Dual-city Cieszyn. Polish, Czech, shared?
panorama of Czech Cieszyn, in the foreground on the right - Romanesque rotunda
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A thousand-year-old community of local
Something like this does not exist anywhere else. Combine this with the strength of Czech culture, Evangelical qualities (education and entrepreneurship) and typically Polish traits (industriousness and resourcefulness) and you get a recipe for an initial understanding of this city, its phenomenon and future success.
For me, this is an exciting discovery, because it will also partly explain various Cieszyn mistakes and distortions. After all, such a community will be utterly attached to its place on earth, but on the other hand it may prove somewhat resistant to change. Attachment to various local habits, traditions or customs may prove to be an interesting sociological perspective, helpful in the proper analysis of Cieszyn's identity - and the right, fitting idea for the future of this arch-rival city.
The Habsburg Hunting Palace - now home to a music school
Photo: Wojciech Wandzel © UM Cieszyn
Only after realizing the above-described phenomenon does it occur to me what caught my eye in the City Hall: an unusually long list of names carved in stone of successive mayors of Cieszyn. And on the wall - an endless gallery of their portraits. What a continuity of events! This will be both a great value and quite a burden on the activities undertaken in Cieszyn. All the more reason to face them - because the city is great and ready to be headily, effectively "sold" today. - unveil them to the rest of the world.
In Cieszyn there are two bridges next to each other: one is the Friendship Bridge and the other is the Freedom Bridge. I think that if we can enjoy this common European freedom, and at the same time manage to replace the old distrust and prejudice with authentic Polish-Czech friendship, we will win a lot together.
Walking through such a bi-city Cieszyn is an amazing adventure. A great idea for a weekend, even better for a whole vacation. You stay at the Under the Black Stork campground or the Three Brothers hostel. You jump off for a beer in Prague, an imperial walk in Bielsko-Biala, and then into the Beskids to wander around the mountains a bit. And in the so-called in-between, you walk around this nice, not too big, very easy to love Cieszyn. It really is time to rediscover it.
It has to be done quite elitistly, the princely title obliges - that's why we write about it here, in the prestigious magazine "Architecture & Business", and not in some tabloid. Cieszyn is not Giewont and Krupówki, this is a city for the sensitive, well-read and open to other cultures. We invite you to Cieszyn, but not necessarily wild crowds - the city is to remain intimate, though rediscovered for all of Poland and the Czech Republic, and the rest of the world. Now that you can finally get here easily, it is a great time for Cieszyn.
Beautiful Sandomierz was discovered for the masses by the TV series Father Matthew. I hope that for a slightly more elite audience another Matthew will discover Cieszyn just as successfully. Simply Matthew ;-)
