Talk:Warsaw

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[edit] Reconstruction

www.gowarsaw.eu provides you with quality information and photos on Warsaw.

Warsaw is a MOST impressive re-building. Is it true that the historic center was restored not only on the basis of photographs but also using 18th century city-scape paintings? I was told that in Warsaw by tour guides (who of course are not to be trusted - we're all much too glib) and by one art historian. --MichaelTinkler

All the above is true. The re-building might be impressive, though it sometimes gives me the impression that historic center is _fake_. -- WojPob

First, we should look at the reconstruction as a positive thing, a noble act against the backdrop of Nazi and Soviet savagery. Second, most historic buildings are remodeled, gutted and reconstructed so many times over the course of history, that they can all be deemed "fake". Also, Michael, about not trusting tour guides, Poles are probably less inclined (in a bad way) to "brag" about their stuff, so if a tour guide is saying something in a good light, then its probably true. I call it the Polish complex :). Also, I agree with your statement below completely. I believe that Warsaw should do all that is possible to work towards reconstructing the prewar city, use unused land (like that gigantic plot near Plac Zawiszy) for constructing a "skyscraper" center. -- Sven Stroms

hmm. you mean what we professionally call 'inauthentic', an extremely problematic situation. Art historians are famous for dismissing reconstruction, but for not being able to recognize it without technical experts. I met the man who runs the workshop that handles all the marble on the exterior of the Duomo (cathedral) in Florence, Italy. He says that he hasn't run across a piece of stone older than the 18th century. It's skin is not 15th century (oh, and I don't mean the 19th century facade that's opposite the baptistery, I mean the flanks and apse, which are supposed to be earlier). I wonder if most people would get that impression if they didn't know the story? --MichaelTinkler

My friend use to say, that the best thing in Warsaw is Intercity train to Krakow. Whenever i see "Warsaw" i feel that urge to talk about Palace of Culture (new uknown word was liked by Warsawians) and famous letter which argued that capital of Poland should be moved to Gdansk. szopen

I have been comparing what i recall from visits to Warsaw to the pics on this page. And even though there are some historical buildings, it is plain misleading to promote Warsaw as a 100% "old city" with 20 pics of "old" buildings, and none of some of the more grey communist style building. I believe that there should be a more balanced view on this, and not try to make the article into a tourist propaganda leaflet, with a classical estethical view. Any comments on this? -- Alex


[edit] Wikipedians in/from Warsaw

I will be in Warsaw from 25th - 28th February if any Warsovian Wikipedians feel like meeting up (my email address is at sjc).

i guess not many Warsovians here. Sjc, came to Poznan. We have less traffic, less crime, and, what's most delighting, less varsovians. szopen

Maybe so, but I'll be working so I won't be able to get away to Poznan, alas. sjc

Too bad I didn't noticed this page before... I was born in Warsaw, live in Warsaw, love my city and I'm proud of it. No matter what guys from Galicia say, Warsaw is definitely a place to visit. Halibutt

Is it just my impression or is szopen putting way too much of his personal bias against Warsaw and its inhabitants into this discussion? I know Warsaw quite well and let me assure you that the city itself is worth a prolonged stay. Being the political, cultural and economic centre of Poland, Warsaw has incredibly much to offer. septemberunderground

-- I'm a 100% Warsawer, I was born here and here I've spent almost 100% of my life. Ish_warsaw

[edit] Other issues

The history of Warsaw began before 1861, no? john 08:26 24 May 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Poles, Vandals, Germans

There are a lot of Polish nationalists on these pages, constantly removing the German names of former German cities. You should all have a look on this article: Connection between Poles and Vandals *chuckle* Heine 21:14, 9 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Warsaw being one of those, right?Halibutt 01:22, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Work in progress

I'm working on a new version of this page here: User:Halibutt/Warsaw. I'd appreciate any help from you. Halibutt 01:20, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Population wrong

On the Warsaw's wikipedia page, population is given as 2,269,000. I don't know where this data is taken from as I can't find any source that would confirm it. Actually, all the sources I checked give a number closer to 1,700,000.

On the official website of Warsaw in Polish language you can find population data for every separate district: http://um.warszawa.pl/v_syrenka/liczby/02.htm Overall, according to the website, Warsaw has 1,707,400 inhabitants.

Information on the English version of the official website is slightly out-of-date though. It provides the following numbers: Inhabitants- 1,63 million Inhabitants with suburbs -2,5 million

Apparently the value of 2,269,000 is with some suburbs included. But it is important to understand that there exists no unambigous criteria for determining which towns that surround Warsaw should be included in the sum and which should not. It is just an approximate number and definitely it shouldn't be called "population of Warsaw" as it is now in wikipedia.

Moreover, it seems that in the Historical Population table the number from 1990 is given without the suburbs (1990: 1,611,800), whereas the number from 2003 is given with surburbs included (2003: 2,269,000). I wonder why no one noticed that within 13 years population magically grew by over 600,000 people even though within previous decades it was growing by approximately 100,000 every 10 years :)

I suggest that the person responsible for the website confirms the number in the Municipal Office. The telephone numbers and e-mail addresses are given here (in English): http://www.e-warsaw.pl/ratusz/adres.htm

Keep up the good work with wikipedia!

Bye AK

You're right, since 1990 the population of Warsaw grew significantly. It was possible mostly due to the fact that many of the suburbs were swallowed recently (Białołęka, Wawer, Rembertów) and the sleeping areas (Ursynów, Bemowo) grew significantly. Halibutt 07:12, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] trolleybus

I've recently stumbled upon an account in which a soldier of the 1939 Defence War describes that the barricade he fough on was made of a broken trolleybus. This would mean that there were trolleybusses in Warsaw before WWII. Could anyone add some info or at least point me to some good source? [[User:Halibutt|Halibutt]] 00:40, Aug 26, 2004 (UTC)

"Following the Warsaw Act (Ustawa warszawska) of October 27, 2002 the head of the City Council is the president of Warsaw"

The posts of President of Warsaw and Chairman of the City Council are separate. The chairman is just one of the councilors - chosen by them and from among them. Such is the case in every city, Warsaw is not an exepction. Current chairman is Jan Maria Jackowski. user:Myszodorn 18 Dec 2004

[edit] Voting - Warschau/Warsaw

VOTING for WARSCHAU or Warsaw <-- That page is a vote to decide the usage of the name of Warschau/Warsaw--Schlesier 08:27, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Invitation to voting on a subpage to a user page!
 ;->>
--Ruhrjung 21:02, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] available pictures for use in wikipedia

Hi, I have some pictures of Warsaw (took them when I visited the town in april 2005)

they are now available at: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Deep750

[edit] Too many images

There are many very grand and beautiful images in this article. In fact, there are too many! I will remove a couple of duplicates, but please, let someone more familiar with the city than I am remove a few more. NatusRoma 19:32, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

I removed some pictures. I also threw out the image of Saxonian Garden from 1900, since it pictured the Russian church which denizens of Warsaw hated so much that they pulled it down as soon as Poland gained independence. No reason to use it as a symbol of Warsaw now.--SylwiaS | talk 14:13, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
There are still too many images in the article. I just had to remove one, because there was not enough text to support it -- it was spilling over, overlapping a template. Worse, nearly all of the included images depict palaces, etc. Isn't this a bit phony? Surely a more representative depiction of the city is warranted in an encyclopedia -- Wikipedia is not a tourist/propaganda brochure. As a native Varsovian, I share the pride in the city, and I realize the precious nature of its reconstructions. Just the same, let's have a little bit of detachment and objectivity is image selection here and in describing Warsaw to the world. --Mareklug talk 10:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Coat of Arms

hai guys,

just to mention it; the CoA you have in the article is different to the one of the offical website http://um.warszawa.pl/index.php (very small on the left) and as well different to the one on BIP http://www.bip.warszawa.pl/ ....Sicherlich Post 08:56, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

The CoA is the same, only the one used here is additionally decorated with the Virtuti Militari order. Warsaw received the order, so I think it's ok to use it.--SylwiaS | talk 14:17, 17 January 2006 (UTC)
See Coat of Arms of Warsaw for details, all is there. //Halibutt 10:35, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] We need a pic of a destroyed Warsaw in the hist section

Perhaps the Royal castle? Ksenon 16:56, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Do Polish football/soccer players need this prominence??

Famous football (soccer) players from Poland

  • Jacek Krzynowek, Poland's star football player
  • Pawel Janas, Polish football coach
  • Grzegorz Lato, Former Polish football player
  • Frankowski's, Present Polish star player
  • Poland's Ernst, Football player who scored 4 goals aginst Brazil
  • Jerzy Dudek (Liverpool); Tomasz Kuszczak (West Bromwich Albion); Jacek Bak (RC Lens), Michal Zewlakow (Anderlecht Brussels), Tomasz Rzasa (SC Heerenveen), Bartosz Bosacki (FC Nurnberg), Tomasz Hajto (FC Nurnberg); Mariusz Lewandowski (Shakhtar Donetsk), Jacek Krzynowek (Bayer Leverkusen), Kamil Kosowski (FC Kaiserslautern), Arkadiusz Radomski (SC Heerenveen); Andrzej Niedzielan (NEC Nijmegen), Grzegorz Rasiak (Derby County) are all football players from Poland
  • [[Jerzy Dudek], Polish goalkeeper


I've cleaned up this section, but wonder whether it really deserves this kinbd of prominence at this point in the article. Overall, I feel it's a rather trivial aspect of Warsaw's history. Thoughts? Delete? Move to bottom? Vivaverdi 22:55, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

  • No, of course not, esp. since that this list has nothing (or next to nothing) in common with Warsaw. agnus 15:35, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
Then we have two votes for removal; I'll go ahead and do that.

Vivaverdi 16:00, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The surviving Home Army fighters were rounded up by the NKVD and either murdered or deported to Siberia.

This statement is generally true, but there were no Home Army fighters in Warsaw 1945. Later rather the UB persecuted them. Something should be corrected. Xx236 08:13, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Warsaw

The history is getting rather long, I'd recommend creation of the subarticle. At the same time I'd suggest adding some inlince citations and DYKing the new article.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

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