The centre of the city is the Ostrów Marketplace. Today it is quite a peaceful area, with almost no traffic; there are no more markets or fairs. It comes to life during occasional events and anniversary celebrations. It was the busiest during the Town Festival on the 10th of November and the December gala “ Burn a light above us” organised by the Association “The Ostrowians for the Children of Special Care”. Big crowds also gathered in September 1999 and in September 2000 at the start of stage IV of the cycling race “Tour de Pologne”.

It is best to start sightseeing Ostrów from the visit to The Town Museum, which is easy to find, as it located in the Town Hall in the middle of the Marketplace. The building was designed in 1828 by J.H. Haeberlin /co-worker of the famous K.F. Schinkl/ - ordered by the then owner of the town, duke Antoni Radziwiłł. Unfortunately, after alterations only fragments of its original features have been retained. The permanent exhibition in the museum illustrates the past of Ostrów; the displays of different historical periods are often changed. The monthly jazz concerts in the series: “Jazz in the Museum” and a yearly jazz festival are the events in which the most outstanding musicians from Poland and abroad take part. The Museum and a group of artists from the Teachers` Club organise, International Biennial Exhibition of Little Graphic Form and Ex-libris, already recognised in the world. It also possesses its own collection in the Chamber of Graphic Arts. It has also made a few dozen publications for “Biblioteka Ostrowska”.(The Ostrów Library).

A few dozen metres from the Marketplace, in Królowej Jadwigi Street, there is a former evangelical church, which is one of the oldest preserved buildings in town (the year 1778). It is a trace of an evangelical commune which assembled, in the 19th century, one third of the residents of Ostrów. Next to the church a school was built / presently Primary School no 4/.

 



Branching off the Marketplace is Kaliska Street. In the yard of the tenement house no 4 a fragment of the mayor`s house is featured, with an oval with engraved the owner`s initials “KHG” and the date “1797”. The street is distinguished by few stylish tenement houses from the turn of the 19th and the 20^th centuries. 

To the right of Kaliska Street there is Sądowa Street. The court building from 1863, extended in the years between the WW I and the WW II is situated in it.  Well visible from the distance is a neo-Roman church /from the years 1905-1907/ erected according to the design of Sylwester Pajzderski, modified by Roger Sławski. Inside it a polychromy by Henryk Jackowski /1929/ and sculptures by Władysław Marcinkowski and Marcin Rożek. By the church /now con-cathedral/ - a statue of cardinal Mieczysław Halka-Ledóchowski, an archbishop for the Gniezno and Poznań diocese, commemorating his imprisonment in the Ostrów jail in the times of Kulturkampf /the years 1874-1876/. His first statue erected in the year 1925 was pulled down by the nazis. The present one was unveiled solemnly in the year 1984 by Primate Józef Glemp.

Behind the church – the Catholic House – a centre of Polish culture and tradition in the years of annexations.  A plaque on its wall reminds of the events connected with the Wielkopolskie Uprising. Another plaque commemorating the same events is placed on a building in a small square, named after Stefan Rowiński, a meritorious publisher, bookseller and patriotic activist.

This is where Gimnazjalna Street begins, and in the old building of catholic school /from the year 1836/ there is the Youth Culture House. Farther, 1st Secondary General Education School, which continues traditions of the Grammar School, founded in the year 1845 and called “ The Wielkopolska School of National Education” . Pupils and teachers confirmed their patriotism with a sacrifice of their lives, and their names were placed on the plaques in the hall. Many graduates of the school found their way to the cards of history.

The street which intersects with Gimnazjalna street is named after Priest Kompałła, an initiator and co-founder of the said Grammar School. Behind the crossing, already in Wysocka street on the left, attention is attracted by a modern building of Social Insurance Institution. On the right, placed farther from the street, a historic “Old Cemetery” spreads behind a brick wall. Founded before the year 1784, it belongs to the oldest preserved Roman-catholic cemeteries in Poland. Many gravestones remind of people meritorious for the town; there are also some names of historic figures. Among them are: Reverend Jan Kompałła – the initiator of founding of the Grammar School, veterans of uprisings from years 1830/31, 1848, 1863, 1918-1919. Tombs, graves, wrought gratings and crosses have great artistic value.

Behind the cemetery – built in the years between the WW I and the WW II, there is Edward Estkowski school. This meritorious pedagogue worked in the nearby Mikstat in the years 1943-1844.

  

 

At the Bankowy Square two original – completely different in style – buildings housing financial institutions: an edifice of the Polish Bank / presently WBK/, erected in the years 1928-1930 and the other from the year 1992, housing PKO S.A.. The latter is bordered on by the building of the 2nd Secondary General Education School, which was originally a girls` school .

Nearby, at 42 and 44 Wrocławska Street a visitor`s attention is attracted by coat of arms shields over the gates to the tenement houses. There lived a writer Gustaw Bojanowski, the author of novels “Tydzień w Antoninie” (“A week in Antonin”) about Fryderyk Chopin`s stay with duke Antoni Radziwiłł and “Rękopis dla wnuków” (“ A Manuscript for the grandchildren”) and “Śladem wędrownika” (“Tracing the Wanderer”) about Adam Mickiewicz.

Heading for the centre we pass, in Wrocławska Street, the building of the former starost (head of the administrative district), /nowadays the seat of insurance institutions/. Just before reaching the Marketplace, it is worth dropping in the Art Gallery BWA / presently the District Gallery of Contemporary Art. Apart from presenting individual exhibitions of most famous artists and fine-art Photographers this is the place where the Nationwide Salon of Art “Egeria”, the International Biennial of Photography in Special Techniques and Digital Processing of Picture “Remis” are organised.

On the left from Wrocławska Street leads Kolejowa Street, partly excluded from wheel traffic. A nice piece of architecture is a building of Post Office from 1886 situated in it.

 

At the crossing of Kolejowa and Wolności Streets we head for the right. We can see the building of Technikum Kolejowe (Secondary School of Railway Industry), a school which for over half a century has established traditions of Ostrów as “a town of railwaymen” . In Wolności street there is an important centre of cultural life of the town – Przedsiębiorstwo Imprez Kulturalnych “Centrum Ostrów” Ltd. (Cultural Events Company Ltd). This is the building of “The Town Theatre” erected at the beginning of the 20th century, presently being developed. Numerous sections and teams of interest keep people busy all the year round; a lot of occasional and entertainment events as well as serial ones like Festival “Everything is Poetry” or “Jimmi Way” the Blues Festival take place here.

The theatre borders on the former “Shooting gallery” erected in the second half of the 19th century on the grounds belonging to Bractwo Kurkowe (Shooters` Guild). Today it is the seat of the Town Public Library.

Behind the “Shooting gallery” grows the towering St Anthony Church. The works were begun in the year 1938, according to the design by Franciszek Morawski; but finished only after the second world war. Behind the crossing – the edifice of secondary general education schools opened in the year 1954, and on the other side of Raszkowska street a modern digester house of an over 150 year old brewery reminds of old traditions of brewing beer in the town .

Heading back for the Marketplace we meet a synagogue from the years 1857-1960, peculiar among the town buildings. This is one of the few remains /together with the modernised – unfortunately ! –neighbouring building of the former school/ of the Jewish quarter. In the middle of the 19th century the Jews constituted about 30% of the population of the town. At the turn of 19^th and 20^th centuries a number of architecturally interesting tenement houses were erected in Raszkowska street, not all of which having lost their decor though converting the shops changed their elevations.

To get to know the centre of the town we have to walk, but things worth seeing situated on the outskirts can be reached by car, as there are no traffic limitations such as one way streets and the like.

 
One can start from Powstanców Wielkopolskich Avenue (Wielkopolska Insurgents Avenue) where the seats of the town and district authorities are located. On the other side Town Park with the amphitheatre, a place of numerous events and gatherings of the town inhabitants. Farther, the modernly equipped “Komeda” cinema, frequently showing premieres. The name of the cinema refers to the famous composer and jazz musician Krzysztof Komeda-Trzciński who lived and took his secondary school final examinations in Ostrów. For a few years the opening concert of the International Festival “Chopin in the colours of autumn” has taken place in the hall of the “Komeda”. Culture Centre. The event is then continued in the Hunter`s Palace of the Radziwiłł dukes in Antonin, a village near Ostrów. In the year 1999 the event took place for the 18^th time.

Next, Powstańców Wielkopolskich Avenue leads to the Town Stadium . Speedway competition always gather an audience of thousands and “Iskra” Speedway Society continues over half a century long traditions of this sport in the town. Behind the stadium, in Paderewskiego Street spreads a sport complex with an outdoor swimming pool. The oldest sports club “Ostrovia”, meritorious for the town was founded in the year 1909. Going along Śmigielskiego Street we shall reach Primary School no 3 and Lower Secondary School no 2 whose buildings are distinguished by modern architectural concepts . This is where big choral events take place, like The Nationwide Survey of Teachers` Choirs ZNP. Ostrów has rich traditions concerning choirs dating from the 19^th century.

Going along Strażacka and Witosa Streets, and then Grabowska Street / by Primary School no 5 - one of a few new gymnasiums built at Ostrów schools in recent years/, and farther along Kaliska and Kusocińskiego Streets we shall reach the buildings of “Stal” Sports Club, active from the year 1947. Nowadays, “Stal” basketball team playing in national Division One reached top popularity. Since autumn 1999 they have had a modernised and enlarged hall always packed to capacity with spectators.

Right of Kaliska Street leads Limanowskiego Street. At it – right before the crossing with Słowackiego Avenue – a modernised building of the old hospital reminds of the approaching 150th anniversary of opening a hospital in Ostrów. Today, the building houses the Complex of Medical Schools. Behind the crossing the new hospital, opened in the year 1966, is situated.

Going farther along Limanowskiego Street we pass a cemetery /popularly known as “new” . There is a grave with Wielkopolska insurgents, also the ones who were murdered by the Nazis in Winiary by Kalisz /corpses were exhumed after the war/. Reverend Jan Ziemski – a legendary figure of the Ostrów scouting was buried there. Going farther ahead Limanowskiego Street one can reach Wenecja suburb and see a stone with a plaque which commemorates arising, in the year 1918, the School Sports Club “Venetia”, that assembled the Poles-pupils of the local grammar school.

Close by the town borders, by the reservoir built in the years 1974-78 spread Piaski-Szczygliczka recreation grounds. Ostrowians like sunbathing on the beach and taking part in popular events organised here. It is about 5 km from here to Michałków, with an airfield of the Ostrów Aeroclub. This is where not only aerial events, including championships take place, but also the Family Gala /on the 3rd of May bank holiday/.

 

We return to Ostrów along Limanowskiego Street, and turning right into Reymonta Street near the cemetery we reach two industrial plants significant for the town. One of them is Wielkopolskie Zakłady Sklejek S.A.(Wielkopolska Plywood Factory plc) existing from the year 1912. The other is Delphi Automotive Systems Poland Ltd – a manufacturer of automotive parts. Going along Wodna, Spichrzowa, Krotoszyńska Streets and then Dworcowa Street we shall reach the coach station and then railway station. The coach station was rebuilt in the year 1990 and now there is a roofed platform for 15 bays. The railway station, thoroughly rebuilt in the after-war years, reminds that Ostrów is an important railway link, and the opening of the first railway line in the year 1875 became, at the turn of centuries, a factor determining rapid growth of the town. From the railway station, Towarowa Street leads to Sybiraków Roundabout, from here along Odolanowska and Kopernika Streets we shall reach a complex of blocks of flats built on the grounds of the former nazis` labour camp /in the years 1842-43/. This is reminded about by a plaque on one of the blocks.

Heading for the right, into Kościuszki Street we pass barracks in which in the years between WW I and WW II the 60^th Regiment of Infantry was stationed. It took part in the Polish-Bolshevik war, and in the battles in September 1939.

Behind the pressure tower spread two parks: Adam Mickiewicz Park and the most picturesque of all Ostrów parks – the May 3rd Park. Passing the latter we shall reach Wrocławska Street just opposite Fabryka “Wagon” SA. The factory returned to its former name from the year 1920, when it became the largest industrial plant of the region.

From here, heading for Puławskiego Street, to the right, going along Wysocka and Paderewskiego Streets, we shall reach Powstańców Wielkopolskich Avenue just in front of the Town Offices.

 

----
Wojciech Suszycki


Photos:
Cezary Janiszewski
City Hall's Archive in Ostrów Wielkopolski