lost history

Along the banks of the Strzyza, back in the 18th century, plenty of breweries started to appear, using the fast-flowing water force of the creek. Created right next to it, ponds were a valuable source of industrial water and ice. Besides the breweries, monks built along the creek water-powered grain mills, sawmills, grinding mills, etc. For Nobel prize-winner Gunter Grass the brewery pond was a playscape of youth, which he describes in his books. The area of the pond was a village enclave in the city centre. In the pond people used to fish and Gdansk’s youth bathed in it. Children played in the thicket between the pond and the creek. The smell of fermenting yeast and processed malt hung in the air, and the brewery buildings dominated the area, like some large, medieval castle.

In 1972 the first of the Pepsi-Cola bottling plants began to be erected. Gierek’s vision of opening Poland’s economy to Western Europe meant the imminent destruction of the playscapes of the Strzyza. Gierek was a Polish communist politician who is known for opening communist Poland to Western influence. In a short time, an aluminium hall for Pepsi replaced the icehouse. The pond and its banks became in-accessible. The greater part of the Strzyża disappeared inside a tunnel. When Pepsi started production, the carts disappeared, replaced by the smell of exhaust fumes from Pepsi delivery cars. And so, with capitalism and the idea of opening towards the international economy, the playscapes around the brewery pond disappeared. Today, a huge shopping centre was built on the dried bed of the brewery pond.

16: Strzyza in 1807: Water basins built by monks served the development of the city. They used its fast flowing current to produce goods; Fig. 17: Strzyza in 2022: Most of the surface water has been canalised and placed underground, because of intensive urbanisation of the city. The reminding from 1807 buildings are marked black.