
For better or for worse Gdansk also has a long-established Scottish pub, U Szkota. Cheerfully unauthentic, it panders to the Slavic fondness for old-school Caledonia, all Burns, kilts and bagpipes rather than deep-fried confectionery and gassy Tennent’s. Somewhat incongruously, its cocktail bar seems to be a place where Gdansk’s beautiful people are happy to be seen.
Along the river, four generations of locals are out for a promenade, strolling, drinking and eating. On the water’s edge is the giant form of a reconstructed medieval port crane, and a few hundred yards from it the Oskar galleon is moored, now a restaurant, doing a roaring trade with the simple staples of ryby and piwo (fish and beer). A flea market along the river bank sells everything from vinyl LPs (the likes of Soft Machine and Budgie have a loyal Polish following) to medieval weaponry.
Stalls are everywhere in summer, selling silver and amber, the staples of the Baltic port for centuries. Mariacka, the city’s prettiest street, is teeming with jewellers and artisans, small galleries, boutiques and designer shops, nearly all run by young Gdanskers, a generation that grew up and flourished in a new Poland. Since European Union membership, while a not insubstantial tranche of the Polish population has gone west to fill vacancies as nannies, plumbers and Celtic centre forwards, those that have stayed behind all seem to have started up small businesses.
The city’s young movers and shakers are more conspicuous out by the coast at Sopot, the Baltic’s increasingly trendy resort. At Atelier on the seafront, a thoroughly wasted but far from elitist clubbing crowd hangs around to groan at the sunrise, before a new shift arrives for fresh-faced bopping. The place is open 24 hours a day in summer, which explains why the lavatories are in such a dubious state.
Sopot has its share of galleries, bohemian cafes and hipster bars these days, prominent among them being the Galeria Kinsky, a garish crimson establishment suitable for gothic types and followers of Klaus Kinski, the actor, who grew up there in grimmer times. Nostalgists, or rather those Poles too young to know first-hand the austerity of socialist-era Poland, hang out at Remanent, a kitsch 1970s tribute bar stuffed full of regalia from the Warsaw Pact era. Drinks prices are thoroughly modern and westernised, however.
Back in Gdansk the traumatic recent past is remembered more reverently. Near the old shipyard site there is now an exhibition and visitor centre under the vaguely American title of Roads to Freedom. It’s partly a didactic history of the Solidarity movement, partly a memento of the bad old days. There is a garishly-lit 1980s-style Polish grocery shop with the odd bottle of vinegar, beetroot and slabs of lard on mostly empty shelves. The cult of Walesa is well documented, with his jowly features emblazoned on everything from stamps to books of matches.
In the end it is impossible to emerge from the exhibition without an appreciation of the exceptional courage and reckless resourcefulness of the Polish people. The monument to the fallen shipyard workers outside the exhibition is inscribed with a plain declaration of defiance and memory: “You who have harmed the simple man, mocking him with your laughter, you kill him, but others will be born, and your deeds and words will be recorded.”
Solidarity proved rather less popular in government than it was in illegal opposition, and the cruelty of popular memory means that nowadays Poles are more inclined to give the credit for the overthrow of communism to the last pope, but then they have become a devout people again after their liberation. Cynics might wonder at the Poles willingness to replace one authoritarian ideology, communism, with another, Catholicism, so swiftly, but beautiful Gdansk, in St Dominic’s week, is perhaps the ideal setting to witness the extent of the transition.
Details: Centralwings (www.centralwings.com) has return flights from Edinburgh to Gdansk from £47.76 including all taxes and fees.
The five-star Dwor Oliwski Hotel (www.dwor-oliwski.com.pl, 0048 58 554 7000) is situated in the Oliwa suburb, in a 17th-century manor house, with a gourmet restaurant attached. Doubles from £105.
The Dom Muzyka Hotel (www.dom-muzyka.pl, 0048 58 326 0600) is 10 minutes’ walk from the old town, situated in a former music academy building. Doubles from £50.
What a beautiful city! Thx for posting those great pics.
Yes-- a beautiful city. Too bad it takes so many flights to get there. Flying is too much of an ordeal these days.
Actually you can see the Memorial among the pictures posted by me - the 15th picture from the bottom, with a large sailing vessel on it.
ping!
Great pics, thanks for posting this!
Gdansk is my home town. On 14th picture from above you can see Ostrowie island - there's a Remontowa Shipyard on the upper and right part of it, part of Gdansk Shipyard on lower part and on the left side is the main branch of the yard I work for. Also, until I was 5 I used to live in New Port (one of Gdansk's districts) in the block of flats just in front of Westerplatte monument.
Thanks for the ping . Awesome!
Can we arrange a freerepublic meeting in Sopot on Sept 18 , 19 or 20?
Unfortunately I have exams in my university at that time and I need to concentrate on this. But if you have some questions about Gdansk, don’t bother to ask.
I would need 2 days off and unfortunately that's rather not possible.
Okey Dokey, I won't bother to ask . Take care and good luck on your exams.
Well Ok , but if ever you are in the neighboorhood , give us a yell.
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