Gdansk
Gdansk is definitely quiet at this time of year, but a couple of days here has given me the opportunity to do some important sightseeing. Not only is Gdansk very elegant architecturally, it is a pivotal place in 20th century history; Hitler effectively started world war two by landing at Gdansk to invade Poland in 1939.
Perhaps even more significantly, Gdansk was the epicentre of Polish unrest during the Communist era. Following several protests and strikes throughout the postwar period, a Gdansk shipyard worker named Lech Walesa climbed a wall in 1980 to address and rally his striking colleagues and form what became known as the ‘Solidarity’ movement. Inflation was crippling, the shops were empty and the strikers demanded more pay and better living conditions. On August 31st 1980, Walesa signed an agreement in Gdansk that is now considered to be a major catalyst for reform across Poland, Eastern Europe and the collapse of the USSR. He was awarded the Nobel peace prize in 1983 and later became the first democratically elected president of Poland.
My pictures of Gdansk are now in the gallery and include the monument to the fallen shipyard workers. This was constructed in 1980 as a condition of the agreement and subsequently became a symbol of the fight against communism. There is a section of the wall Walesa forst spoke from, and the desk where he signed the 1980 agreement, which is in a hall that now houses a museum called ‘Roads to Freedom’.
Also in the gallery are some amazing pictures of Vilnius - my last day there on Sunday was perfect for taking photographs and, amongst other things I visited the remains of the 1991 barricade outside the Lithuanian parliament which has been turned into a monument remembering those who died there. There is also a plaque telling visitors that Russia is still waging a war of genocide against the Chechen people. The stand-off in Vilnius paved the way for the full independence of all three Baltic states, and there is little doubt that the actions of Lech Walesa and Solidarity in 1980 were a significant catalyst for the chain of events that led to the fight in Vilnius, the fall of the Berlin wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
