Żoliborz already?

Before the unbelievable heat, near 40°C, got started I went for three thematic walks: in Żoliborz and Ochota, which are the districts of Warsaw. Żoliborz is the smallest district, and is located directly to the north of the city center, that’s why the title of the walk was “Is it still the New Town or Żoliborz already?”.

Warsaw is always under construction. Always!

Żoliborz used to have different names, but a current one comes from Polish pronunciation of French “Joli Bord”, which means in my translation “the Beautiful Brink” (“Embankment” sounds so engineering). In XVIII century there were gardens of Piarists, located on the left bank of Vistula river. But then Russians came and confiscated the area to erect Warsaw Citadel and part of Warsaw Fortress, which was a system of fortifications, built in two chains: internal and external.

After IIWW there are 28 elements of Warsaw Fortress left, in different conditions and without any possibility to go inside and have a look. But during our walk we visited one of the fortress and learnt about its external construction. During Russian Partition this fortress was called Aleksei’s Fortress, but now is named Traugutt’s Fortress: 

 

Old and new

Then we walked to see Ringstand 58c, which is a type of small German bunker adapted to firing, and learnt about non-existent railway and tramway lines. Could you imagine that the last mentioned one was driving across this tunnel?:

The original route of the tram no. 15 from the city center to Żoliborz

One of the most interesting fact, I heard during this walk, is associated with Kronenberg Palace. The palace is a non-existent building, which was located in a heart of the city, so during IIWW was destroyed. It wasn’t ruined completely, but after the war the authorities didn’t pay attention and didn’t rebuild it, so due to its condition getting worse and worse the palace was demolished. Now in the same place is a hotel, built in totally different style, but some parts of Kronenberg Palace still exist, for example as this sculpture:

The rest of Kronenberg Palace

A name of the sculpture is “Loneliness”. An author, Zofia Woźna, used columns of an entrance gate to Kronenberg Palace to create such sad girls. If you are interested in how the palace looked like before IIWW, click here: warszawa1939.pl