What to say about Lwów–there is so much! I have other blog posts and other folders of pictures devoted to the Lychakiv Cemetery and to some of the churches we visited. But the city itself is quite interesting, and this post is devoted to the various pictures I took in and around the center of Lwów. You can see those pictures here: http://poland.leonkonieczny.com/Poland%202011/Lwów/index.html
Historically, Lwów ( L’viv in Ukrainian) was one of the main Polish and Jewish cultural centers of Poland. Before World War II, Poles and Jews made up the vast majority of the inhabitants of Lwów . But after the war and the Polish populaton was “relocated, ” and, of course, the Jewish population was wiped out by the German Nazis. Sad but true.
The city of Lwów is not much changed from after the war. Many of the old roads and buildings survived, as you can see in my pictures. I won’t go into a lot of the history of Lwów , you can do that by reading for yourself here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lviv. But I will cover some of the highlights of my pictures, starting from the beginning, our entry into Lwów .
Ukraine is a very poor country. The roads and buildings of Lwów give testament to that fact. But still, it’s a beautiful and vibrant city. We got to Lwów in the middle of the day and had a chance to look around, once we’d settled into our apartment. The downtown area is full of people and quite alive.
The opera house and the downtown square area were full of people on a nice Saturday afternoon. One thing of great note is the tall monument to the Polish poet, Adam Mickewicz. I learned firsthand from Alicja the significance of Mickiewicz. The monument to him is a very powerful reminder of the place he has in Polish history and in the soul of what it means to be Polish.
As we were walking around, we came upon some women dressed in traditional Ukrainian garb. Very cool.
I would characterize Lwów as a somewhat modern city that has an old and somewhat in need of repair infrastructure. But Ukraine (today) is a new country. When we were there, they were celebrating only their 20th anniversary of independence (from the former Soviet Union). So they have a ways to go. It is modern, but in need of some infrastructure update. But they are working on it.
Later in the day we decided to go to the central Lviv Rail Terminal. The road we took to get there was undergoing a major renovation. But the Terminal itself is quite amazing. At one point Alicja took me to a sort of alcove that she had visited as a child. At that time there had been a statue of Lenin there….today that statue has “disappeared.”
Later we took a cab from the Terminal to the top of the hill overlooking Lwów. Long ago there was a castle/fortification here, but it was long ago destroyed and never rebuilt. Still the view was spectacular. Unfortunately, photos cannot do it justice, but I shall never forget that view, it was awesome.
I could write about Lwów and talk about Lwów for days. The time we spent there was very special, very wonderful. But I hope you can get some sense of that from my pictures. Enjoy!
