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Suwałki

Suwałki (Suvalkai; סואוואַלק or סוּוואַלק) is a city in northeastern Poland with a population of 69,206 (2021). It is the capital of Suwałki County and one of the most important centers of commerce in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Suwałki is the largest city and the capital of the historical Suwałki Region. Until 1999 it was the capital of Suwałki Voivodeship. Suwałki is located about 30 km from the southwestern Lithuanian border and gives its name to the Polish protected area known as Suwałki Landscape Park. The Czarna Hańcza river flows through the city.

Etymology
The name derives from Lithuanian su- (near) and valka (creek, marsh), with the combined meaning "place near a small river or swampy area".

History
The area of Suwałki had been populated by local Yotvingian and Prussian tribes since the early Middle Ages. However, with the arrival of the Teutonic Order to Yotvingia, their lands were conquered and remained largely depopulated in the following centuries.

17th century
The village was founded by Camaldolese monks, who in 1667 were granted the area surrounding the future town by the Grand Duke of Lithuania and the King of Poland John II Casimir. Soon afterwards the monastic order built its headquarters in Wigry, where a monastery and a church were built.

The new owners of the area started rapid economic exploitation and development of the forests; they brought enough settlers (mainly from an overpopulated Masovia) to build several new villages in the area. Also, production of wood, lumber, tar and iron ore was started. The village was first mentioned in 1688; two years later it was reported to have just two houses.

18th century
However, the growth of the village was fast and by 1700 it was split into Lesser and Greater Suwałki. The village was located almost exactly in the center of Camaldolese estates and lay on the main trade route linking Grodno and Merkinė with Königsberg.

In 1710 King Augustus II the Strong granted the village a privilege to organize fairs and markets. Five years later, in 1715, the village was granted town rights by the grand master of the order, Ildefons. The town was divided into 300 lots for future houses and its inhabitants were granted civil rights and exempted from taxes for seven years. In addition, the town was granted 18.03 km2 of forest that was to be turned into arable land. On May 2, 1720, the town rights were approved by King August II, and the town was allowed to organize one fair a week and four markets a year. In addition, a coat of arms was approved, depicting Saint Roch and Saint Romuald.

After the Partitions of Poland in 1795, the area was annexed by Prussia. In 1796 the monastery in Wigry was dissolved and its property confiscated by the Prussian government. The following year a seat of local powiat authorities was moved to the town, as well as a military garrison. By the end of the 18th century, Suwałki had 1,184 inhabitants and 216 houses. A large part of the population was Jewish.

19th century
In 1807 Suwałki became a salient of the newly formed Duchy of Warsaw and one of the centres of the department of Łomża. After the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Congress of Vienna, the area was incorporated into the Congress Poland ("Russian Poland"), as a part of the Russian Empire (Russian partition). The status of a powiat capital was briefly withdrawn, but it was reintroduced on January 16, 1816, when the Augustów Voivodeship was created and its government was gradually moved to Suwałki. Soon afterwards the older town hall was demolished and replaced with a new one, and General Józef Zajączek financed the paving of most of the town's streets. The cemetery was moved to the outskirts from the town centre, and that area became a town park. Also, the Russian authorities built the Saint Petersburg–Warsaw Railway, which added to the town's prosperity.

In 1820 a new church was built. In 1821 the first synagogue was opened. In 1829 a permanent post office was opened in Suwałki. Between 1806 and 1827 the town's population almost tripled and reached 3,753 people living in 357 houses. During the November Uprising of 1831, the town's population took part in the struggles against Russia, but the town was pacified by the Russian army on February 11, 1830. In 1835 the government of Tsar Nicholas I decided not to move the capital of the voivodeship to Augustów. Two years later the Voivodeships of Poland were re-designated as gubernias, and the town became the capital of the Augustów Gubernia.

In 1826 the Russians passed an investment plan and authorities initiated the construction of new public buildings. In 1835 a police station was built, in 1844 a new town hall and Orthodox and Protestant churches were completed. Soon afterwards a new marketplace was opened, as well as St. Peter's and Paul's hospital and a gymnasium. In addition, between 1840 and 1849 the main Catholic church was refurbished by many of Poland's most notable architects of the era, including Piotr Aigner, Antonio Corazzi and Enrico Marconi. To change the town's architecture and break with its rural past, in 1847 the town council passed a decree banning the construction of new wooden houses.

The town's population continued to grow rapidly. In 1857 it had 11,273 inhabitants and in 1872 almost 20,000. Newly built factories needed workers and these were brought from workers recruited widely in Europe. The mixed Polish-Jewish-Lithuanian population was soon joined by people of almost all denominations that worshipped in the Russian Empire.

Soon Suwałki became the fourth-most populous town in Congress Poland. After the January Uprising of 1863, administration reform was passed to unify the Polish lands with Russia completely. In 1866 the gubernia of Augustów was renamed to Suwałki Gubernia. However, the route of the newly built Saint Petersburg-Warsaw railway bypassed Suwałki, adversely affecting its prosperity. It was not until the early 20th century that the establishment of a new Russian army garrison revived the economy. Also, a railway line linking Suwałki with Grodno was finally completed.

20th century to present

After the spring of 1905, when the Russians were forced to accept a limited liberalization, the period of Polish cultural revival started. Although the Polish language was still banned from official use, new Polish schools were opened, as well as a Polish-language Tygodnik Suwalski weekly and a library. After World War I broke out, heavy fights for the area erupted. Finally in 1915, the Germans broke the Russian front and Suwałki was under German occupation. The town and surrounding areas were detached from the rest of the Polish lands and were directly administered by the German military commander of the Ober-Ost Army. Severe laws imposed by the German military command and the tragic economic situation of the civilians led to the creation of various secret social organisations. Finally, in 1917, local branches of the Polska Organizacja Wojskowa were created.

After the collapse of the Central Powers in November 1918, the local commander of the Ober-Ost signed an agreement with the Temporary Council of the Suwałki Region and de facto allowed for the region to be incorporated into Poland. However, the German army remained in the area and continued its economic exploitation. In February 1919 the local inhabitants took part in the first free elections to the Polish Sejm, but soon afterwards the German commanders changed their mind. They expelled the Polish military units from the area and in May passed the territory to Lithuanian authority.

Independent Poland
By the end of July 1919, the Paris Peace Conference granted the town to Poland. As the newly-established border was disapproved of by the Polish government, it organised the Sejny Uprising on August 23, 1919. The Polish-Lithuanian War erupted and for several days fighting for control over Suwałki, Sejny and other towns in the area took place. The war ended on the insistence of the Entente in mid-September. Negotiations took place in Suwałki in early October. During the Polish-Bolshevik War, the town was captured by the Communists and, after the Battle of Warsaw, it was again passed to the Lithuanians. It was retaken by the Polish Army.

In the inter-war period, Suwałki became an autonomous town within the Białystok Voivodeship (1919-1939). This resulted in another period of prosperity, with the town's population rising from 16,780 in 1921 to almost 25,000 in 1935. The main source of income shifted from agriculture to trade and commerce. Also, in 1931 the new water works and a power plant were built. Also, Suwałki continued to serve as one of the biggest garrisons in Poland, with two regiments of the Polish 29th Infantry Division and almost an entire Suwałki Cavalry Brigade stationed there. Beginning in 1928, Suwałki was established as the headquarters of one of the battalions of the Border Defence Corps.

Second World War
During the later stages of the Polish Defensive War of 1939, the town was briefly captured by the Red Army. However, on October 12 of the same year, the Soviets withdrew and transferred the area to the Germans, in accordance with the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. The city was renamed Sudauen and annexed directly into Nazi Germany's province of East Prussia. Germans carried out mass arrests of Poles as part of Intelligenzaktion in the fall of 1939 and spring of 1940. Arrested Poles were deported to a transit camp in Działdowo or murdered on the spot. Nazi German severe laws and terrorism led to the creation of several resistance organisations in response. Although most initially destroyed by the Gestapo, by 1942 the area had one of the strongest ZWZ and AK networks. In the Szwajcaria district there are mass graves of members of the Polish resistance movement murdered by the Germans on April 26, 1940 and April 1, 1944.

Despite the resistance, almost all of the town's once 7,000-strong Jewish community was deported and murdered, beginning in December 1939, when German troops brought the elderly, sick, and disabled into a nearby forest and machine-gunned them en masse. The Germans, with help from local collaborators, deported the community's surviving Jews to ghettos in other towns. Nearly all either perished there or were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. The occupying Germans also systematically destroyed all traces of Jewish history and culture in the town, demolishing synagogues and desecrating Suwałki's Jewish cemetery, where a memorial and wall of gravestone fragments stand today. Also, in Suwałki's suburb of Krzywólka, the Germans established a POW camp for almost 120,000 Soviet prisoners of war.

On October 23, 1944, the town was captured by the forces of the Soviet 3rd Belarusian Front. The fights for the town and its environs lasted for several days and took the lives of almost 5,000 Soviet soldiers before they defeated the Germans. The anti-Soviet resistance of former Armia Krajowa members lasted in the forests surrounding the town until the early 1950s.

Suwałki did not suffer much damage during World War II, most of the historic buildings survived the war, and the damage to the city was estimated at only 5-10%, which was quickly rebuilt.

Polish People's Republic
The apparatus subordinate to the Polish Committee of National Liberation took power in Suwałki without major problems. Immediately after the city's liberation by units of the Red Army, on October 23, 1944, Stanisław Łapot, a member of the former Communist Party of Poland, one of the organizers of the Polish Workers' Party in Bialystok, came from Sejny to Suwałki. He was accompanied by several officials previously organized in Sejny with the deputy head Edmund Przybylski, as well as Tadeusz Sobolewski - the president of the interim Poviat Council. On the same day, at Mickiewicz Square, supposedly spontaneously organized, so with the participation of new authorities and over five thousand inhabitants of the city, and then in the "Rusałka" cinema hall a meeting of representatives of the population with the envoys of the Polish Committee of National Rebirth. Actions aimed at organizing the Suwałki authorities were taken shortly after the liberation. The Starosta handed over the power in the city to the temporary mayor Tadeusz Sobolewski on October 24, 1944. The commissariat of Suwałki was established. In turn, on November 7, a conference of representatives of provincial authorities with local authorities was held. As agreed, the first meeting of the Suwałki City Council took place the next day. On November 20, 1944, the board decided to locate its office in a private, Jewish building, partly abandoned, at 62/64 Kościuszki street, as the town hall building was severely damaged. In December 1944, the City Board did not gather, and its functions were performed by Sobolewski. The transitional state in the organization and functioning of the Suwałki authorities was properly completed in January 1945. Most probably then or at the beginning of February, the staroste S. Łapot issued an oral but very important order to subordinate Suwałki to the administration of the poviat level. In this way, he deprived them of the status they had until September 1939, a city separated from the poviat municipal association. Over the next few years, this matter was dealt with by various authorities, from municipal to central. This controversial problem appeared on March 27, 1945, on the initiative of the mayor Sobolewski, at the third meeting of the City National Council. The governor Wacław Kraśko, who was present at it, was rather reluctant to propose separating the city from the poviat and pointed to the need to improve, first and foremost, the situation and condition of municipal enterprises. The Council decided to postpone the case.

Another politician calling for restoring Suwałki to the legal status of before September 1, 1939 was mayor Wacław Rudzki. At the Municipal National Council meeting on March 25, 1946, he submitted the first motion to separate the city from the poviat, which was motivated by prestigious, historical and financial considerations. The Council shared the submitted arguments and decided, through the Poviat National Council, to apply to the Voivodeship National Council in Bialystok with a request to include the city separated from poviat self-government associations. Much more radical decisions, undoubtedly also under the influence of W. Rudzki, MRN made at its meeting on May 27, 1946. She decided that the rescript of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of December 1919 about the separation of Suwałki from the poviat remains in force, therefore she is the council of the separated city and reports to the Provincial National Council in Bialystok. The Council also elected, without discussion and by acclamation, the incumbent mayor of the city, Rudzki.

After this revolt, the reaction of the superior authorities was swift. Already in mid-June 1946, the voivode demanded that the chairman of the Suwałki Poviat Department (staroste) suspend the implementation of the Municipal National Council resolutions of 27 May, while informing that in the matter of restoring Suwałki's rights as a separate city, he turned to the Ministry of Public Administration. And indeed the voivode, writing favorably about Suwałki, their development and the achievements of the authorities, mainly Rudzki, asked the ministry for guidelines and a suggestion of a positive resolution of the case, although the relevant regulations did not allow it, mainly because the number of inhabitants of the city did not reach 25,000. After the lapse of the month, Rudzki not only did not become president, but also resigned from the position of mayor. Nevertheless, on July 25, 1946, the MRN decided to send a delegation of councilors composed of Leon Bracławski, Józef Wiszniewski and Antoni Zalewski to the Ministry of the Interior to support current activities and accelerate the restoration of Suwałki's rights of a separated city.

After the war, Suwałki was retained as the capital of the powiat. However, the heavily damaged town recovered very slowly, and the Communist economic system could not support the reinvestment needed. In 1975 new administrative reform was passed; Suwałki was designated as the capital of a separate Suwałki Voivodeship. The number of inhabitants rose rapidly, and by the end of the 1970s, the population was over 36,000. Large factories were built in the town, and it became one of the important industrial and commercial centres of Eastern Poland.

Martial law
During the period of martial law in Poland and rise of Solidarność in the early 1980s, Solidarność demanded that the buildings of the Polish United Workers' Party and the Citizens' Militia be handed over to be used for social infrastructure, primarily schools, kindergartens and hospitals. This position was taken by the Inter-Enterprise Founding Committee of the Solidarity Independent Trade Union in Giżycko and Suwałki in regards to the party complex in 83 Noniewicza street. The first round of talks on this matter with representatives of authorities (including central authorities) took place on January 28, 1981. Solidarność emphasized that the new buildings could be turned into medical clinics, a community center for youth and a music school. It strengthened its position with over 18 thousand signatures from the inhabitants of the region. No agreement was reached, because the authorities did not want to hand over the building. Before the next round of talks on the night of February 14–15, under the cover of the Citizens' Militia and Security Service, the PZPR KW was moved to new buildings. This action caused widespread indignation in the whole province, not only among the members of Solidarity.

Following the end of Communist rule in 1989, Suwałki had a difficult period in transitioning to a new economic system. Most of the town's major factories were inefficient and went bankrupt. Creation of the Suwałki Special Economic Zone and the proximity of the Russian and Lithuanian borders opened new possibilities for local trade and commerce. In addition, the region began to attract many tourists from all around the world. In the 21st century, residents of Suwałki frequently travel across the Russian and Lithuanian borders for shopping trips as well as to make use of the various attractions both countries offer.

To the military planners of NATO, an area of the Lithuania–Poland border area is known as the Suwałki Gap because it represents a military difficulty. It is a flat narrow piece of land, a gap, that is between Belarus and Russia's Kaliningrad exclave and that connects the three NATO-member Baltic States to Poland and the rest of NATO.

Climate
Suwałki has a climate that is characterised by changeable weather patterns. The city has a warm-summer humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb) and, relatively to the rest of Poland, the city's climate has markedly continental characteristics even though there is some moderation from the Baltic Sea. Suwałki has among the greatest record temperature amplitudes in Poland: the lowest temperature was recorded on 12 January 1950 (-35.5 °C), while the highest was 37 °C, on 11 July 1946. It also holds the record for the highest atmospheric pressure ever registered in the country, at 1064.8 hPa on 23 January 1907.

The weather changes are common due to the fact that, like in the rest of Poland, weather fronts generated by low-pressure areas come along frequently. Due to its northerly location and the relatively little moderation of the Baltic, the growing season around the city is the shortest in Poland; according to the data from 1995-2019, the period of sustained average daily temperatures exceeding 5 °C was only 200 days long, about 20–30 days shorter than in central and southern Poland. Suwałki is often called the "Polish pole of cold" (polski biegun zimna) because it has the lowest average temperature of the major cities in Poland, excepting mountainous areas (the actual "pole of cold" is located about 25 km north of the city, in the village of Wiżajny).

Winters are just cold enough, if the -3 °C isotherm is accepted, not to be classified as oceanic (Köppen: Cfb). The skies are often overcast and snow is frequent in the season, but there is much less precipitation in the winter months than in the sunnier summer months. Nights with temperatures below -15 °C sometimes occur, and temperatures below -25 °C are not unheard of. According to the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW), the snow stays there for the longest time in non-mountainous areas of Poland. The city is so cold that before 2015, Suwałki was only one of the four cities in Poland to have experienced winter conditions in every period from December to February (defined as the daily mean temperature of the month going below 0 °C); the extremely anomalous winter of 2019/2020 was the first in which Suwałki did not experience such conditions.

Summers are pleasant, warm and often sunny, with the maximum daily temperatures sometimes exceeding 30 °C, though the season is still somewhat cooler in the city, as compared to the rest of Poland.

Tourist attractions

 * Kościuszko street with classicist architecture
 * Romantic 19th-century park
 * St. Alexander's Church
 * St. Peter's and Paul's Church
 * Chłodna Street pedestrian zone
 * District Museum at the former Resursa (trading point)
 * Town Hall (Ratusz)
 * Former gymnasium building
 * Museum of Polish poet Maria Konopnicka at her childhood home
 * Monument to Maria Konopnicka
 * Andrzej Strumiłło Gallery
 * 19th century brewery of Wacław Kunc
 * Childhood home of Polish painter Alfred Kowalski
 * Cemetery complex on Bakałarzewska street (Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim)
 * Suwałki Plaza, a shopping mall and cinema complex that opened in 2010. The mall contains stores with various products such as groceries, books, clothing, shoes and accessories.

Education

 * Wyższa Szkoła Służby Społecznej im. Ks. Franciszka Blachnickiego
 * Wyższa Szkoła Suwalsko-Mazurska im. Papieża Jana Pawła II
 * Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Zawodowa w Suwałkach

Sport
The volleyball team Ślepsk Suwałki is based in Suwałki. It plays in the PlusLiga, Poland's top division. The football club Wigry Suwałki is based in the town. They currently play in the IV liga, the fifth tier of the Polish football league system. They dropped from II liga in 2022 for financial reasons.

Notable people

Over the centuries Suwałki has produced a number of persons who have provided unique contributions to the fields of science, language, politics, religion, sports, visual arts and performing arts. A list of recent notable persons includes, but is not limited to:
 * Maria Andrejczyk (born 1996), javelin thrower
 * Zalman Gradowski (1910–1944), secret diarist at Auschwitz-Birkenau
 * Maria Konopnicka (1842–1910), poet and novelist, author of the poem Rota
 * Alfred Kowalski (1849–1915), painter
 * Henryk Minkiewicz (1880–1940), general, killed in the Katyn Massacre
 * Avraham Stern (1907–1942), Zionist paramilitary leader, codename 'Yair' founder of Lehi
 * Edward Szczepanik (1915–2005), economist and the last Polish Prime Minister in Exile
 * Andrzej Wajda (1926–2016), film director and recipient of an Honorary Oscar
 * Pinchas Sapir (1906–1975), Minister of Finance of Israel

Twin towns – sister cities
Suwałki is twinned with:

title: Suwałki


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Augustów

Augustów ( formerly known in English as Augustovo or Augustowo) is a town in north-eastern Poland. It lies on the Netta River and the Augustów Canal. It is the seat of Augustów County and of Gmina Augustów in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Augustów has an area of 80.90 sqkm, and as of June 2022 it has a population of 29,305.

In 1970, Augustów became officially recognized as a health and relaxation resort. In 1973, surrounding settlements were named a part of it, forming a popular resort town.

History
A settlement in the area was first mentioned in 1496. Augustów was established around 1540 by Bona Sforza and granted Magdeburg rights in 1557 by Sigismund II Augustus, after whom it was also named. It was laid out in a very regular manner, with a spacious market-place.

Until 1569 Augustów belonged to the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. In 1569 it became part of the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland, while its cemetery was left in the Grand Duchy, both countries formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as a result of the Union of Lublin. Augustów was a royal city, located in the Podlaskie Voivodeship in the Lesser Poland Province. Tatar invaders destroyed Augustów in 1656, and the second half of the 17th century saw the town afflicted by plague. The 4th Polish National Cavalry Brigade was stationed in Augustów in 1790.

In 1795 Prussia annexed Augustów in the Third Partition of Poland. In 1807, it became part of the Duchy of Warsaw, followed by incorporation into the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland in 1815. It was made a county seat in 1842. The local populace took part in the large Polish January Uprising of 1863–1864 against Russia. Following Russia's full annexation of the Polish kingdom in the 1860s, it was administered from Suwałki. With a population around 9400 (c. 1875), it carried a large trade in cattle and horses, and manufactured linen and huckaback. Its canal connects the Vistula and Neman rivers and the railway reached the town in 1899, when its population was around 12,800. During World War I, the Russian Army successfully counterattacked the German Army in the Battle of Augustów, in the lead-up to the better-known Battle of the Vistula River. In the aftermath of World War I, it was a site of fighting during the Battle of Augustów in 1920.

Following the joint German-Soviet invasion of Poland, which started World War II in September 1939, Augustów was occupied by the Soviet Union until 1941. Many inhabitants were sent to exile in Kazakhstan, from where some were able to return after 6 years. On June 22, 1941, just before the Germans captured the town, the Soviets murdered around 30–34 Polish prisoners in Augustów as part of the NKVD prisoner massacres. The Nazi German forces occupied Augustów until 1944, and operated a forced labour camp in the town. World War II brought the destruction of about 70% of the town and death or departure of most of its residents, amongst them a community of several thousand Jews who were imprisoned in the ghetto situated between the canal and the river. The Germans executed practically all of them before they left. In 1945 the Soviets conducted the nearby Augustów roundup – a special operation against former Armia Krajowa anticommunist fighters.

Road transport
National roads 8 (Kudowa-Zdrój–Budzisko), 16 (Dolna Grupa–Ogrodniki and 61 (Warsaw–Augustów), as well as voivodeship roads 664 (Augustów–Lipszczany) and 672 (Augustów–Suwałki) pass through the town.

The construction of the Augustów bypass called Via Baltica, through the wetlands of the Rospuda Valley, attracted great controversy in 2007. The work was halted after the European Commission applied for an immediate injunction.
 * Augustów ring road controversy

Rail transport
Railway line 40 (Sokółka–Suwałki) passes through the town. Augustów has a railway station.

Tourism
The town, although small, has many attractions for the visitors. Oficerski Yacht Club Hotel, built in the 1930s, is an army yacht club that has been restored and converted into a resort. It is located on the edge of one of many lakes in the region. Pope John Paul II has a memorial chair from the first and last time he visited the town right outside the club. Boat tours are also popular and the old town square still has its original cobblestone streets.

Every year hundreds of bikers come to Augustowskie Motonoce bikers festival. Bands that over years participated in celebration include, AGE, ZZ Top Czech Revival Band, AC/DC Show Ukraina, Kraków Street Band, etc.

Cuisine
Among the popular traditional dishes of north-eastern Poland, including Augustów, are kartacze and potato babka. Popular regional cakes are sękacz and mrowisko (lit. transl. "anthill"). Officially protected traditional foods from Augustów and its surroundings include the Augustów honey (miód augustowski) which comes in several variants, and augustowska jagodzianka, a local yeast roll stuffed with blueberries and topped with streusel, a popular dessert.

Sports
The main sports club of the town is with football and canoeing sections.

Twin towns – sister cities
Augustów is twinned with:

 * 🇱🇹 Druskininkai, Lithuania (2007)
 * 🇮🇹 Porto Ceresio, Italy (2003)
 * 🇺🇦 Rudky, Ukraine (2011)
 * 🇵🇱 Supraśl, Poland (2012)
 * 🇫🇮 Tuusula, Finland (1996)

On 7 March 2022, partnership with Belarusian cities was terminated due to Belarus's involvement in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.
 * Former twin towns:
 * 🇧🇾 Grodno, Belarus (2008–2022)
 * 🇧🇾 Slonim, Belarus (2013–2022)

Notable residents

 * Edyta Dzieniszewska (born 1986), sprint canoer
 * Joanna Fiodorow (born 1989), hammer thrower
 * Jan Jaworowski (1923–2013), mathematician
 * Zbigniew Kundzewicz (born 1950), hydrologist and climatologist
 * Emil Leon Post (1897–1954), mathematician and logician
 * Andrzej Sobolewski (born 1951), physicist
 * Rose Pastor Stokes (1879–1933) American socialist activist, writer, birth control advocate, and feminist.
 * Adam Wysocki (born 1974), sprint canoer
 * Marek Zalewski (born 1963), archbishop

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Augustów


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Kamienna Góra

Kamienna Góra (Landeshut, Lanžhot or Kamenná Hora; Kamiynnŏ Gōra) is a town in south-western Poland with 18,235 inhabitants (2023). It is the seat of Kamienna Góra County, and also of the rural district called Gmina Kamienna Góra, although it is not part of the territory of the latter (the town forms a separate urban gmina).

Kamienna Góra on the Bóbr river is situated in Lower Silesian Voivodeship between the Stone Mountains and the Rudawy Janowickie at the old trade route from Silesia to Prague, today part of the National Road No. 5. It lies approximately 95 km south-west of the regional capital Wrocław.

History
The area was part of the Great Moravian Empire in the Early Middle Ages, and became part of the emerging Polish state in the 10th century under its first ruler Mieszko I of Poland. During the times of the fragmentation of Poland it was part of the duchies of Silesia, Legnica, Jawor and Świdnica. In the early 13th century, Polish Duke Henry the Bearded erected a defensive castle at the site, due to its proximity to the Polish–Czech border. The settlement was mentioned in documents from 1232 (as Landeshut) and 1249 (as Landishute and Landishute forensis auch Camena Gora). In 1254 the Piast Duke Bolesław II the Bald of Legnica gave the area to the Benedictine monastery of Opatovice (in eastern Bohemia), who already had established the Krzeszów Abbey at nearby Krzeszów. When the abbey passed to the Cistercians in 1289, Kamienna Góra was acquired by Duke Bolko I the Strict of Świdnica, who extended it as a stronghold against the nearby Kingdom of Bohemia and granted town rights in 1292. In 1295, Poles repelled a Bohemian invasion, and Bolko I declared he would not allow any Bohemian or German ruler in Silesia. Kamienna Góra received new privileges from Duke Bolko II the Small in 1334. In 1345 the heavily fortified town was captured by the Bohemians, probably by digging an underground tunnel. In 1348 it was recaptured by the Poles, probably by using a ruse modeled on the Trojan Horse. Carts with hidden soldiers, supposedly filled with hay or other goods, were reportedly used. Nevertheless, the duchy fell to the Bohemian crown with Bolko's death in 1368. It burnt down during the 1426 Hussite campaign to Silesia and in the 1460s it passed to the Kingdom of Hungary, before in 1490 it fell back to Bohemia, then under the rule of Vladislaus II, who erected new town walls.

During the Thirty Years' War the town was plundered by Austrian and Swedish troops. As a result of the war, only two residents remained in the town in 1639. After Frederick II of Prussia had conquered Silesia with Landeshut in 1742, it was the site of 12 battles during the Silesian Wars. The two largest were fought on 22 May 1745 and 23 June 1760. In the former Prussians defeated Austrian, Hungarian and Croatian forces, and in the latter Austrians defeated a Prussian corps.

From 1871 the town formed part of Germany. The town was not destroyed during World War I and II. With the rise of Nazism among the Germans, a local branch of the NSDAP was established in 1929, and soon five Nazis became town councilors. In 1934, a local branch of the Hitler Youth was established. The town's mayor, Günther Ries, supported the Nazis and provided funding for the Hitler Youth. The Nazis held three party ceremonies in the town, on 22 June 1935, 9 November 1937 and 2 March 1939. During Kristallnacht in 1938, the Germans destroyed a synagogue and four Jewish stores.

During World War II, the Germans established and operated a subcamp of the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. Around 1,600 men, mostly Poles, and also smaller groups of other ethnicities, were imprisoned and used as forced labour in the subcamp, and many of them died. There was also a forced labour camp for Jews. It was captured by the Soviets on 9 May 1945, and after the war it became again part of Poland. According to the Potsdam Agreement the German populace was expelled and the town was repopulated by Poles, expellees from former eastern Poland annexed by the Soviet Union and settlers from central Poland. Initially renamed to the 19th-century Polish name Kamieniogóra, in 1946 the name Kamienna Góra, which was first recorded in 1249, was adopted.

From 1975 to 1998, it was administratively located in the Jelenia Góra Voivodeship.

Sights
The main historic district of Kamienna Góra is the Old Town (Stare Miasto) with the Freedom (Plac Wolności), Grunwald Squares (Plac Grunwaldzki) and Brewery (Plac Browarowy) Squares, filled with numerous historic buildings. Among the historic sights of Kamienna Góra are:
 * Gothic churches of Saints Peter and Paul and Corpus Christi
 * Baroque Church of Our Lady of the Rosary
 * Town Hall
 * Weaving Museum (Muzeum Tkactwa)
 * Lower Silesian Rehabilitation Center (Dolnośląskie Centrum Rehabilitacji)
 * Culture Centre (Centrum Kultury)
 * ZUS office
 * preserved medieval town walls
 * ruins of the Grodztwo Castle
 * numerous historic townhouses and buildings, incl. the train station, tax office, high school, courthouse, etc.

There are also several monuments dedicated to the victims of the local branch of the Nazi German Gross-Rosen concentration camp.

Cuisine
The officially protected traditional food of Kamienna Góra, as designated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Poland, is the kamiennogórski ser pleśniowy (Kamienna Góra blue cheese).

Notable people

 * Carl Gotthard Langhans (1732–1808), architect, designer of the Brandenburg Gate
 * Walter Arndt (1891–1944), zoologist
 * Viktor Hamburger (1900–2001), biologist
 * Rudolf Hamburger (1903–1980), architect and spy
 * Gosia Dobrowolska (born 1958), actress
 * Damian Dąbrowski (born 1992), Polish professional footballer

Twin towns – sister cities
Kamienna Góra is twinned with:

 * 🇩🇪 Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany
 * 🇨🇿 Dvůr Králové nad Labem, Czech Republic
 * Ikast-Brande, Denmark
 * 🇨🇿 Trutnov, Czech Republic
 * 🇫🇷 Vierzon, France
 * 🇩🇪 Wolfenbüttel, Germany

title: Kamienna Góra


text:
Lubań

Lubań (Lauban; ), sometimes called Lubań Śląski (Silesian Lubań; Lubań Šlešćina, );  is a town in the Lower Silesian Voivodeship in southwest Poland. It is the administrative seat of Lubań County and also of the smaller Gmina Lubań (although it is not part of the territory of the latter, as the town is a separate urban gmina in its own right).

Geography
Situated north of the Jizera Mountains on the western shore of the Kwisa River, Lubań is considered part of the historic Upper Lusatia region, although it was more closely associated with Lower Silesia in the early 14th century and from 1815. It is located about 25 km east of Zgorzelec/Görlitz and about 45 km northwest of Jelenia Góra.

Middle Ages
The town probably is at the site of a small settlement established by the West Slavic Bieżuńczanie tribe, one of the old Polish tribes, in the 9th and 10th century. Bieżuńczanie together with the Sorbian Milceni tribe, with whom they bordered in the west, were subjugated in 990 by the Margraviate of Meissen. From 1002 to 1031, the area was part of Piast-ruled Poland. In 1156, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa vested his ally, the Přemyslid duke Vladislaus II of Bohemia with the territory around Bautzen (Budissin), then called "Milsko", and after the 15th century called "Upper Lusatia".

Luban was granted town rights with Magdeburg rights in the course of the German Ostsiedlung. It was first mentioned in 1268. Like several other town foundings under the rule of the Přemyslid dynasty, owing to its favourable location on the historic Via Regia trade route close to the border with the Duchy of Silesia, Luban expanded rapidly. Since about 1253, Upper Lusatia temporarily had been under the rule of the Ascanian margraves John I and Otto III of Brandenburg. By the end of the 13th century, Luban's first brewery was founded by the Franciscans and cloth production flourished thanks to Flemish settlers. In 1297, a clothiers' uprising took place, which was brutally suppressed. Its two leaders were beheaded at the market square.

In 1319, the town became part of the Duchy of Jawor, the southwesternmost duchy of fragmented Piast-dynasty Poland. Duke Henry I of Jawor built a new town hall, the ruins of which can be seen today (Kramarska Tower). In 1320, he founded a Magdalene monastery in Lubań. He appointed a separate wójt for the town, which to that point administratively was subordinate to the wójt of Zgorzelec. The centre of the medieval town was a square marketplace with perpendicular streets, leading to four gates: Görlitzer Tor (Zgorzelecka) to the west, Brüdertor (Bracka), built in 1318 together with stone curtains by Duke Henry of Jawor, to the south, Nikolaitor (Mikołajska) to the east and Naumburger Tor (Nowogrodziecka) to the north. The first mayor of the town was Nikolaus Hermann, and Luban received its own seal.

In 1346, the town passed to the Bohemian Crown. Under the rule of Bohemian king Charles IV of Luxembourg, Luban on 10 August 1346 established the Lusatian League, together with the towns of Budissin (Budyšin), Görlitz (Zhorjelc), Kamenz (Kamjenc), Löbau (Lubij) and Zittau (Žitawa). Twice however, in 1427 and 1431, the Hussites completely demolished the town; it was quickly rebuilt. In its history, the town has repeatedly suffered great fires, which often ruined the whole town. Many inhabitants died as a result of plagues. In 1437, Bohemian King Sigismund exempted the town from taxes for 15 years.

In 1469, Luban became part of Hungary. In 1490, it became again part of the Kingdom of Bohemia, now ruled by the Jagiellonian dynasty, and after 1526 by the House of Habsburg. In 1498, Bohemian King Vladislaus II established an annual eight-day fair. In the 15th and 16th century, brewing prospered, with local beer being popular throughout Lusatia and Silesia, it was even served in the famous Piwnica Świdnicka in Breslau (Wrocław).

Modern era
In 1628, Bohemian military leader Albrecht von Wallenstein visited the town. With the 1635 Peace of Prague, the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand II in his capacity as Bohemian king passed Lusatia with the town to the Electorate of Saxony. As a result of the Thirty Years' War, the local economy collapsed, and in 1659, 1670 and 1696 the town was hit by fires.

Residents celebrated the election of Augustus II the Strong as king of Poland and the formation of the Polish-Saxon union in 1697. During August II's visit to the town just before his royal coronation, a parade of the town's self-defense troops was held. With the union came prosperity. The town prospered due to linen and cloth production as well as trade in Polish oxen. During his rule, the Dom pod Okrętem ("House under the Ship") was built. August II visited the town once again in 1721. The 1733 royal election of his son August III of Poland was celebrated even more grandly, with five parades of municipal self-defense troops taking place. Following the Napoleonic wars, in 1815 the Lusatian territory around Lauban and Görlitz fell to the Kingdom of Prussia after the Vienna Congress and was incorporated into the Province of Silesia. In 1865 and 1866, Lauban obtained railway connections with Görlitz and Hirschberg (Jelenia Góra). Following the unification of Germany in 1871, the town became part of the German Empire.

20th century
During World War I, Lauban was the site of a large prisoner-of-war camp, whose first prisoners, from September 1914, were soldiers of Imperial Russia, including Poles and Georgians conscripted into the Russian army (large parts of Polish and Georgian lands were under Russian rule before regaining independence by both countries in 1918). From 1915, French soldiers as well as political prisoners and common criminals were also imprisoned there. Aleksandra Szczerbińska, the future wife of the leader of interwar Poland Józef Piłsudski, was imprisoned there in 1916. Józef Piłsudski and Aleksandra Piłsudska are today commemorated in Lubań with a memorial stone. During World War II, the Nazis created numerous forced labor camps in the town, the largest of which was Wohnheimlager GEMA, in which Polish and Russian women were imprisoned. Polish and Russian women were imprisoned also in other camps, as well as Russians, Hungarians, Frenchmen, Latvians and Ukrainians. The present-day district of Księginki was the location of the E231 labor subcamp of the Stalag VIII-B/344 prisoner-of-war camp for Allied POWs.

Lauban was the site of one of the last Nazi German victories in World War II. After it was taken in the Upper Silesian Offensive by the Red Army on 16 February 1945, the Wehrmacht successfully retook the town in a counterattack on 8 March 1945. After the war, the town became again part of Poland in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement and was renamed to its historic Polish name Lubań. In 1945–46, the remaining German inhabitants were expelled, also in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement, and the town was repopulated by Poles, including expellees from former eastern Poland, which was annexed by the Soviet Union. In the 1950s Greeks, refugees of the Greek Civil War, settled in the town and its vicinity.

From 1975 to 1998 it was part of the former Jelenia Góra Voivodeship. Between 1992 and 2004, the marketplace was renovated. Streets were paved and town houses around the Kramarska Tower were rebuilt.

Economy
There are the following workplaces in Lubań:

 * Przedsiębiorstwo Energetyki Cieplnej (PEC Lubań Sp. z o.o.)
 * Agromet ZEHS Lubań
 * Imakon Sp. z o.o.
 * „IMKA" Dr. Schumacher Sp. z o.o.
 * Chromex Sp. z o.o.
 * Automatec Sp. z o.o.

There are also the following notable companies:

 * Lubańskie Przedsiębiorstwo Wodociągów i Kanalizacji Sp. z o.o. Lubań
 * Lubańskie Towarzystwo Budownictwa Społecznego Sp. z o.o. Lubań
 * Przedsiębiorstwo Energetyki Cieplnej Sp. z o.o. Lubań
 * Zakład Gospodarki i Usług Komunalnych Sp. z o.o. Lubań

In terms of entertainment and consumption, the town offers clubs, restaurants, swimming pools, a cinema and a small modern shopping centre.

Culture
Lubań is the hub of culture in the Lubań Municipality. The town has a cultural centre (Dom Kultury). There is also a regional museum.

Lubań is a stop on the Polish sections of the Way of St. James pilgrimage route.

Education
Lubań has five kindergartens, five primary schools, and three secondary schools.

The Adam Mickiewicz Post-Primary School Complex (Zespół Szkół Ponadpodstawowych im. Adama Mickiewicza w Lubaniu) is ranked amongst the best secondary schools in the entire Lower Silesian Voivodeship.

Health care
Lubań has a hospital, the Lucjan Kopeć Lusatian Medical Centre (Łużyckie Centrum Medyczne im. Lucjana Kopcia).

Transport
Lubań has a bus station and a train station.

Since 2011, a public transport system functions in the town.

The Polish national road 30, and Voivodeship roads 296, 357, 393 pass through the town.

Places of interest
Points of interest in Lubań include:
 * Kramarska Tower – remains of the 13th-century Gothic town hall
 * Stone curtains (1318), made from basalt from a local quarry. Behind the curtains were situated four main gates: Nowogrodziecka, Mikołajska, Bracka and Zgorzelecka
 * Bracka Donjon, built in 1318 by Duke Henry I of Jawor
 * Trynitarska Tower (1320 r.) on Wrocławska street, a remnant of Holy Trinity Church
 * Salt House or Cereal House (Polish: Dom Solny/Dom Zbożowy) from 1539, a building made of basalt
 * Town hall, built 1539–1543, in a Renaissance style, housing the Regional Museum (Muzeum Regionalne)
 * Polish–Saxon post milestone from 1725 at the Market Square
 * House under the Ship (Polish: Dom pod Okrętem) (1715), the house of the Kirchoff family, now a tax office
 * Park on Kamienna Góra hill (14 hectares). Contains evidence of an extinct Tertiary volcano, such as basalt columns or "volcanic bombs"; also has a wood with exotic trees: Liriodendron tulipifera, Pinus pinea, Pinus nigra. Kamienna Góra also has an amphitheatre and a castle-style residence, which was built in 1824 and rebuilt in 1909, offering views of the Sudetes mountains (including Śnieżka, the highest peak).
 * A memorial stone dedicated to the Marshal of Poland Józef Piłsudski and his wife Aleksandra Piłsudska
 * Gothic Revival Holy Trinity church
 * Building of the former Latin school, built 1588–1591, now housing municipal offices

Notable people

 * Martin Behm, Lutheran pastor, writer
 * Jakob Bartsch, astronomer
 * Friedrich Wilhelm Alexander von Mechow, explorer of Africa
 * Karl Hanke, NSDAP-Politician
 * Albert Brux, Wehrmacht officer
 * Heinz Kessler, general, politician
 * Helmut Bakaitis, actor
 * Jacek Dewódzki, musician
 * Agnieszka Stanuch, slalom canoer
 * Angelika Jakubowska, model
 * Zuzanna Efimienko, volleyball player
 * Adriana Achcińska, football player

Twin towns – sister cities
Lubań is twinned with:

 * 🇩🇪 Kamenz, Germany
 * 🇨🇿 Kolín, Czech Republic
 * 🇩🇪 Königsbrück, Germany
 * 🇩🇪 Löbau, Germany
 * 🇱🇹 Prienai, Lithuania

title: Lubań