I think I specifically left Szczecin for the end of the whole series, for the last chapter. That is, there will be studies of several other cities, but Szczecin is symbolically to crown the work. This is due, among other things, to the rule of inaccessibility - it has always been the hardest to get to. For some reason, Szczecin was simply out of reach.
I mean, I've been to Szczecin several times, I even have a special emotional relationship with this place - the greatest love of my youth was from Szczecin. After all, I was born and raised in Pomerania, so in theory I should somehow know, feel and understand this place better. But nothing like that ever happened. Those few business stays in Szczecin were isolated encounters, glimpses of the city center, very superficial impressions and some afterimages of stereotypes, and of course general impressions drawn from media reports.
THROUGH-SEEK - the city of paprika is not some cramped clique
Photo: author
Yes, of course I knew that Szczecin is located on the Oder River, that it is a seaport, that I think there was a shipyard of some kind here, and that it is the capital of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship. Of course I have a fondness for Paprykarz Szczeciński, I watched "Morning of the Coyote" and I know who the boss of all bosses, Krzysztof Jarzyna from Szczecin, is or isn't, I also saw "Young Wolves." But other than that, Szczecin for me was a ghost town, a great unknown, a mystery hidden quite well behind some elusive smokescreen. In the early 1990s. From my hometown of Elblag, one traveled toward Szczecin as if to another planet - either a several-hour car ride with a buddy, a smuggler of cars stolen in Germany, or the Vagabond of the North, as we called the Bialystok-Szczecin train, filled to the ceiling with people crowded together with checked bags, going "to trade."
THROUGH THE RIVER - the city of paprika is not some cramped cottage
Photo credit: Author
When I finally set out on the road to Szczecin, all signs in heaven and earth announced from the beginning that I was headed in the right direction for me. Beautiful weather, the pleasure of driving through the very natural, unpopulated space of Western Pomerania, the wind at my back. I arranged in advance for several meetings - interviews with people important to Szczecin. I settled on Szczecin's only camping site at the yacht marina on Lake Dabie, right next to the airport of the aeroclub. From there, as quickly as possible, I set off for the city, on an electric bike, of course, because the distances here are surprising.
but what a breath this city has
Photo: author
I really like the so-called first impression. I love the city's water, I love port cities, so some sort of entrance bonus this Szczecin had with me. When I drove out to the huge flyover leading to the center over the Regalica River, over successive branches of the Oder River, crossings - I felt what I love: space. Szczecin has a unique space. You can see it, hear it and feel it. I rode in an arc circling a polygonal harbor. A harbor where cranes and cranes were working - and I had some concern that I might find them frozen, stopped. But I was looking at a lively port, full of ships, including the largest, ocean-going ones. Thanks to this port vastness, Szczecin is the fifth largest city in Poland in terms of area.
A big surprise - the brand-new Maritime Science Center
Photo: author
When I arrived in the center, I was surprised to note that a few years ago the still empty Lasztownia island was filled with something of significance - a sizable amusement park, dynamically lit, to mymy eye not the worst quality in the aesthetic sense, although usually amusement parks with aesthetics have little to do in Poland (for example, a monster in the center of Krakow).
This thing has replaced the frontages of medieval tenements
Photo: author
Next to the life-giving - in a formerly dead space - Holiday Park, for that is the name of the place, a more significant building has sprung up: a massive, modern, rust-colored block, somewhat reminiscent of the European Solidarity Center in Gdansk, and in shape undoubtedly a metaphor for the silhouette of a great ship, marked with huge flags manifesting solidarity with Ukraine. This architecture is awe-inspiring, with this building Szczecin surprised me - the Maritime Science Center (designed by Plaskowicki & Partners Architects) grew quietly, during the pandemic and already after it, opened in the spring of 2023, so it is absolutely fresh.
Fortunately, further away from the port, the original architecture has been preserved and there is plenty of it, and the Szczecin star traffic circles that organize this part of the city are really impressive
Photo credit: Author
I passed this downtown area of Szczecin several times back and forth. And I already felt that it would be not good, but very good. The water, the ships, the harbor, the architecture, the street art, the flyovers, my fascination with Stettin began to kick in. I decided to explore the classic city center, I realized that I had probably never been in it. You know, some kind of market, old town, there are such in every city after all.
Medieval, Hanseatic town hall - if only the entire Szczecin Old Town had survived....
Photo: author
But not in Szczecin. Even if the "Old Town" signposts direct you somewhere, you won't get anywhere. Even if someone says this is the center, you won't believe him. Because Szczecin simply doesn't have a center.
szczecin crossroads
Photo: author
That is, from a technical point of view - it seemingly has one. But it doesn't. The historic Hanseatic city probably did not have one main market, but several small, thematically specialized ones. After that, the arguably once beautiful Hanseatic city fell victim to a whole series of devastation: allied carpet bombing raids, Soviet assaults, Russian and Polish looting, after the war ended, this continued for more than fourteen years, at least until 1959. As a result of these and the chaotic, shameful quality of the post-war construction of these ruins, today Szczecin's normal center simply does not exist, and the Old Town - well, it's probably one of the ugliest I've ever seen. With few exceptions of preserved monuments.
There are flyovers, so there is something to do street art on
Photo credit: Author
Have these experiences disturbed my hitherto positive perception of this city? Well, no. All the people I spontaneously made contact with along the way were great. Smiling, somber, in love with their city, not understood by the rest of the world. With a sense of humor, contactable, somehow... different. So undaunted by the tragic Peoples' blocks of flats that replaced the beautiful tenement houses that once stood here, I set off in the direction of Szczecin's Paris - great starry intersections and neighborhoods undestroyed by the war. Magnificent! I cycled through today's Marszałka Piłsudskiego Street (formerly Friedrich-Karl-Straße), through Grunwaldzki Square (Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz), here a circle counting the radially departing streets; I counted eight. This neighborhood is a real feast for the eyes for admirers of architecture and urban planning.
What emerges from the murals is a kind of Szczecin narrative reporting the identity of a rebel, a community that is self-ironic, witty and has temperament and character... I like it!
Photo credit: Author
I got hooked on this Szczecin like a strong cigarette after a long hiatus from smoking. I remember how we smoked French gitanes at recess in high school: the effect of turning on the mode "Szczecin sucks me in" turned out to be very similar. It turned my head. I already know why, for most people in today's Poland, Szczecin is an enigmatic, partially hidden entity. The reason is - as is most often the case in such situations - history and geography. Geography - because the Oder River is a natural barrier, a border, and Szczecin proper lies "on the other side," on the left bank. And history, especially post-war history - because Nikita Khrushchev did not make the final decision on who the left-bank Szczecin would belong to until 1959. Imagine the consequences of such a late decision of such fundamental importance. After 1945, when Germans who had not themselves fled the front earlier were displaced from the areas of today's northern and western Poland, waves of Polish displaced persons gradually began to arrive in their place, mainly from the east, but also simply from all of war-ravaged Poland. The post-German real estate and infrastructure, although heavily damaged in places, was an extremely attractive motivation to migrate. Before the migrants, there were usually looters in this wild west looting the remnants of post-German movable property that the Russians had not previously stolen. Thus, we were faced with the following sequence of events in these lands: Allied aerial bombardment, destruction caused by the passing front, the first phase of looting (on an industrial scale carried out by the Soviet government and army, and on an individual scale involving theplundering of luxury goods - expensive but small and light, so that a soldier could take them with him on his onward journey to Berlin, such as the famous watches clasped on both hands of Soviet soldiers). Then Phase II of the looting began - Polish looters appeared in the still empty and unattended spaces, stealing leftovers - these were mainly furniture, kitchen and bathroom equipment. Only then did new settlers flow into the empty houses and the process of the newcomers becoming accustomed to their new place under the sun began.
What emerges from the murals is a kind of Szczecin narrative reporting the identity of a rebel, a community that is self-ironic, witty and possessed of temperament and character... like it!
Photo credit: Author
