33 ms·

Warsaw came close to never being rebuilt (2015)

206 points by danielam 2y ago

greenavocado 2y ago
Also consider train lines and waterways and water supply to understand how they influenced this decision
futureshock 2y ago
Warsaw is a fascinating city. I am not Polish but have spent about 3 months there over the past 20 years. It’s been a cool experience watching it continue to transform. There’s a very interesting mix of surviving architecture, rebuilt, reimagined, communist, capitalist contemporary, and urban renewal. Here’s also a very young energy there due to all the schools and being a magnet for young people across the country to start their careers. A little gem example: there’s a communist era train platform that’s been reimagined as a Bangkok night market. In a nearby rail yard building is a very good pinball museum with playable antiques.
- rhplus 2y ago
  reimagined as a Bangkok night market Sounds like the Thai government’s decades long program of soft-diplomacy through food is working. https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/food-diplomacy-gastrodiplomacy-europe https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/food-diplo...
  - rpastuszak 2y ago
    My bet is that is has more to do with the Vietnamese (largest non-European) minority in Poland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_people_in_Poland?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_people_in_Poland?wp...
    - alephnerd 2y ago
      > more to do with the Vietnamese (largest non-European) minority in Poland Vietnamese are not Thai. They are entirely different cultures. It's like saying a Poles are just knockoff Russians. Vietnamese are proud of their culture and gladly export it, just like the Thai diaspora. The train car conversion was probably done by Poles who formerly backpacked in Thailand
      - pndy 2y ago
        Parent commenter doesn't suggest that, just brings up the fact that there's indeed a large Vietnamese diaspora living in Warszawa.
        alephnerd 2y ago
        > A little gem example: there’s a communist era train platform that’s been reimagined as a Bangkok night market. In a nearby rail yard building is a very good pinball museum with playable antiques. > Sounds like the Thai government’s decades long program of soft-diplomacy through food is working > My bet is that is has more to do with the Vietnamese (largest non-European) minority in Poland
        rpastuszak 2y ago
        pndy’s comment is correct. I just poorly phrased my comment, sorry for that!
      - jhbadger 2y ago
        Many sushi restaurants around the world are run by non-Japanese Asians (who often have a separate menu for their ethnicity than can be asked for if you know). Where I live (in the Washington, D.C. area) most Latin American people are Salvadorans, but they mostly run Mexican restaurants as that's the Latin American food that sells.
      - rpastuszak 2y ago
        I am aware of that. I visited Thailand several times and even attempted learning Thai (besides planning to move there for work in mid 2010s). I don’t live in Poland any more but I know several Poles with Vietnamese roots, hence my assumption/comment regarding the night market. Apologies if the way I phrased my comment was somewhat confusing! As a Pole who studied Persian I can see how people might expect ignorance in that matter. (pndy’s comment is correct)
- mistrial9 2y ago
  the only Polish person I know of that mentioned Warsaw recently said "no way - stay away from it" .. no idea why
  - ses1984 2y ago
    Rural/conservative person maybe? My sister lives there with her husband and two kids, she likes it, it’s expensive though.
    - thrw087248 2y ago
      Coming from a German part of Poland[1] to Warsaw, a Russian city, it actually seems conservative. It was the first place I saw someone pray the rosary on public transport... kneeling. It blew my mind. There is also a lot of fetishisation of its history by conservatives, since history in Polish schools is told in a very martyr way, and history of Warsaw, its monuments and all that play well into it. If anything, it’s a very good place for conservatives. [1]: partitions and other shenanigans of Polish history.
      - panzagl 2y ago
        > since history in Polish schools is told in a very martyr way I think that's the perception of Polish history pretty much everywhere except Russia, Ukraine, maybe Lithuania? I'm genuinely curious as to what other theories of Polish history exist, especially in Poland.
        thrw087248 2y ago
        I think outside of Poland people think of it as a victim mostly in the context of the XX century, but inside, the martyrology begins much earlier and was the leading ideological current in the XIX century. It just seems we have a long tradition of not wanting to own up to our faults, always ready to blame someone else for our misfortunes. This also jives with the catholic doctrine of noble suffering. Personally I’m a fan of taking responsibility. And in the context of falling into partitions we did have a role in that internally the country was a mess, conflicted and for sale. We could learn something from our western neighbours when it comes to forming some unity and valuing work/grit over aristocratic navel-gazing.
- omega3 2y ago
  > communist era train platform that’s been reimagined as a Bangkok night market. Do you have google maps link please?
  - baskind 2y ago
    Here you go. Opens end of the week and over the weekend: https://maps.app.goo.gl/v3HFoRTtUPoug8yq8?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy https://maps.app.goo.gl/v3HFoRTtUPoug8yq8?g_st=com.google.ma...
- ajxs 2y ago
  Speaking of 'communist era train platform's, one of the many interesting architectural flourishes that you can find in Poland is how the names of some of the train stations around Warsaw are embedded in the structure of the station. An example can be seen at [1] Another little architectural flourish I love are the 'latarenki adresowe' (lit. 'address lanterns') you can see in the cities. They're a little lightbox that shows a silhouette of the street name and number. The older metal and glass ones you can find around the stare miasto in Krakow are especially beautiful. Some examples are [2] [3]. Some of the old buildings in central Krakow have really awesome relief art on the facade. This page has some amazing examples: [4] A great blog about history and architecture in Polish cities is Miasta Rytm: https://miastarytm.pl/ https://miastarytm.pl/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warszawa_Mi%C4%99dzylesie_railway_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warszawa_Mi%C4%99dzylesie_rail... [2]: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/c3/10/c0c310bbb6b6ebed0a516bc97319f0d3.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/c3/10/c0c310bbb6b6ebed0a51... [3]: https://grochow.pl/web/files/article/cdf1ecfd640977b795cdd86a3e4e02bdP1010661.JPG https://grochow.pl/web/files/article/cdf1ecfd640977b795cdd86... [4]: https://miastarytm.pl/godla-krakowskich-kamienic-lat-30-xx-w/ https://miastarytm.pl/godla-krakowskich-kamienic-lat-30-xx-w...
hammock 2y ago
Dresden was never rebuilt (by the soviets) and it’s so much better for it. The city was mostly left as a pile of rubble for decades. It began being rebuilt in the 90s after the fall of the USSR to the historical standards and without all the bloc architecture
- p_l 2y ago
  In comparison with Warsaw, Dresden was barely touched. Even some of the worst hit areas had walls left standing after all.
  - speed_spread 2y ago
    > Dresden was barely touched Err, Dresden was infamously firebombed to hell in the final days of the war (for no good reason). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden
    - p_l 2y ago
      It was bombed for, given the data they had, good reasons (it turned out the intelligence data was not correct, but not the decision process). It was also relatively untouched compared to what Third Reich planned to Warsaw even before war, yet alone the revenge spree in 1945. There are reasons why it's practically illegal to remove most bullet holes you find on some walls on western side of Warsaw - they are the rare walls that survived.
    - surfingdino 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - speed_spread 2y ago
        Ok, which one?
    - marcinzm 2y ago
      Dresden lost about 6 square km utterly. Warsaw lost 100+ square km utterly.
cube2222 2y ago
As a person who lives here - I can say Warsaw is a great city to live in. I’ve considered many destinations for emigrating and in the end decided to stay. Anecdotally, so did many others I know. Green, walkable, clean, good public transport, mostly-well-connected airport, reasonable cost of living (esp. if you work remotely as a software engineer…), good and varied restaurants, and very safe.
- tombert 2y ago
  I spent a week in Warsaw in 2020 (right before the world shut down, to a point where it was not 100% clear I'd be let back in the US), and thought it was an extremely underrated city. As you said, very clean and walkable, and as an American it's really cheap due to the exchange rate. I go to Poland nearly every year because of Lambda Days, which is in Krakow, though next time I fly over I might take the train over to Warsaw again.
  - fifilura 2y ago
    My memory of Warsaw was a very interesting traffic deadlock around a block with two roundabouts in the city centre. There were simply too many cars around that block so they effectively locked each other up. That was ten years ago though so maybe they fixed it. A big part of my time there was spent in a taxi.
    - limaoscarjuliet 2y ago
      You mean this one? Nope, still a cluster. https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2309595,21.0148913,16.75z?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2309595,21.0148913,16.75z?en...
      - fifilura 2y ago
        Yes! Most likely. And I probably described it wrong before. It was probably more the roundabouts combined with traffic lights that caused the mess. I remember thinking that someone needs to drop a bomb on this place or we'll be stuck forever.
senderista 2y ago
I wonder if Warsaw would have been rebuilt if it had been destroyed by the USSR instead of the Nazis?
- thriftwy 2y ago
  Both sides did actually contribute. Urban warfire does not spare cities as they change hands.
- epolanski 2y ago
  The USSR bombed it in 1941. And when the Warsaw Uprising started Stalin ordered Soviet troops to wait 20 miles out of Warsaw for a month so poles and Germans would kill each other. So the USSR has had a pivotal role in Warsaw's fall.
- paganel 2y ago
  Budapest was highly damaged during the battle there in late 1944 - early 1945 [1] and as far I as I know it did get re-built. [1] https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/culture_society/siege-of-budapest_wwii_winter-1944-1945_germans_hungarians_red-army/ https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/culture_socie...
throw310822 2y ago
The article seems to gloss over the most appalling fact of the destruction of Warsaw: that it was not caused by combat or bombing, but that it was demolished, building by building, by nazi troops already on the ground, simply as an act of reprisal for the Polish uprising.
- ajuc 2y ago
  While soviet troops waited on the other side of Vistula for the uprising to fall, because they wanted to be the ones to "liberate" Poland, and not the Polish resistance.
  - thriftwy 2y ago
    How much extra losses would you expect Soviet troops take in an unprepared operation? The official story is that Stalin warned them against the uprising.
    - surfingdino 2y ago
      Was it the same Stalin who allowed Germans to train their troops in evasion of the post-WWI peace treaty? They trained their panzer troops over there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_tank_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_tank_school and their fighter pilots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipetsk_fighter-pilot_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipetsk_fighter-pilot_school and their chemical warfare teams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomka_gas_test_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomka_gas_test_site I guess it was the same Stalin who signed a pact with the Nazi Germany to partition Poland and invaded Poland on 17 Sep 1939. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... It must have also been the same Stalin who ordered the extermination of 22,000 of the educated part of the Polish society and then blamed the Germans for it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre I guess he wanted to outdo the Germans, who had a special plan for the extermination of Polish intellectuals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_AB-Aktion_in_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_AB-Aktion_in_Poland I don't know about you, but I don't think anybody wanted to listen to Stalin. He wasn't exactly a reliable interlocutor.
pndy 2y ago
I think Gliński's could add some more elements to his article: Nazis had plans to turn Warszawa into a provincial but yet a model Nazi town in Pabst Plan [1], by completely demolishing it and rebuilding anew. But after the Uprising, they just simply destroyed it [2]. In the 1952, Stalin offered Bolesław Bierut (president before the office was disbanded; later he become the chairman of the Council of State) a choice between building an underground network in Warszawa, building a housing estate or PKiN (the Palace of Culture and Science). The answer was: "The underground is unnecessary, we can build the housing estate ourselves" - and so, out of Bierut's choice, the Palace was built.[3] Some criticize the decision and today even the very existence of the Palace that shares style with Moskow's Seven Sisters skyscrapers [4] and is considered as a monument of Soviet and Russian influence over Poland. It's still a quite hot political potato for all sides. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pabst_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pabst_Plan [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Warsaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Warsaw [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Culture_and_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Culture_and_Science [4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow) It's also somehow intriguing to think how Łódź would look like if it would permanently become the country's capital; the city itself changed much in last 12 years mainly because of new communication hub that Łódź Fabryczna railway station become. But that's still not the same as being the capital.
- p_l 2y ago
  The underground network was started but scrapped and later erased from history due to the failure (flooding they couldn't fix) of the tunnel under Vistula river - the tunnel still exists, abandoned, with collapsed openings - no idea if the tunnel collapsed in part or not.
bjourne 2y ago
I wonder what people 80 years into the future will write about the ongoing destruction of Gaza.
- throw310822 2y ago
  Indeed. We've been witnessing nine months of pure retaliation for the October 7 attack, complete with tens of thousands of civilian deaths and controlled demolition of mosques, schools, and residential neighborhoods. An arrest warrant has been asked for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and yet he will be speaking this week in front of a joint congress session. I imagine standing ovations will abound, as usual.
- linearrust 2y ago
  [flagged]
- tomjen3 2y ago
  Personally I am far more interested in what they will write about Mariupol.
  - pokepim 2y ago
    [dead]
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Or current times in general. WaPo gave a total excess deaths caused by the 'War on Terror' as 4.5 million. [1] That's 500+ deaths a day since 9/11. And we'll certainly be adding to that rapidly once the unspeakable of today becomes the regrettable mistakes of tomorrow. But for now, a supersized serving of Freedom Fries and WMD for everybody. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terro...
- Log_out_ 2y ago
  If your nurture includes a inability to form societies and cooperations, your outcome (save for a tech transfer vehicle) will Reproducable always be a bombed out city. Who bombs who why may vary, but societal level weakness has an attractivness of it own. At least i did not cheer on a repetition of fruitless instead of change.
globalise83 2y ago
About a decade or so ago, I was living in Poland for a few months and on a spare weekend, stayed in an AirBnB in Warsaw, on Smocza Ulica. This is a long street lined with 50s concrete block apartments, surrounded by lawns and trees. While walking around the neighbourhood I read a sign about a Yiddish poem written about one of the former Jewish residents, a girl called Khaye, who was eventually murdered in Treblinka and then incinerated. Much of that quarter of the city is in fact literally built on the rubble of the old Jewish neighbourhoods, and many of the remains of the former inhabitants still lie buried beneath the apartment blocks, burned alive in the terrible retribution of the German occupiers who decided to burn every single block of the Jewish Ghetto after the walled-in Jews attempted an uprising. Anyway, I looked into the history of this particular poem, and it led me to a modern song by the famous Israeli singer Chava Alberstein which I find very beautiful and sad. https://open.spotify.com/track/5JHgN8sWvcrG1u4rrk4yQM https://open.spotify.com/track/5JHgN8sWvcrG1u4rrk4yQM
- H8crilA 2y ago
  It was much more than the Ghetto that got entirely destroyed, to the point where new street layout has been implemented after the war since there was no reason to use the old layout. Well, apart from property claims, some of which are still being contested in courts to this day. Around 150k to 200k people died in the Warsaw Uprising alone. But yes, the Ghetto got hit especially bad. One of the reasons why the Germans wanted Warsaw so exceptionally destroyed was their feeling of racial superiority. The Fuhrer got extra angry when he found out those occupied Poles still dare create rebellions, and ordered a systematic levelling of the capital. I'll let you ponder whether we've actually learned a lesson from those times.
  - kolinko 2y ago
    If I remember correctly, even today, city-center Warsaw has lower population density than before the war.
    - bobthepanda 2y ago
      This is generally true of most places since living standards have risen and household sizes have dropped dramatically
ggm 2y ago
I can believe people discussed the option to relocate, but I think the forces of population movement back to the ruins really forced their hands. Not that the government couldn't have forcibly relocated them, there was plenty of precedent for that in recent times: The willingness to do it would be absent. In any event, The USSR needed Poland to succeed as a buttress protecting the Russian state. Unlike Germany it was not partitioned, it was integral and complete as a country, it had voting rights in the UN, and it had a complicit puppet government. If that government wanted to reconstruct Warsaw and the Russians held out for Łódź It would create tensions which weren't needed. Realpolitk intruded. Is there any record in post-roman history of a city subject to destruction which wasn't rebuilt? I am told that in order to re-create Warsaw, other towns were also denuted of stone carvings. In effect, so that Warsaw could exist again, other towns lost parts of their heritage. You can of course see some of the reobar and plaster overlay on brick and blockworks of the less well restored places, or from 70 years of erosion. It's substantively a modern city with a dress on. The continuing legal fights over land ownership speak to how strongly people feel about their patch of land. Fighting human nature is a King-canute move.
- lmm 2y ago
  > Is there any record in post-roman history of a city subject to destruction which wasn't rebuilt? Tana (Tanais) comes immediately to mind, founded by the Venetians in the 14th century (notionally a refounding of the ancient Greek city), destroyed by the Mongols about 100 years later and essentially never fully rebuilt after that. Machu Picchu might be another example, depending on your definitions of "post-roman" and "destruction". Aghdam, Marinka and Soledar would be current cases, though they may be rebuilt (already planned for Aghdam).
- somenameforme 2y ago
  > Is there any record in post-roman history of a city subject to destruction which wasn't rebuilt? I think your question is basically a proxy for population. In areas where populations rebound, cities are obviously rebuilt. In areas where the population continues to decline, they aren't. And the very nature of dead cities means you also probably have never heard of them, so listing random names is pointless. But you can obviously find endless examples in times ranging from the Mongols to the USSR. Well and probably beyond, I'm sure Africa has examples after 1991.
epolanski 2y ago
I am polish but only been in Warsaw recently and I was surprised by how beautiful the city is. I traveled all around Eastern Europe and I put it definitely higher in my rankings than Prague and Budapest. I can see the point of those who may disagree, it's a matter of taste, but I find Warsaw one of the most beautiful cities in Europe for a weekend (whereas the likes of Rome, Paris, London can simply not be appreciated well in such a short time span).
- RadixDLT 2y ago
  maybe you need glasses
egorfine 2y ago
I have visited Warsaw for the first time around ten years ago. And I was disappointed by how gray and bleak the city was. Then I have visited Warsaw couple of years ago and I was shocked. Shocked. To me personally this city is one of the most beautiful in Europe, and I have lived pretty much everywhere. I love Warsaw so much I actually moved here a year ago.
RadixDLT 2y ago
the city is a bit fake, it was built after 1945 from the ground up and it is nothing like it was before

206 points by danielam 2y ago

Also consider train lines and waterways and water supply to understand how they influenced this decision

Warsaw is a fascinating city. I am not Polish but have spent about 3 months there over the past 20 years. It’s been a cool experience watching it continue to transform. There’s a very interesting mix of surviving architecture, rebuilt, reimagined, communist, capitalist contemporary, and urban renewal. Here’s also a very young energy there due to all the schools and being a magnet for young people across the country to start their careers. A little gem example: there’s a communist era train platform that’s been reimagined as a Bangkok night market. In a nearby rail yard building is a very good pinball museum with playable antiques.

rhplus 2y ago
reimagined as a Bangkok night market Sounds like the Thai government’s decades long program of soft-diplomacy through food is working. https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/food-diplomacy-gastrodiplomacy-europe https://www.theparliamentmagazine.eu/news/article/food-diplo...
- rpastuszak 2y ago
  My bet is that is has more to do with the Vietnamese (largest non-European) minority in Poland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_people_in_Poland?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_people_in_Poland?wp...
  - alephnerd 2y ago
    > more to do with the Vietnamese (largest non-European) minority in Poland Vietnamese are not Thai. They are entirely different cultures. It's like saying a Poles are just knockoff Russians. Vietnamese are proud of their culture and gladly export it, just like the Thai diaspora. The train car conversion was probably done by Poles who formerly backpacked in Thailand
    - pndy 2y ago
      Parent commenter doesn't suggest that, just brings up the fact that there's indeed a large Vietnamese diaspora living in Warszawa.
      - alephnerd 2y ago
        > A little gem example: there’s a communist era train platform that’s been reimagined as a Bangkok night market. In a nearby rail yard building is a very good pinball museum with playable antiques. > Sounds like the Thai government’s decades long program of soft-diplomacy through food is working > My bet is that is has more to do with the Vietnamese (largest non-European) minority in Poland
        rpastuszak 2y ago
        pndy’s comment is correct. I just poorly phrased my comment, sorry for that!
    - jhbadger 2y ago
      Many sushi restaurants around the world are run by non-Japanese Asians (who often have a separate menu for their ethnicity than can be asked for if you know). Where I live (in the Washington, D.C. area) most Latin American people are Salvadorans, but they mostly run Mexican restaurants as that's the Latin American food that sells.
    - rpastuszak 2y ago
      I am aware of that. I visited Thailand several times and even attempted learning Thai (besides planning to move there for work in mid 2010s). I don’t live in Poland any more but I know several Poles with Vietnamese roots, hence my assumption/comment regarding the night market. Apologies if the way I phrased my comment was somewhat confusing! As a Pole who studied Persian I can see how people might expect ignorance in that matter. (pndy’s comment is correct)
mistrial9 2y ago
the only Polish person I know of that mentioned Warsaw recently said "no way - stay away from it" .. no idea why
- ses1984 2y ago
  Rural/conservative person maybe? My sister lives there with her husband and two kids, she likes it, it’s expensive though.
  - thrw087248 2y ago
    Coming from a German part of Poland[1] to Warsaw, a Russian city, it actually seems conservative. It was the first place I saw someone pray the rosary on public transport... kneeling. It blew my mind. There is also a lot of fetishisation of its history by conservatives, since history in Polish schools is told in a very martyr way, and history of Warsaw, its monuments and all that play well into it. If anything, it’s a very good place for conservatives. [1]: partitions and other shenanigans of Polish history.
    - panzagl 2y ago
      > since history in Polish schools is told in a very martyr way I think that's the perception of Polish history pretty much everywhere except Russia, Ukraine, maybe Lithuania? I'm genuinely curious as to what other theories of Polish history exist, especially in Poland.
      - thrw087248 2y ago
        I think outside of Poland people think of it as a victim mostly in the context of the XX century, but inside, the martyrology begins much earlier and was the leading ideological current in the XIX century. It just seems we have a long tradition of not wanting to own up to our faults, always ready to blame someone else for our misfortunes. This also jives with the catholic doctrine of noble suffering. Personally I’m a fan of taking responsibility. And in the context of falling into partitions we did have a role in that internally the country was a mess, conflicted and for sale. We could learn something from our western neighbours when it comes to forming some unity and valuing work/grit over aristocratic navel-gazing.
omega3 2y ago
> communist era train platform that’s been reimagined as a Bangkok night market. Do you have google maps link please?
- baskind 2y ago
  Here you go. Opens end of the week and over the weekend: https://maps.app.goo.gl/v3HFoRTtUPoug8yq8?g_st=com.google.maps.preview.copy https://maps.app.goo.gl/v3HFoRTtUPoug8yq8?g_st=com.google.ma...
ajxs 2y ago
Speaking of 'communist era train platform's, one of the many interesting architectural flourishes that you can find in Poland is how the names of some of the train stations around Warsaw are embedded in the structure of the station. An example can be seen at [1] Another little architectural flourish I love are the 'latarenki adresowe' (lit. 'address lanterns') you can see in the cities. They're a little lightbox that shows a silhouette of the street name and number. The older metal and glass ones you can find around the stare miasto in Krakow are especially beautiful. Some examples are [2] [3]. Some of the old buildings in central Krakow have really awesome relief art on the facade. This page has some amazing examples: [4] A great blog about history and architecture in Polish cities is Miasta Rytm: https://miastarytm.pl/ https://miastarytm.pl/ [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warszawa_Mi%C4%99dzylesie_railway_station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warszawa_Mi%C4%99dzylesie_rail... [2]: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/c3/10/c0c310bbb6b6ebed0a516bc97319f0d3.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/c3/10/c0c310bbb6b6ebed0a51... [3]: https://grochow.pl/web/files/article/cdf1ecfd640977b795cdd86a3e4e02bdP1010661.JPG https://grochow.pl/web/files/article/cdf1ecfd640977b795cdd86... [4]: https://miastarytm.pl/godla-krakowskich-kamienic-lat-30-xx-w/ https://miastarytm.pl/godla-krakowskich-kamienic-lat-30-xx-w...

hammock 2y ago

Dresden was never rebuilt (by the soviets) and it’s so much better for it. The city was mostly left as a pile of rubble for decades. It began being rebuilt in the 90s after the fall of the USSR to the historical standards and without all the bloc architecture

p_l 2y ago
In comparison with Warsaw, Dresden was barely touched. Even some of the worst hit areas had walls left standing after all.
- speed_spread 2y ago
  > Dresden was barely touched Err, Dresden was infamously firebombed to hell in the final days of the war (for no good reason). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden
  - p_l 2y ago
    It was bombed for, given the data they had, good reasons (it turned out the intelligence data was not correct, but not the decision process). It was also relatively untouched compared to what Third Reich planned to Warsaw even before war, yet alone the revenge spree in 1945. There are reasons why it's practically illegal to remove most bullet holes you find on some walls on western side of Warsaw - they are the rare walls that survived.
  - surfingdino 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - speed_spread 2y ago
      Ok, which one?
  - marcinzm 2y ago
    Dresden lost about 6 square km utterly. Warsaw lost 100+ square km utterly.

cube2222 2y ago

As a person who lives here - I can say Warsaw is a great city to live in. I’ve considered many destinations for emigrating and in the end decided to stay. Anecdotally, so did many others I know. Green, walkable, clean, good public transport, mostly-well-connected airport, reasonable cost of living (esp. if you work remotely as a software engineer…), good and varied restaurants, and very safe.

tombert 2y ago
I spent a week in Warsaw in 2020 (right before the world shut down, to a point where it was not 100% clear I'd be let back in the US), and thought it was an extremely underrated city. As you said, very clean and walkable, and as an American it's really cheap due to the exchange rate. I go to Poland nearly every year because of Lambda Days, which is in Krakow, though next time I fly over I might take the train over to Warsaw again.
- fifilura 2y ago
  My memory of Warsaw was a very interesting traffic deadlock around a block with two roundabouts in the city centre. There were simply too many cars around that block so they effectively locked each other up. That was ten years ago though so maybe they fixed it. A big part of my time there was spent in a taxi.
  - limaoscarjuliet 2y ago
    You mean this one? Nope, still a cluster. https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2309595,21.0148913,16.75z?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@52.2309595,21.0148913,16.75z?en...
    - fifilura 2y ago
      Yes! Most likely. And I probably described it wrong before. It was probably more the roundabouts combined with traffic lights that caused the mess. I remember thinking that someone needs to drop a bomb on this place or we'll be stuck forever.

senderista 2y ago

I wonder if Warsaw would have been rebuilt if it had been destroyed by the USSR instead of the Nazis?

thriftwy 2y ago
Both sides did actually contribute. Urban warfire does not spare cities as they change hands.
epolanski 2y ago
The USSR bombed it in 1941. And when the Warsaw Uprising started Stalin ordered Soviet troops to wait 20 miles out of Warsaw for a month so poles and Germans would kill each other. So the USSR has had a pivotal role in Warsaw's fall.
paganel 2y ago
Budapest was highly damaged during the battle there in late 1944 - early 1945 [1] and as far I as I know it did get re-built. [1] https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/culture_society/siege-of-budapest_wwii_winter-1944-1945_germans_hungarians_red-army/ https://www.hungarianconservative.com/articles/culture_socie...

throw310822 2y ago

The article seems to gloss over the most appalling fact of the destruction of Warsaw: that it was not caused by combat or bombing, but that it was demolished, building by building, by nazi troops already on the ground, simply as an act of reprisal for the Polish uprising.

ajuc 2y ago
While soviet troops waited on the other side of Vistula for the uprising to fall, because they wanted to be the ones to "liberate" Poland, and not the Polish resistance.
- thriftwy 2y ago
  How much extra losses would you expect Soviet troops take in an unprepared operation? The official story is that Stalin warned them against the uprising.
  - surfingdino 2y ago
    Was it the same Stalin who allowed Germans to train their troops in evasion of the post-WWI peace treaty? They trained their panzer troops over there https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_tank_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_tank_school and their fighter pilots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipetsk_fighter-pilot_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lipetsk_fighter-pilot_school and their chemical warfare teams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomka_gas_test_site https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomka_gas_test_site I guess it was the same Stalin who signed a pact with the Nazi Germany to partition Poland and invaded Poland on 17 Sep 1939. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... It must have also been the same Stalin who ordered the extermination of 22,000 of the educated part of the Polish society and then blamed the Germans for it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre I guess he wanted to outdo the Germans, who had a special plan for the extermination of Polish intellectuals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_AB-Aktion_in_Poland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_AB-Aktion_in_Poland I don't know about you, but I don't think anybody wanted to listen to Stalin. He wasn't exactly a reliable interlocutor.

pndy 2y ago

I think Gliński's could add some more elements to his article: Nazis had plans to turn Warszawa into a provincial but yet a model Nazi town in Pabst Plan [1], by completely demolishing it and rebuilding anew. But after the Uprising, they just simply destroyed it [2]. In the 1952, Stalin offered Bolesław Bierut (president before the office was disbanded; later he become the chairman of the Council of State) a choice between building an underground network in Warszawa, building a housing estate or PKiN (the Palace of Culture and Science). The answer was: "The underground is unnecessary, we can build the housing estate ourselves" - and so, out of Bierut's choice, the Palace was built.[3] Some criticize the decision and today even the very existence of the Palace that shares style with Moskow's Seven Sisters skyscrapers [4] and is considered as a monument of Soviet and Russian influence over Poland. It's still a quite hot political potato for all sides. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pabst_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pabst_Plan [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Warsaw https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_Warsaw [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Culture_and_Science https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Culture_and_Science [4] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Sisters_(Moscow) It's also somehow intriguing to think how Łódź would look like if it would permanently become the country's capital; the city itself changed much in last 12 years mainly because of new communication hub that Łódź Fabryczna railway station become. But that's still not the same as being the capital.

p_l 2y ago
The underground network was started but scrapped and later erased from history due to the failure (flooding they couldn't fix) of the tunnel under Vistula river - the tunnel still exists, abandoned, with collapsed openings - no idea if the tunnel collapsed in part or not.

bjourne 2y ago

I wonder what people 80 years into the future will write about the ongoing destruction of Gaza.

throw310822 2y ago
Indeed. We've been witnessing nine months of pure retaliation for the October 7 attack, complete with tens of thousands of civilian deaths and controlled demolition of mosques, schools, and residential neighborhoods. An arrest warrant has been asked for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and yet he will be speaking this week in front of a joint congress session. I imagine standing ovations will abound, as usual.
linearrust 2y ago
[flagged]
tomjen3 2y ago
Personally I am far more interested in what they will write about Mariupol.
- pokepim 2y ago
  [dead]
somenameforme 2y ago
Or current times in general. WaPo gave a total excess deaths caused by the 'War on Terror' as 4.5 million. [1] That's 500+ deaths a day since 9/11. And we'll certainly be adding to that rapidly once the unspeakable of today becomes the regrettable mistakes of tomorrow. But for now, a supersized serving of Freedom Fries and WMD for everybody. [1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terror-911-deaths-afghanistan-iraq/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/05/15/war-on-terro...
Log_out_ 2y ago
If your nurture includes a inability to form societies and cooperations, your outcome (save for a tech transfer vehicle) will Reproducable always be a bombed out city. Who bombs who why may vary, but societal level weakness has an attractivness of it own. At least i did not cheer on a repetition of fruitless instead of change.

globalise83 2y ago

About a decade or so ago, I was living in Poland for a few months and on a spare weekend, stayed in an AirBnB in Warsaw, on Smocza Ulica. This is a long street lined with 50s concrete block apartments, surrounded by lawns and trees. While walking around the neighbourhood I read a sign about a Yiddish poem written about one of the former Jewish residents, a girl called Khaye, who was eventually murdered in Treblinka and then incinerated. Much of that quarter of the city is in fact literally built on the rubble of the old Jewish neighbourhoods, and many of the remains of the former inhabitants still lie buried beneath the apartment blocks, burned alive in the terrible retribution of the German occupiers who decided to burn every single block of the Jewish Ghetto after the walled-in Jews attempted an uprising. Anyway, I looked into the history of this particular poem, and it led me to a modern song by the famous Israeli singer Chava Alberstein which I find very beautiful and sad. https://open.spotify.com/track/5JHgN8sWvcrG1u4rrk4yQM https://open.spotify.com/track/5JHgN8sWvcrG1u4rrk4yQM

H8crilA 2y ago
It was much more than the Ghetto that got entirely destroyed, to the point where new street layout has been implemented after the war since there was no reason to use the old layout. Well, apart from property claims, some of which are still being contested in courts to this day. Around 150k to 200k people died in the Warsaw Uprising alone. But yes, the Ghetto got hit especially bad. One of the reasons why the Germans wanted Warsaw so exceptionally destroyed was their feeling of racial superiority. The Fuhrer got extra angry when he found out those occupied Poles still dare create rebellions, and ordered a systematic levelling of the capital. I'll let you ponder whether we've actually learned a lesson from those times.
- kolinko 2y ago
  If I remember correctly, even today, city-center Warsaw has lower population density than before the war.
  - bobthepanda 2y ago
    This is generally true of most places since living standards have risen and household sizes have dropped dramatically

ggm 2y ago

I can believe people discussed the option to relocate, but I think the forces of population movement back to the ruins really forced their hands. Not that the government couldn't have forcibly relocated them, there was plenty of precedent for that in recent times: The willingness to do it would be absent. In any event, The USSR needed Poland to succeed as a buttress protecting the Russian state. Unlike Germany it was not partitioned, it was integral and complete as a country, it had voting rights in the UN, and it had a complicit puppet government. If that government wanted to reconstruct Warsaw and the Russians held out for Łódź It would create tensions which weren't needed. Realpolitk intruded. Is there any record in post-roman history of a city subject to destruction which wasn't rebuilt? I am told that in order to re-create Warsaw, other towns were also denuted of stone carvings. In effect, so that Warsaw could exist again, other towns lost parts of their heritage. You can of course see some of the reobar and plaster overlay on brick and blockworks of the less well restored places, or from 70 years of erosion. It's substantively a modern city with a dress on. The continuing legal fights over land ownership speak to how strongly people feel about their patch of land. Fighting human nature is a King-canute move.

lmm 2y ago
> Is there any record in post-roman history of a city subject to destruction which wasn't rebuilt? Tana (Tanais) comes immediately to mind, founded by the Venetians in the 14th century (notionally a refounding of the ancient Greek city), destroyed by the Mongols about 100 years later and essentially never fully rebuilt after that. Machu Picchu might be another example, depending on your definitions of "post-roman" and "destruction". Aghdam, Marinka and Soledar would be current cases, though they may be rebuilt (already planned for Aghdam).
somenameforme 2y ago
> Is there any record in post-roman history of a city subject to destruction which wasn't rebuilt? I think your question is basically a proxy for population. In areas where populations rebound, cities are obviously rebuilt. In areas where the population continues to decline, they aren't. And the very nature of dead cities means you also probably have never heard of them, so listing random names is pointless. But you can obviously find endless examples in times ranging from the Mongols to the USSR. Well and probably beyond, I'm sure Africa has examples after 1991.

epolanski 2y ago

I am polish but only been in Warsaw recently and I was surprised by how beautiful the city is. I traveled all around Eastern Europe and I put it definitely higher in my rankings than Prague and Budapest. I can see the point of those who may disagree, it's a matter of taste, but I find Warsaw one of the most beautiful cities in Europe for a weekend (whereas the likes of Rome, Paris, London can simply not be appreciated well in such a short time span).

RadixDLT 2y ago
maybe you need glasses

egorfine 2y ago

I have visited Warsaw for the first time around ten years ago. And I was disappointed by how gray and bleak the city was. Then I have visited Warsaw couple of years ago and I was shocked. Shocked. To me personally this city is one of the most beautiful in Europe, and I have lived pretty much everywhere. I love Warsaw so much I actually moved here a year ago.

RadixDLT 2y ago

the city is a bit fake, it was built after 1945 from the ground up and it is nothing like it was before