Warsaw


Warsaw is the capital of Poland and its largest city. It is located on the Vistula river roughly 350 km from both the Baltic Sea coast and the Carpathian Mountains. Its population as of 2004 was estimated at 1,692,900, with an urban agglomeration of approximately 2,760,000. The city area amounts to 516.9 km˛, with an urban agglomeration of 6100,43 km˛ (Warsaw Metropolitan Area - Obszar Metropolitalny Warszawy).
The city, also the capital of Masovian Voivodship, is home to many industries, including manufacturing, steel, electrical engineering, and automotive; it features 66 institutions of higher learning, including Warsaw University, Stefan Wyszyński University, Warsaw University of Technology, the Higher School of Business, and a Medical Academy. Warsaw is home to over 30 theatres, including the National Theatre and Opera and the National Philharmonic Orchestra.

Climate
Warsaw's climate is continental humid. The average temperature is 17 degrees Celsius (-5 °C in January and up to 30 °C in July). Yearly rainfall averages at 680 mm, the most rainy month being July.

Location
Warsaw straddles the Vistula river, approximately 350 kilometres from both the Carpathian mountains and Baltic Sea. It is located in the heartland of the Masovian Plain, and its average altitude is 100 m above sea level, although there are some hills (mostly artificial) located within the confines of the city.

History
The first fortified settlements on the site of today's Warsaw were Bródno (9th/10th century) and Jazdów (12th/13th century). After Jazdów was raided in 1281 by Boleslaus II, the Duke of Płock, a new similar settlement was lodged on the grounds of a small fishing village called Warszowa. In the beginning of the 14th century it became one of the seats of the Dukes of Masovia, in 1413 becoming the capital of Masovia. Upon the extinction of the local ducal line, the duchy was reincorporated into the Polish Crown in 1526. In 1529 Warsaw for the first time became the seat of the General Sejm, permanent since 1569. In 1573 Warsaw gave its name to the Warsaw Confederation, an agreement by the Polish gentry to tolerate different religious faiths in the Kingdom of Poland.
Due to its central location between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's capitals of Vilna and Cracow, Warsaw became the capital of the Commonwealth and at the same time of the Polish Crown in 1596, when King Sigismund III Vasa moved the capital from Cracow. Warsaw remained the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia to become the capital of the province of New East Prussia. Liberated by Napoleon's army in 1807, Warsaw was made the capital of the newly created Duchy of Warsaw. Following the decisions of the Congress of Vienna of 1815, Warsaw became the center of the Polish Kingdom, a constitutional monarchy under a personal union with the Imperial Russia. Following the repeated violations of the Polish constitution by the Russians, the 1830 November Uprising broke out. However, the Polish-Russian war of 1831 ended in the uprising's defeat and in the curtailment of the Kingdom's autonomy. On 27 February 1861 a Warsaw crowd protesting the Russian rule over Poland was fired upon by the Russian troops. Five people were killed. Underground Polish National Government resided in Warsaw during January Uprising in 1863-1864.
Warsaw became the capital of the newly independent Poland again in 1918.
Warsaw flourished in the late nineteenth century under Mayor Sokrates Starynkiewicz (1875–1892), a Russian-born general appointed by Tsar Alexander III. Under Starynkiewicz Warsaw saw its first water and sewer systems designed and built by the English engineer William Lindley and his son, William Heerlein Lindley, as well as the expansion and modernization of trams, street lighting and gas works.
In the course of the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920, the huge Battle of Warsaw was fought on the Eastern outskirts of the city in which the capital of Poland was successfully defended and the Red Army defeated.
Warsaw is notable among Europe's capital cities not for its size, age, or beauty, but for its indestructibility. It is a phoenix that has risen repeatedly from the ashes. Having suffered dreadful damage during the Swedish and Prussian wars of 1655–1656, it was again assaulted in 1794, when the Russian army massacred the population of the right-bank suburb of Praga. Its most remarkable act of survival, though, was its rebirth following its almost complete destruction during the Second World War.
The Second World War began when Germany invaded western Poland on 1 September 1939. On 17 September eastern Poland was invaded by the USSR. Poland capitulated after 6 weeks of fighting. Western Poland was incorporated into the German Reich, eastern Poland into the USSR, while central Poland, including Warsaw, came under the rule of the General Government, a Nazi colonial administration. In the course of the September Campaign, Warsaw was severely bombed, and in the course of the Siege of Warsaw approximately 10 to 15% of its buildings were destroyed.
Warsaw became an occupied city under the control of the Nazi SS. All higher education institutions were immediately closed and Warsaw's entire Jewish population — several hundred thousand, some 30% of the city — herded into the Warsaw Ghetto. When the order came to liquidate the Ghetto as part of Hitler's "final solution", Jewish fighters launched the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Despite being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, the Ghetto held out for almost a month. When the fighting ended, the survivors were massacred. In Autumn 1942 Germans built the Warsaw Concentration Camp, where until August 1944 probably 200,000 Poles were killed in the gas chambers.
During 1943 and 1944 the tide of the war turned, as the USSR, which had been at war with Germany since 1941, inflicted a number of severe defeats on the German army. By July 1944 the Soviets were deep into the Polish territory, pursuing the Germans toward Warsaw. Knowing that Stalin was hostile to the idea of an independent Poland, the Polish government-in-exile based in London gave orders to the underground Home Army (AK) to try to seize the control of Warsaw from the Nazis just before the Soviets arrive. Thus, on 1 August 1944, as the Soviet army was nearing the city very fast, the Home Army and the general population started the Warsaw Uprising.
Despite Stalin's hostility towards Poland, the Poles had expected that the Soviet troops would assist them against their common German enemy. However, after the Red Army captured the right-bank Warsaw, the Soviet offensive was abruptly stopped, while the Germans went on to ruthlessly suppress the uprising. Although the insurgency, planned to last 48 hours, held out for 63 days, eventually the Home Army fighters were forced to capitulate. They were transported to the POW camps in Germany, while the entire civilian population was expelled. Hitler, ignoring the negotiated terms of the capitulation, ordered the entire city to be razed to the ground, and the library and museum collections burned. When on 17 January 1945 the Soviets crossed Vistula and entered the left-bank Warsaw, 85% of the city had been destroyed, including the historic Old Town and the Royal Castle. The surviving Home Army fighters were rounded up by the NKVD and either murdered or deported to Siberia.
The city was once considered a shining metropolis, but due to total destruction, it has lost its baroque tinge. Although many of the destroyed significant historical buildings were restored, little remains of the resplendence of Warsaw baroque.
After the war, Boleslaw Bierut's puppet regime set up by Stalin made Warsaw the capital of the communist People's Republic of Poland, and the city was resettled and rebuilt. Large prefabricated housing projects were erected in Warsaw to address the housing shortage. Few of the inhabitants of the pre-war Poland returned: Hundreds of thousands were dead, thousands more in exile from the new regime. Nonetheless, the city resumed its role as the capital of Poland and the country's center of political and economic life. Many of the historic streets, buildings, and churches were restored to their original form. In 1980, Warsaw's historic Old Town was inscribed onto UNESCO's World Heritage list.
In 1995 the Warsaw Metro finally opened, and with the entry of Poland into the European Union in 2004, Warsaw is currently experiencing the biggest economic boom of its history.

Transport
Although Warsaw was heavily damaged during World War II and reconstruction in the fifties widened many streets, the city is currently plagued with traffic problems. Public transportation in Warsaw is as efficient as it is ubiquitous, serving the city with buses, tramways, and a recently opened metro.

Roads and highways
Warsaw lacks a good circular road system and most of the East-West traffic goes directly through the city center. Currently two circular roads are under construction. The first (called OEW, or Obwodnica Etapowa Warszawy) is to lead the traffic approximately 10 kilometres from the city center through the city streets and two newly-built bridges ([1]). The other is to become a part of both the A-2 (Berlin-Moscow) motorway and the S-7 (Gdańsk–Kraków) express road and run through a tunnel under the southern area of Ursynów. It is to become available between 2008 and 2010.

Airports
Warsaw has one international Airport, Warsaw Frederic Chopin Airport, located just 10 km away from the city center. With over 60 international and domestic flights a day and with over 7,070,000 passengers in 2005 it is by far the biggest airport in Poland. Immediately adjacent to the main Frederic Chopin Airport terminal complex is the Etiuda terminal which serves both domestic routes and the international routes flown by low-cost carriers.
There are also plans to build a second international airport, mostly for service to other European Union countries. It is to be located either just outside the city limits, at a former military airfield, or in a suburb to the north or west.

Mass transit
The public transportation system in Warsaw consists of three branches (buses, streetcars and metro) united in the ZTM (Zarząd Transportu Miejskiego or the City Transportation Office). Additional lines are operated by private companies and the state-owned railways.

Tourist attractions
Although Warsaw is a reasonably new city, it has a lot of tourist attractions. Apart from the Old Town quarter, carefully reconstructed after World War II, each of the borrough has something to offer. Among the most notable landmarks of the Old Town are the Royal Castle, King Zygmunt's Column, and the barbican.
Further south is the so-called Royal Road, with lots of notable classicist palaces, the Presidential Palace and the Warsaw University campus. Also the popular Nowy Świat Street is worth mentioning.
The oldest Warsaw's public park, the Ogród Saski, is located within 10 minutes distance of the old town. Another such oasis of silence and serenity is the Powązki Cemetery, one of the oldest cemeteries in Europe, filled with hundreds of precious sculptured, some of them by the most renown artists of 19th and 20th centuries. Since it serves the religious communities of Warsaw, be it Catholics, Jews, Muslims or Protestants, it is often called a necropolis. Nearby is the Okopowa Street Jewish Cemetery, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe.
To the north of the city center the museum of the former Warsaw Ghetto is located, which is also a popular locality often visited by foreign tourists. Also the borough of Żoliborz is famous for its architecture from the 1920s and 1930s. Between Żoliborz and the Vistula the Warsaw Citadel is located, which is one of the priceless monuments of 19th century military architecture in Poland. Also the former royal residencec of king Jan III Sobieski in Wilanów and Belweder are notable for their baroque architecture and beautiful parks.
However, Warsaw is perhaps the most famous for several buildings from modern history. Apart from the Palace of Culture and Science, a Soc-realist skyscrapper located exactly in the city center, the Stadion Dziesięciolecia which is the biggest market in Europe also attracts many tourists. For those who seek dramatic contrasts the borough of Central Praga is often the best choice. Called by the Varsovians the Bermuda Triangle for high crime rate, it is a place where almost completely demolished houses stand right next to modern apartment buildings and shopping malls.

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