2.30 pm - 7.30 pm
EU-Border
Town: Küstrin (D)/Kostrzyn (PL)
Besondere europäische Grenzen – Bijzondere Europese grenzen – Special European borders – Les frontières européennes speziales – Fronteras europeas spezial – Granice europejskie specjalnie
Küstrin/Kostrzyn
(ca. 17.000 inhabitants at the Polish and ca. 3.000 at the German side) is
about 30 kilometres from Trebnitz away and the next border crossing-point that
we can easily reach by train. Not a real beauty and not the most exciting place
in the world, it is still worth visiting because of it´s history as a military
location and today´s role as a typical small border town between the rich (old)
and the poor (new) Europe.
If
you want to come along or if you have other plans to visit Poland, please do
not forget to bring your passport !! (Only German citizens are allowed to cross
the border only with an identy card. For non-EU-citizens there might be even
visa requirements. We will soon inform you about the details.)
Küstrin/Kostrzyn,
located at the rivers Oder and Warthe, once upon a time used to be a prosperous
German garrison town with a castle and a military fortress (one of the biggest
in Brandenburg in the 17th century). In the 18th century
it developed as an important traffic junction, at the end of the 19th
century it became a regional industrial centre, during the Nazi-regime it was
again home of important military buildings and the so called
“Deutschlandsiedlung”, until the town was almost completely destroyed (abou 90
percent of all buildings) during Second World War II. After the war and the new
border between Poland and the German Democratic Republic* the
divided town and it´s surroundings were declared a prohibited zone. Russian
troops moved into the left over barracks in Küstrin-Altstadt and stayed there
until 1991. Until 1954 railway workers were the only civilans allowed to live
there.
Since
1992 Küstrin/Kostrzyn is again a traffic junction between Poland and Germany
with it´s newly opened border crossing-points for trains, cars and pedestrians.
Unemployment in Kostrzyn is relatively low with 10,3 % compared to 18,9% in the
rest of the Wojewodschaft (the Polish word for county), while the social
and cultural infrastrucure is hardly developed. The town belongs to the so
called Special Economic Zone Kostrzyn-Slubice, that is trying to attract
foreign investors and businesses with low taxes and other facilities. Today the
largest employer is a Swedish owned paper factory, while a large part of the
population and people from all over Eastern Europe are trying to make a living
by selling cheap cigarettes, textiles, houshold items and local products like
sausages and handicrafts to mainly German tourists in a big border bazaar.
Another economic factor are bars, big supermarkets and and a thriving sex
industry, a very common phenomenon in all German-Polish border towns.
* According to the Potsdam Conference all former German regions east of
the rivers Oder and Neisse became part of Poland.