Poland
our country
National symbols of Poland
Flag of Poland
• The national colors of Poland are white and red. If displayed
horizontally, the white is on top, if vertically – on the left. The
colors, which are of heraldic origin and have a history dating back
to 1831, are one of three constitutional symbols of the Republic of
Poland, along with the coat of arms, the White Eagle, and the
national anthem, Mazurek Dąbrowskiego. The Polish flag is a
rectangular piece of cloth in the national colors, with or without the
Polish coat of arms on the white stripe. Polish Flag Day is
celebrated on May 2.
Coat of arms of Poland
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The coat of arms of Poland consists
of a white eagle on a red shield. The
eagle is wearing a crown and has
golden claws and beak. In Poland, the
coat of arms is usually called simply
White Eagle (Orzeł Biały), always
capitalised. Note that in heraldry there
is never a "white" colour: what we see
as white is normally said to be "silver"
(and "yellow" is "gold"). However, the
Polish eagle is the only one which is
"pure" white instead of silver.
The eagle is sometimes thought to be
the white-tailed eagle, although the
highly stylised depiction does not
connect the insignia with any specific
species of eagle. Another
interpretation is that it is form of a
"heraldic eagle", based on the Golden
Eagle.
Dąbrowski's Mazurka
Mazurek Dąbrowskiego (Dąbrowski's
Mazurka) is the Polish national anthem (since 26
February 1927), written by Józef Wybicki in
1797. Originally called the "Anthem of the Polish
Legions in Italy", it is also informally known in
English as "Poland Is Not Yet Lost" or "Poland
Has Not Yet Perished" from its initial verse,
"Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła.„
Map
President of Poland –
Lech Aleksander Kaczyński
Lech Aleksander Kaczyński
(born June 18, 1949) is a
Polish politician of the
conservative party Prawo i
Sprawiedliwość (Law and
Justice, PiS). He is the
President of the Republic of
Poland. Kaczyński served as
President of Warsaw from 2002
until December 22, 2005, the
day before he was inaugurated
as President of Poland.
Warsaw
• RESTORED TO CAPITAL CITYThe Warsaw Old District, called
caressingly by countryman the Old Warsaw is a place, where almost
every guest of the Vistula capital city heads for. It is characterised by
intensive local colour; as they say, it has a soul. Warsaw is opened
and kind towards visitors, teeming with life both at night and during
the day.In restaurants, cafes, clubs, but also in the streets, where
stop intersection signals for motor vehicles are situated. Therefore,
although Warsaw is becoming modern adopting Western Europe
standards, Old Warsaw does not have any competition as regards
its attractiveness. Warsaw was boran at the end of the 13th century
and was then given a regular layout with the rectangular
Marketplace in the centre. Originally the city was surrounded with an
earth embankment, subsequently – with a battlement extended in
the 15th century. At this time there had already been gothic and
renaissance tenement houses, subject in the 17th century to
fashionable baroque redecoration in connection with the capital city
of the state being moved from Cracow to Warsaw.
Warsaw
• The Royal Castle,
main square in the
Old City
Warsaw
• The view to the Old
City in Warsaw
Warsaw
• The symbol of
Warsaw – mermaid,
in the backgroundtenement houses
Cracow
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Cracow - royal city For a period of over more than five centuries and a
half, from 1040 till 1596, Cracow was both the royal seat and the capital
city of Poland, later, when it no longer performed capital functions, it
remained a scientific and cultural centre significant for Poland.
Fortunately, subsequent historical war-clouds left the city’s enormous
monuments untouched. Registered by UNESCO into the list of the
World Heritage, Cracow’s historic centre – the Old City with Wawel,
Kazimierz and Stradom – gathers the most significant monuments of
Polish history: approximately 3 thousand of architectural ones and
museums without which it is not possible to touch upon art history in
Poland.The Old City preserved its medieval layout, with an exception of
the fact that the former battlements were transformed into a green
strand of the afforested Plants, testified to by the impressive Barbican,
St. Florian’s Gate and three towers. The centre is taken up by the Main
Marketplace, laid out in 1257, four corners of which give rise to three
streets that subsequently intersect like on a chessboard. It is one of the
biggest marketplaces of medieval Europe, surrounded with antique
tenement-houses and palaces, the city-hall tower dating back to the
14th century in the middle and two lines of stalls of the 13th century,
included into the renaissance structure of the Sukiennice (Cloth Hall).
Cracow
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A trumpet signal given out from a soaring tower of St. Mary’s Church,
behind which there is the Small Marketplace, announce midday every day,
as was the case a number of centuries ago, not only to Cracow, but also,
through the radio – to the whole of the country. The Old City monuments
include, among other things, Collegium Maius, presently housing the
Jagiellonian University museum, whose tradition dates back to 1364. Nad
Starym Miastem góruje Wzgórze Wawelskie z renesansowym zamkiem,
goszczącym Państwowe Zbiory Sztuki. A w kryptach gotyckiej katedry
spoczywają prochy wielu polskich królów. The Wawel Hill with a
renaissance castle housing the National Art Collections towers over the Old
City, while in the gothic cathedral crypts several Polish kings’ ashes lie.
Stradom, reached on descent from the Wawel Hill, had been an ancillary
handicraft settlement since the 14th century, while Kazimierz was a district
of Cracow Jews, a centre of Jewish religion, science and culture, famous
both in Poland and Europe. Destroyed during the Second World War and
depopulated by Holocaust, the district is currently subject to profound
restoration works.
Cracow
• Trumpet signal given out every full hour from
a soaring tower of St. Mary’s Church
Cracow
• Cloth Hall
Cracow
• Barbican with St.
Florian’s Gate
Cracow
• The building of
theatre named after
Juliusz Słowacki
• Wawel Castle
John Paul II
Karol
Wojtyła
from Poland
16.X.1978 2.IV.2005
Poznań
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Poznań full official name: The Capital City of Poznań, Latin: Posnania, German: Posen,
Yiddish: ‫ ּפױזן‬Poyzn) is a city in west-central Poland with over 578,900 inhabitants (2002).
Located by the Warta River, it is one of the oldest cities in Poland, making it an important
historical center. Poznań's impressive cathedral is the earliest church in the country,
containing the tombs of the first Polish rulers: duke Mieszko I, king Boleslaus the Brave,
king Mieszko II, duke Casimir I the Restorer, duke Przemysł I and king Przemysł II.
Today the city is a vibrant center for trade, industry, and education. Poznań is Poland's
5th largest city and 4th biggest industrial center. It is also the administrative capital of the
Greater Poland Voivodeship.
Name of the city
It is also referred to in Polish as Stołeczne Miasto Poznań (name used on special
occasions), in German as Posen (Haupt- und Residenzstadt Posen between 20 August
1910 and 28 November 1918), and in Latin as Posnania and civitas Posnaniensis.
The earliest surviving references to the city were by Thietmar in his chronicles: episcopus
Poznaniensis ("Bishop of Poznań", 970) and ab urbe Poznani ("by" or "from the city
Poznań", 1005).
Early spellings include: Posna and Posnan.
The name probably comes from a personal name Poznan and would mean "Poznan's
town." It is also possible the name comes directly from the verb poznać which means "to
get to know, to recognize."
Poznań
• Poznań's town hall today
• East side of the market
square
Wieliczka
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Wieliczka – IN MEDIEVAL MINE Situated in the vicinity of Cracow,
Wieliczka used to be known as the place of brine exploitation as early
as in the 10th and 11th centuries. In the 12th century Magnum Sal, a
big fair settlement functioned there, The mining exploitation of rock-salt
deposits began in the middle of 13th century, but this treasure was fully
appreciated only by Casimir the Great. In 1368 he issued the so-called
Casimir Regulations, the first Polish collection of mining laws, owing to
which salt mining became the basis of royal income for a few centuries.
The mine functions continuously, but since the end of the previous
century salt has no longer been drawn by mining methods, but by
means of brine evaporation from mine’s leakages. The mine has nine
levels to the depth of 327 m, approximately 300 km of galleries and
nearly 3 thousand chambers. The Wieliczka mine became a tourist
attraction a long time ago when presently understood tourism did not
exist. Stairs for visitors leading into the mine were built as early as in
1744. Nowadays the underground tourist route runs through three
levels, from the depth of 64 m to 135 m.
Wieliczka
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It provides access to 19 chambers connected with galleries, decorated with
numerous sculptures carved in salt and at times being arranged as salt
chapels. The biggest chapel of Blessed Kinga is 50 m long, 17 m wide and
12 m high. In some chambers there are lakelets with strongly salted water.
In the chamber of Józef Piłsudski a ferry carries tourist across such a
lakelet. At the end of the route, in former passages on the third level, there
is the Cracow Salt-Mines Museum with unique documents collections,
ancient mining tools and petrography collections.It is only in case of the
Crystal Grottos, being an underground geological reservation, that one
needs a special permit in order to be admitted. In these natural rock
vacuums walls are covered with crystals whose edges reach the length of
40 cm.On the fifth level of the mine, 211 m underground a sanatorium has
been working for forty years where mainly respiratory system illnesses and
allergies are treated.
Wieliczka
• Underground
chambers
Wieliczka
• Statues of miners
carved in salt
Wieliczka
• The main
reprezentative
chamber
Toruń
• Toruń – COPERNICUS’ CITYToday inhabited by over two
hundred thousand people, Toruń is a city where one can set out on
an unforgettable trip into the previous centuries. In the medieval
spatial layout of both the Old and New City there is still one of the
most wonderful Polish gothic baroque architecture complexes. Laid
out on a projection of an irregular pentagon,the Old City is the
biggest concentration of monuments,. Its streets running from the
former port landing-pier are wider and remind of Toruń commerce
relation with the Vistula River, while the fortified nature of the city,
preserved from the side of the river, is testified by, a sequence of
the city walls dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries with the
following gates – the Monastic, Sailing and Bridge ones as well as
the towers – the Leaning Tower, Cat’s Head, Monstrance with
adjoining preserved ruins of the former Teutonic castle.The
marketplace is dominated by the gothic city-hall, on a projection of
a quadrangle with a internal courtyard, erected gradually since the
middle of the 13th century.
Toruń
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The city became an important centre of science and culture when the
Zamość Academy and a printing-house had been founded in 1595.This city
fortress lost its importance in the period of Poland’s partitions, at the turn of
the 18th and 19th centuries. Although it was provided with new
fortifications in the first half of the 19th century, among others, classicistic
high embankments, a cannon stand called the Zamość Rotunda, the New
Lublin and New Lvov Gates, it was eliminated as a defensive construction in
1866.Inhabited by approximately 70 thousand people, today’s Zamość
constitutes the administrative district seat, a centre of industry, service,
culture and education, but visitors take their first steps in the direction of a
right-bank hill, where the Old City is preserved in the same shape as ages
ago: with monumental gates and a cannon stand rotunda, the Great Market
dominated by the monumental City Hall, where numerous cultural events
take place, with the collegiate church of Lord’s Resurrection, a former
orthodox church and a synagogue, with a palace of the Zamoyski Dynasty,
the Arsenal and Academy edifices and with beautiful arcaded tenementhouses at romantic streets.
Toruń
• The Old City of Toruń
Toruń
• Architecture of the
city
Toruń
• The Vistula River
( the queen of Polish
rivers)
Auschwitz
• Oświęcim – Brzezinka - MONUMENT OF MEMORY People
prepared this lot for people – the Polish writer wrote. In order to
commemorate it as an eternal warning, the National Museum in
Oświęcim-Brzezinka was established within the area of the former
hitlerite extermination camp. The Konzentrationslager Auschwitz
was founded by the Nazis in April, 1940. It gradually included 3
main camps: Auschwitz I – Oświęcim, Auschwitz II – Brzezinka,
Auschwitz III – Monowice-Dwory and over 40 sub-camps. At the
end of the Second World War its area totalled 40 square km and
was the biggest German concentration camp. Apart from prisoners
from all over Poland, people of 28 nationalities were brought there.
400 thousand prisoners, including 200 thousand Jews and 150
thousand Poles, were registered and supposed to remain for a
longer period of time in Auschwitz. However, it is but a fragmentary
record. Because of crime traces obliteration by SS, it is not possible
to define the exact number of victims.
Auschwitz
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The Supreme Tribunal of Nations assumed that 2.8 million people were
murdered in Auschwitz, nowadays, on the basis of partial documentation, it
is presumed that approximately 1.5 million prisoners were killed there, 90%
of whom were Jews, as it was in the spring, 1942 that KZ Auschwitz
became the biggest centre of Jews’ annihilation, the majority of whom were
led directly from the trains to gas chambers, murdered in groups with B
cyclone gas; their bodies were burned in crematories and at stakes. In the
Museum situated within the area of Oświęcim, documentary exhibitions are
organised in 10 out of 28 blocks for prisoners (among other things, a heap
of shoes after murdered children, piles of artificial limbs, glasses, et cetera).
In the courtyard between the 11th (famous „death block”) and the 10th
block there is still the „doom wall”, where prisoners were murdered being
shot in the back of the head.In Brzezinka, a railway side-track with an
unloading ramp runs behind the main guard gate, where so-called transport
selections used to be performed. Erected owing to the International
Oświęcim Committee efforts, the immense Monument of Hitlerism Victims is
at the place in which the track comes to the end. Neither Oświęcim nor
Brzezinka can be admitted by children under the age of 14.
Auschwitz
• The prison camp in
Birkenau
Auschwitz
• „The death way” in
Birkenau
Auschwitz
• The main gate to
prison camp in
Auschwitz
Auschwitz
• Crematory where the
bodies were burnt
Częstochowa
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Częstochowa is a city in south Poland on the Warta River with 248,894 inhabitants
(2004). It has been situated in the Silesian Voivodeship (administrative division) since
1999, and was previously the capital of Częstochowa Voivodeship (1975-1998).
The town is known for the famous Paulite monastery of Jasna Góra that is the home
of the Black Madonna painting, a shrine of the Virgin Mary. Every year, thousands of
pilgrims from all over the world come to Częstochowa to see it. There is also a
Lusatian culture excavation site and museum in the city and ruins of a medieval
castle in Olsztyn, approximately 15 kilometres (ca. 10 mi) from the city centre.
City name
The name of Częstochowa means Częstoch's place and comes from a
personal name of Częstoch mentioned in the mediaeval documents also as
Częstobor and Częstomir. The original name was mentioned as
Częstochowa, spelled Czanstochowa in 1220, or Częstochow in 1382 and
1558. A part of today's city called Częstochówka was a separate
municipality mentioned in 14th century as the Old Częstochowa (Antiquo
Czanstochowa, 1382) and Częstochówka in 1470-80.
Częstochowa is also known as Czestochowa, Czenstochov, and
Chenstochov.
Częstochowa
• The Black Madonna
of Częstochowa.
Częstochowa
• The Jasna Góra
Monastery
Częstochowa
• Old market
Zakopane
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Zakopane is a town in southern
Poland with approximately 28,000
inhabitants (2004), situated in the
Lesser Poland Voivodeship since
1999 (it was previously in Nowy Sącz
Voivodeship from 1975-1998). The
town, called the Winter capital of
Poland, lies in the southern part of
the Podhale region at the feet of the
Tatra Mountains, which is the only
alpine mountain range in the
Carpathians.
Location and surroundings
It lies in a big glen between the Tatra
Mountains and Gubałówka Hill.
Zakopane is the most important
Polish centre of mountaineering and
skiing, and is visited by about three
million tourists annually. The most
important alpine skiing points are
Kasprowy Wierch, Nosal and
Gubałówka Hill.
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Zakopane has the highest elevation
of any town in Poland; within its
municipal region there exists a
variation of 800-1000 m of altitude.
The central point of the town is at
the crosssroads of Krupówki and
Kościuszki streets.
Zakopane
• Zakopane - view from
Gubałówka Hill over
Zakopane (Tatra
mountains in the
background)
• Zakopane Gubałówka Hill
Zakopane
• Kasprowy Wierch meteorological
observatory
• Kasprowy Wierch
Gdańsk
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Gdańsk is on the Polish coast. It is a
famous holiday resort.
Gdańsk
• The medieval port crane
in Gdańsk known as
Żuraw (Krahntor).
• Monument to King Jan III
Sobieski, now at Gdańsk
(formerly in Lwów)
Gdańsk
• Main Town Hall at the
Long Market street
• Example of the Hanseatic
style buildings recreated
in the Old Town after the
World War.
Gdańsk
• Neptune statue at the
Old Town.
Gdańsk
• The Baltic Sea
The End