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WARSAW |
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Warsaw has two enduring points of definition: the Wisla River,
running south to north across the Mazovian plains, and the Moscow-Berlin
road, stretching across this terrain - and through the city - east to
west. Such a location, and four hundred years of capital status, have
ensured a history writ large with occupations and uprisings, intrigues
and heroism. Warsaw's sufferings, its near-total obliteration in World
War II and subsequent resurrection from the ashes, has lodged the city
in the national consciousness. In the latest era of political struggle -
the emergence of Solidarity, fall of communism and the re-establishment
of electoral democracy - Warsaw has at times seemed overshadowed by
events in Gdansk and the industrial centres of the south, but its role
has been a key one nonetheless, as a focus of popular and intellectual
opposition to communism, the site of past and future power and,
increasingly, as the centre of the country's rapid economic
transformation.
Likely to be most visitors' first experience of Poland, Warsaw makes an
initial impression that is all too often negative. The years of
communist rule have left no great aesthetic glories, and there's
sometimes a hollowness to the faithful reconstructions of earlier eras.
However, as throughout Poland, the pace of social change is tangible and
fascinating, as the openings provided by the post-communist order turn
the streets into a continuous marketplace. Many of the once grey and
tawdry state shopfronts of the city centre have given way to a host of
colourful new private initiatives, while the postwar dearth of nightlife
and entertainments has become a complaint of the past now that a mass of
new bars, restaurants and clubs have established themselves.
A knowledge of Warsaw's rich and often tragic history can transform the
city, revealing voices from the past in even the ugliest quarters: a
pockmarked wall becomes a precious prewar relic, a housing estate the
one-time centre of Europe's largest ghetto, the whole city a living book
of modern history. Among the concrete, there are reconstructed traces of
Poland's imperial past, including a castle, a scattering of palaces and
parks, and the restored streets of the historic Stare Miasto, while the
headlong rush into the embrace of capitalist culture is already throwing
up its own particular architectural legacy, some of it familiar -
towering skyscrapers and plush Western shopfronts - some more original -
Party headquarters turned stock exchanges, Stalin-era palaces
transformed into business centres. Indeed, new construction is
everywhere: many of the areas of waste ground left untouched since the
destruction of World War II have disappeared under gleaming new office
blocks, while many public squares (notably pl. Defilad and pl. Bankowy)
are receiving extensive facelifts in order to make room for brand-new
metro stations, department stores or corporate headquarters.
Wending its way north towards Gdansk and the Baltic Sea, the Wisla river
divides Warsaw neatly in half: the main sights are located on the
western bank, the eastern consists predominantly of residential and
business districts. Marking the northern end of the city centre, the
busy Stare Miasto (Old Town) provides the historic focal point. Rebuilt
from scratch after World War II like most of Warsaw, the magnificent
Zamek Królewski (Royal Castle), ancient Archikatedra sw. Jana (St John's
Cathedral) and the Rynek Starego Miasta (Old Town Square) are the most
striking examples of the capital's reconstruction. Baroque churches and
the former palaces of the aristocracy line the streets west of the ring
of defensive walls, and to the north, in the quietly atmospheric Nowe
Miasto (New Town).
West of the Stare Miasto, in the Muranów and Mirów districts, is the
former ghetto area, where the Nozyck Synagogue and the ul. Okopowa
cemetery bear poignant testimony to the lost Jewish population. South
from the Stare Miasto lies Sródmiescie , the city's commercial centre,
its skyline dominated by the Palac Kultury i Nauk (Palace of Culture),
Stalin's permanent legacy to the citizens of Warsaw. Linking the Stare
Miasto and Sródmiescie, Krakowskie Przedmiescie is dotted with palaces
and Baroque spires, and forms the first leg of the Trakt Królewski
(Royal Way), a procession of open boulevards stretching all the way from
plac Zamkowy to the stately king's residence at Wilanów on the southern
outskirts of the city. Along the way is Park Lazienkowski , one of
Warsaw's many delightful green spaces and the setting for the charming
Palac Lazienkowski (Lazienki Palace), surrounded by waterways and lakes.
Further out, the city becomes a welter of high-rise developments, but
among them, historic suburbs like Zoliborz to the north and Praga to the
east give a flavour of the authentic life of contemporary Warsaw.
Warsaw is a much livelier and more cosmopolitan place than it's given
credit for in the West. It is a little-known fact, for instance, that
there are up to thirty thousand Americans living in Warsaw - much the
same number as in Prague - and since they're not all trying to write the
Great American Novel, their contribution to the Polish capital has been
more marked in terms of cuisine and practical facilities. It's an
eye-opening experience for many people to walk the bustling, vibrant
streets.
For those arriving without personal connections or contacts, Warsaw can
seem forbidding, with much of the place still shutting down within a few
hours of darkness, but Varsovians are generous and highly hospitable
people: no social call, even to an office, is complete without a glass
of herbata and plate of cakes. Postwar austerity has strengthened the
tradition of home-based socializing, and if you strike up a friendship
here (and friendships in Warsaw are quickly formed) you'll find much to
enrich your experience of the city.
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