Olsztyn


Olsztyn is a city on the Łyna River in northeastern Poland. Olsztyn is the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, and is a city with county rights. The population of the city was estimated at 171,979 residents in 2019.
Founded as Allenstein in the 14th century, Olsztyn was under the control and influence of the Teutonic Order until 1454, when it was incorporated into the Polish Crown. For centuries the city was an important centre of trade, crafts, science and administration in the Warmia region linking Warsaw with Königsberg. Following the First Partition of Poland in 1772 Warmia was annexed by Prussia and ceased to be the property of the clergy. In the 19th century the city changed its status completely, becoming the most prominent economic hub of the southern part of Eastern Prussia. The construction of a railway and early industrialisation greatly contributed to Olsztyn's significance. Following World War II, the city returned to Poland in accordance with the Potsdam Agreement.
Since 1999 Olsztyn has been the capital city of the Warmia-Masuria. In the same year, the University of Warmia and Masuria was founded from the fusion of three other local universities. Today, the Castle of Warmian Bishops houses a museum and is a venue for concerts, art exhibitions, film shows and other cultural events, which make Olsztyn a popular tourist destination.
The most important sights of the city include the medieval Old Town and the Olsztyn Cathedral, which dates back more than 600 years. The picturesque market square is part of the European Route of Brick Gothic and the cathedral is regarded as one of the greatest monuments of Gothic architecture in Poland.
Olsztyn, for a number of years, has been ranked very highly in quality of life, income, employment and safety. It currently is one of the best places in Poland to live and work. It is also one of the happiest cities in the country.

History

Middle Ages

In 1334, a watchtower was established on the Łyna River. In 1346, the forest was cleared at the location for a new settlement, mentioned in a historical document from 1348. The following year, Teutonic Knights began the construction of an Ordensburg castle as a stronghold against the Baltic Prussians. Allenstein was granted municipal rights by the cathedral chapter of the Bishopric of Warmia in October 1353. The German "Allenstein" referred to the river's Baltic Prussian name Alna, which meant a hind. Local Poles called it Holstin and Olsztyn. The castle was completed in 1397. The town was captured by the Kingdom of Poland during the Polish-Lithuanian-Teutonic War in 1410, and again in 1414 during the Hunger War, but it was returned to the monastic state of the Teutonic Knights after hostilities ended.
Allenstein joined the Prussian Confederation in 1440 and rebelled against the Teutonic Knights in 1454 upon the outbreak of the Thirteen Years' War to join Poland under King Casimir IV Jagiellon. The townspeople took the castle and recognized the Polish king as the rightful ruler. Although the Teutonic Knights recaptured the town the following year, it was retaken by Polish troops in 1463. The Second Peace of Thorn in 1466 confirmed Olsztyn as part of the Kingdom of Poland. Administratively it was located in the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia within the provinces of Royal Prussia and Greater Poland.

Modern era

From 1516 to 1521, Nicolaus Copernicus lived at the town's castle as administrator and in Mehlsack. Copernicus was in charge of the Polish defenses in the Siege of Allenstein during the Polish-Teutonic War of 1519–21. He also started and managed the repopulation of the region, inviting a new wave of Polish settlers from Mazovia. The town along with Warmia then entered what is considered the region's golden age, crafts and trade developed, also due to the city's location on the Warsaw-Königsberg trade route. During this period, the city was still visited several times by Copernicus, as well as leading figures of Polish Renaissance, writers, royal secretaries and diplomats: Johannes Dantiscus, called the "father of Polish diplomacy", and Marcin Kromer, who was also a historian and music theorist. The St. James' Cathedral, one of the most distinctive landmarks of the cityscape, was completed.
Prosperity was halted in the 1620s, when the town suffered a fire and an epidemic. In 1626, during the Swedish invasion, canons from Frombork took refuge in the town, which the Swedes did not reach. The city was sacked by Swedish troops later, in 1655 and 1708, during the next Polish-Swedish wars, and its population was nearly wiped out in 1710 by epidemics of bubonic plague and cholera.
The town became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1772 after the First Partition of Poland and its economy initially collapsed. Poles became subject to extensive Germanisation policies. A Prussian census recorded a population of 1,770 people, predominantly farmers, and Allenstein was administered within the newly created Province of East Prussia. It was visited by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1807 after his victories over the Prussian Army at Jena and Auerstedt. The growth of the city started again after it became a district seat in 1818, a significant influx of German settlers began and by 1825, the town was inhabited by 1,341 Germans and 1,266 Poles. In the early 1830s the city suffered from a cholera epidemic and a hunger crisis, however afterwards it flourished again, under mayor Jakub/Jakob Rarkowski from 1836 to 1865. Under Rarkowski the city was expanded and modernized, and the mayor also hid Polish insurgents in the city during the January Uprising. The first German-language newspaper, the Allensteiner Zeitung, began publishing in 1841. Polish historian Wojciech Kętrzyński was arrested in Jomendorf, and imprisoned in the city's High Gate in 1863 for smuggling weapons for the Polish January Uprising in the Russian Partition of Poland. The town hospital was founded in 1867.

In 1871, with the unification of Germany, Allenstein became part of the German Empire. Two years later, the city was connected by railway to Thorn. Despite Germanisation attempts the city remained an important Polish centre. Its first Polish language newspaper, the Gazeta Olsztyńska'', was founded in 1886. Allenstein's infrastructure developed rapidly: gas was installed in 1890, telephones in 1892, public water supply in 1898, and electricity in 1907. The Provincial Mental Sanatorium Kortau was established in 1886 just south of Allenstein. In 1905, the city became the capital of Regierungsbezirk Allenstein, a government administrative region in East Prussia. From 1818 to 1910, the city was administered within the East Prussian Allenstein District, after which it became an independent city.

World War I, interbellum and World War II

Shortly after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Russian troops captured Allenstein, but it was recovered by the Imperial German Army in the Battle of Tannenberg.
After the defeat of Germany in World War I, the East Prussian plebiscite was held in 1920 to determine whether the populace of the region, including Allenstein, wished to remain in German East Prussia or become part of Poland, which had just regained independence. In order to advertise the plebiscite, special postage stamps were produced by overprinting German stamps and sold on 3 April of that year. One kind of overprint read PLÉBISCITE / OLSZTYN / ALLENSTEIN, while the other read TRAITÉ / DE / VERSAILLES / ART. 94 et 95 inside an oval whose border gave the full name of the plebiscite commission. Each overprint was applied to 14 denominations ranging from 5 Pfennigs to 3 Marks. The Polish community faced discrimination, Polish rallies were dispersed, the participants were threatened and beaten. In March, Polish activist died in Olsztyn, a few weeks after being brutally beaten by the German militia in nearby Szczytno in Masuria. He was buried in Olsztyn, however, his grave was soon devastated by local German nationalists. A monument to Linka was unveiled after Poland regained control of the city after World War II. The presence of a Royal Irish battalion ensured a relative peace in Allenstein. The plebiscite, held on 11 July, produced 16,742 votes for Germany and 342 votes for Poland.
In the interwar period, numerous Polish organisations operated in the city, including the Polish Scouting and Guiding Association, Union of Poles in Germany, a People's Bank, local Poles organised a school, library, puppet theatre. The Polish Consulate also operated. After the January 1933 Nazi seizure of power in Germany, Poles and Jews in Allenstein were increasingly persecuted. In 1935, the German Wehrmacht made the city the seat of the Allenstein Militärische Bereich. It was then home of the 11th and 217th infantry divisions and 11th Artillery Regiment. At the same time, the football club SV Hindenburg Allenstein played in Allenstein from 1921 to 1945. Beginning in 1936, members of the Polish minority, especially members of the Union of Poles in Germany, were persecuted, and after the 1939 German invasion of Poland that began World War II, Poles were subjected to mass arrests and executions or deportations to occupied Poland. The Gazeta Olsztyńska was abolished by the German authorities, the newspaper's headquarters was demolished and the editor-in-chief Seweryn Pieniężny was arrested and executed in the Hohenbruch concentration camp. During the war five forced labour camps were established in the city. On 12 October 1939, the Wehrmacht established an Area Headquarters for a military district that controlled the environs of Allenstein, including Lötzen, and Ciechanów in occupied Poland.
monument
On 22 January 1945, near the end of the war, Allenstein was plundered and burned by the conquering Soviet Red Army, and much of its German population fled. On 23 May 1945, Olsztyn became again part of Poland under border changes promulgated at the Potsdam Conference. In October 1945, the remaining German population was expelled, to be replaced by new Polish settlers, mostly those expelled from pre-war Polish regions of Vilnius, Grodno and Volhynia, annexed by the Soviet Union, as well as settlers from Warsaw destroyed by the Germans. Reconstruction and removal of damages lasted until the 1950s.

Contemporary history

In December 1945, a match factory was launched in Olsztyn, as the city's first post-war industrial plant of national importance. A tyre factory was founded in Olsztyn in 1967. Its subsequent names included OZOS, Stomil and Michelin.
On the 500th anniversary of the birth of Nicolaus Copernicus, in 1973, a planetarium was opened in Olsztyn. In 1989 the former Gazeta Olsztyńska headquarters was rebuilt and re-opened as a museum. In 1991 Pope John Paul II visited the city. In 1999 the University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn was established, which is now one of the largest universities in northeastern Poland.
Olsztyn became the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship in 1999. It was previously in the Olsztyn Voivodeship.

Olsztyn Castle

The castle was built between 1346–1353 and by then it had one wing on the north-east side of the rectangular courtyard. Access to the castle lead from the drawbridge over the river Łyna, surrounded by a belt of defensive walls and a moat. The south-west wing of the castle was built in the 15th century, the tower situated in the west corner of the courtyard, from the middle of the 14th century, was rebuilt in the early 16th century and had a round shape on a square base and was 40 meters high. At the same time the castle walls were raised to a height of 12 meters and a second belt of the lower walls was built. The castle walls were partly combined with city walls, which made the castle look like it had been a powerful bastion defending access to the city.
The castle was owned by Warmia Chapter, which until 1454, together with the Prince-Bishopric of Warmia, was under military protection of the Teutonic Knights and their Monastic State of Prussia.
The castle had played a huge role in the Polish-Teutonic wars by then. After the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, the Poles took it after a few days siege. In the Thirteen Years' War it was jumping from rule to rule. The Knights threatened the castle and the town in 1521, but the defence was very effective. They contained one failed assault. There is a connection between the history of the castle, the city of Olsztyn, and Nicolaus Copernicus. He prepared the defence of Olsztyn against the invasion of the Teutonic Knights.
In the sixteenth century, there were two prince-bishops of Warmia that stayed there: Johannes Dantiscus – the first sarmatian poet, endowed with the imperial laurel wreath for "Latin Songs" and Marcin Kromer, who wrote with equal ease in Latin and Polish scientific and literary works. Kromer consecrated the chapel of St. Anna, which was built in the south-west wing of the castle. In the course of time both wings of the castle lost military importance, which for residential purposes has become very convenient. In 1779 Prince-Bishop Ignacy Krasicki stopped here as well.
After the Prussian annexation of Warmia during the First Partition of Poland in 1772, the castle became the property of the state board of estates. In 1845 the bridge over the moat was replaced by a dam better connecting the castle with the city. In 1901–1911 a general renovation of the castle was performed, however several sections of the building were violated at the same time where they changed the original look of the castle e.g. putting on window frames in a cloister. The tower was crowned in 1921 and again in 1926 in the halls of the castle, became a museum.
In 1945 the whole castle became home to the Masurian Museum, which today is called the Museum of Warmia and Masuria. In addition there are also popular events held within the frameworks of the Olsztyn Artistic Summer and so called "evenings of the castle" and "Sundays in the Museum".

Jewish community

Though Jews did trade in the city fairs during medieval times, they were not allowed to trade freely in the villages surrounding the city. In 1718, Bishop Teodor Andrzej Potocki imposed a ban on Jewish trade. Other bishops after him continued the ban, which apparently wasn't successful since the city population complained about Jews dealing with animal leather and other products in 1742. Permanent Jews were found in the city in 1780, and they were allowed to settle outside the city walls. In 1814, the Simonson brothers opened the first Jewish store in town. In 1850, the city official authority announced that any citizen that hosted a wandering Jew in his house, would be fined and imprisoned.
The Jewish community of the city as a congregation was established in 1820. Shortly after, a prayer room was established on Richterstrasse. In 1877, the congregation bought a plot of land on Liebstädterstrasse and built a synagogue there. A Jewish cemetery was built on Seestrasse. While at its peak, the town's Jewish population was 448 Jews in 1933.
On Kristallnacht, the town synagogue was destroyed and later used as a bomb shelter. Now, a sports club sits on the site of the synagogue.
By 1939, 135 Jews were left in the city, after most others fled from the country. Those who lived in town in 1940 were deported to Nazi concentration camps. In June 1946, 16 Holocaust survivors settled in the city and in 1948, the congregation had 190 worshipers. Most of them emigrated to Israel throughout the next few decades. There is no current trace of the Jewish cemetery.
The city was the birthplace of world-famous Jewish architect Erich Mendelsohn. In town, Mendelsohn planned the mourners' chapel next to the cemetery. The building is currently restored. In addition, it was the birthplace of German Socialist and SPD leader Hugo Haase. Frieda Strohmberg, an Impressionist, lived and worked in the city from 1910 to 1927. Documentation of the Jewish owned shops in town exists.

Geography

Olsztyn is located in the north-east part of Poland in the region known as the "Thousand Lakes".

Greenbelt

More than half of the forests occupying 21.2% of the city area form a single complex of the Municipal Forest used mainly for recreation and tourism purposes. Within the Municipal Forest area are situated two peat-land flora sanctuaries, Mszar and Redykajny. Municipal greenery developed in the form of numerous parks, green spots and three cemeteries over a century-old. The greenery includes 910 monuments of nature and groups of protected trees in the form of beech, oak, maple and lime-lined avenues.

Lakes

The city is situated in a lake region of forests and plains. There are 15 lakes inside the administrative bounds of the city. The overall area of lakes in Olsztyn is about 725 ha, which constitutes 8.25% of the total city area.
LakeArea Maximum depth
Lake Ukiel 41243
Lake Kortowskie89.717.2
Lake Track 52.84.6
Lake Skanda51.512
Lake Redykajny29.920.6
Lake Długie26.817.2
Lake Sukiel20.825
Lake Tyrsko18.630.6
Lake Stary Dwór6.023.3
Lake Siginek6.0insufficient data
Lake Czarne approximately 1.3insufficient data
Lake Żbik approximately 1.2insufficient data
Lake Pereszkowo approximately 1.2insufficient data
Lake Mummel approximately 0.3insufficient data
Lake Modrzewiowe0.25insufficient data

Demographics


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Administrative division

Olsztyn is divided into 23 districts:
DistrictPopulationAreaDensity
Brzeziny1,456647.1/km²
Dajtki 5,863781.7/km²
Generałów6,500no datano data
Grunwaldzkie6,0274,128.1/km²
Gutkowo 2,256313.3/km²
Jaroty29,0466,026.1/km²
Kętrzyńskiego7,6211,577.8/km²
Kormoran16,16614,696.4/km²
Kortowo 1,131268/km²
Kościuszki6,7045,681.4/km²
Likusy 2,2861,088.6/km²
Mazurskie4,615771.7/km²
Nad Jeziorem Długim2,408569.3/km²
Nagórki 12,5387,418.9/km²
Pieczewo 10,9184,874.1/km²
Podgrodzie11,0808,207.4/km²
Podleśna10,4141,048.7/km²
Pojezierze13,0015,439.7/km²
Redykajny 1,555254.9/km²
Śródmieście3,4485,944.8/km²
Wojska Polskiego6,7591,343.7/km²
Zatorze6,98815,528.9/km²
Zielona Górka1,015157.6/km²

There are many smaller districts: Jakubowo, Karolin, Kolonia Jaroty, Kortowo II, Łupstych, Niedźwiedź, Piękna Góra, Podlesie, Pozorty, Skarbówka Poszmanówka, Słoneczny Stok, Stare Kieźliny, Stare Miasto, Stare Zalbki, Stary Dwór, Track. These do not have council representative assemblies.

Culture

Theatres

The historic central district of Olsztyn is the Old Town, which contains various historic buildings and structures, including:
Notable structures outside of the Old Town include:
act Vader, regarded as one of the first and most successful death metal bands from Poland.

Economy

The Michelin tyre company is the largest employer in the region of Warmia and Masuria. Other important industries are food processing and furniture manufacturing.

Transportation

Road

Bus

Currently a with 36 bus lines exists, including 6 suburban lines and 2 night-time lines.

Trolleybus

In 1939, due to poor economic situation throughout the interwar period and city's growing population, a trolleybus line began operation, partially replacing the original tram network. Olsztyn was a third city in Poland having this method of transportation at that time. During the Second World War the cars were mainly driven by women.
The trolleybus network consisting of 4 lines was decommissioned on 31 July 1971.

Rail

Olsztyn has train connections to Warsaw, Gdańsk, Szczecin, Poznań, Bydgoszcz, Iława, Działdowo and Ełk. Olsztyn Główny is the main railway station in the city. Plans exist to demolish current building and replace it with new infrastructure, contrary to previous information about current building being renovated.

Tram

Historically, city's first tram line was built in 1907 and gradually expanded over the years. It ceased operation in 1965.
In 2006 authorities considered reintroduction of trams in the city to address transport problems and subsequently concluded feasibility studies on the matter in 2009. A long tram network was built between 2011–2015. The contract was signed in 2011 and construction commenced in 2012. It was a first new tram system built in Poland in 55 years; 15 low-floor Tramino trams were ordered from Solaris in September 2012.
There are currently 3 tram lines in operation.
A long extension is planned and Turkish manufacturer Durmazlar had been selected to supply 24 trams for the network.

Air

The region and city is served by Olsztyn-Mazury Airport with scheduled international passenger flights. It is located in Szymany, 10 km off Szczytno and 58 km south of the city of Olsztyn. The airport operates flights to London, Dortmund, Lviv, Cracow and Burgas.

Education

The Memorial of Hubert Jerzy Wagner, an international volleyball friendly tournament, was organized in Olsztyn from 2003 to 2008. The Tour de Pologne, one of UCI World Tour races, was organized in Olsztyn numerous times, most recently in 2008.

Politics

Members of the Sejm elected from Olsztyn constituency in 2005:
Members of Senate elected from Olsztyn constituency in 2005:

Twin towns – Sister cities

Olsztyn is twinned with:

  • Kaliningrad, Russia
  • Lutsk, Ukraine
  • Offenburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
  • Richmond, VA, United States
  • Rovaniemi, Finland
  • Bielsko-Biała, Silesian Voivodeship, Poland
  • Weifang, China
    • Olsztyn belongs to the Federation of Copernicus Cities, an association of cities where Copernicus lived and worked, such as Bologna, Frombork, Kraków, and Toruń. The main office of the federation is situated at Olsztyn Planetarium and Astronomical Observatory, located on St. Andrew's Hill in a former water tower erected in 1897.