Project & Design
Gniezno Agency
for Economic Development

There are such places on the map of Europe whose exceptional history raised them to the rank of Symbol-cities. Gniezno is undoubtedly among them - city connected with the person of St. Adalbert and the Gniezno Gathering, city regarded as the cradle of Polish statehood.

Contemporary Gniezno set on picturesque hills, surrounded with many lakes and forests, covers the area of over 40 km2 and is inhabited by 72 thousand citizens. Tourist frequenting the Piast Route are welcome from far away by the proud towers of the Cathedral. Walking the central streets of the place which now is a centre of administrative district, we find monuments of the thousand years of history.

After Pope Sylvester 2nd had announced the decision of creating in Gniezno a church metropolis, coronation celebrations began taking place here. In the cathedral such rulers as Boleslaus the Brave (1025), Mieszko the Second (1025), Boleslaus the Generous (1076), Przemysl the Second (1295) and Vaclav the Second (1300) were crowned. Plundering raid of the Chec Prince Brzetyslav deprived the metropolis of its former grandeur. Kasimir the Restorer moved the capital to Crakow yet for many years the metropolis remained an important centre of religious cult and in the years 1419-1992 it had been the Primates' seat.

The Cathedral remains the heart of old and contemporary Gniezno - the temple with its famous twelfth-century Gniezno Door depicting the history of St. Adalbert's life, martyrdom and death and with the seventeenth-century silver sarcophagus holding his relics. In the Archdiocese Museum there are gathered precious collections of oldest pieces of writing including Pope Innocentis Bulla of 136 called the golden bulla of the polish language.

Apart from that, those who visit our city have opportunity to admire St. John's fourteenth-century church, gothic parish church and Franciscan church and monastery. The transformations of the political system after 1989 found their reflection in the change of the image of the image of the First Capital City. Renovated apartment houses with secession facades are getting back their former beauty, many sports facilities and industrial objects are being created, housing industry is being developed. Gniezno, located 50 km, away from Poznań, also aspires to the name of an academic centre. It is here where for four years Collegium Europaeum Gnesnense has been teaching students, Vocational Institute has been active for one year and non-public post secondary schools have been working for several years.

Two millenary celebrations reminded Europe of the prestige of the Piasts's Capital City. First, in the year 1997, Pope John Paul the Second came on pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Adalber and along with him there came presidents of Mid-Eastern countries of Europe. One thousand years after Otto the Third's visit to Gniezno Presidents and Prime Ministers of several European countries came here again. Oaks planted in the Valley of Reconciliation are a memento of those events. They are to symbolise the continuity and permanence of polish history, to be the expression of consolidation of the idea of United Europe and, finally, to refer to the popular legend about the creation of the city, the main characters of which are three brothers, Lech, Cech and Rus. The Holy Father, John Paul the Second, added splendour to the city visiting it also during his first pilgrimage to his homeland in the year 1979. The citizens of the city are also proud of their culture centres such as Aleksander Fredro Theatre and the museum of the Beginnings of the Polish State.

In the closets neighbourhood of the Piast Capital City there are places worth not only of the historians' attention. Driving to Gniezno from the direction of Poznań, in Łubowo we pass a baroque wooden church of 1660 and going towards Toruń, in Trzemeszno we come across a basilica whose beginnings go back as far as 12th century. Lednogóra, one of the largest open-air museums in Europe is situated in Gniezno Land. It is also worh to visit the island on Lednickie Lake where one can find remains of a medieval stronghold with the ruins of the Piast princes' abode. On the route of trips in the vicinity of Gniezno one can admire a classicist palace in Czerniejewo.

All these places have been inspiring the renowned Gniezno artist-photographer Mirosław Skrzypkowski for years. Streets, sacral buildings, sometimes natural phenomena in the background of picturesque architecture caught in the frame, show the unique beauty of Gniezno and its adjacent villages as if the author wanted to say proudly: "This is our little homeland". Presented exhibition is a sequence of fifty photographs. As to the technique of artistic expression it is an attractive combination of tradition and modernity.