Tri-Cities. What are the New Bourgeois waiting for?
The New Bourgeois - a vision of the contemporary identity of the Tri-City resident
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The Tricity is a point of contact and demarcation: the sea and the moraine, the estuary of the Vistula, the Kashubian hills passing into the flat depression of Zulawy - without seeing this three-dimensional version of vision, you will not understand the Tricity. According to Professor Cezary Obracht-Prondzyński - for me the greatest Kashubian sociological authority - you have to go to the Southern Ring Road and look from the flyover over the Motlawa River at St. Mary's Church as it rises from the flat terrain and confronts the massive moraine hills visible from that perspective. Seen this way, Gdansk is first and foremost an "in-between."
We have reached our time. Decades of gray-gray communism have arrived, which, however, was somehow better and more interesting in the Tri-City than inland Poland, because ships, because ferries to and from Sweden, because sailors from all over the world, because more colorful goods, because Baltona. Because the sea, which was always beautiful, because beaches, tourists.
Memories of that era exist and often do well. The Rose of the Winds in Gdynia - the iconic pub where we used to pick up sailors' wives as high school graduates in the 1980s - still operates unchanged and has the same charm as the equally iconic Stylish in Nowa Huta.
Gone is Maxim ("at Maxim's in Gdynia," sang Lady Pank in "Dance, Stupid Dance," a cool emanation of the vibe of the time). Fortunately, perhaps the most iconic Sopot SPATiF on Monciak Street survived. The Tri-City, in defiance of the commune, generates its own energy, the port's hood is reluctant to endure socialist repression. Once in Gdynia and once in Gdansk, anti-communist emotions are focused.
The Tri-City is again attracting world attention. It is again here that important things happen, events that change the world. This is no coincidence, in the DNA of this area is written "NAJ". That's why it was here that Janek Wisniewski fell and Lech Walesa flew over the fence. It was in the Tri-City that the giant communist monster was defeated. It was the Tri-City, Gdansk Solidarity that gave us the present: today's membership in NATO and the European Union, today's prosperity, freedom and prospects.
Seen from this point of view, the Tricity seems to be a place where great things simply happen, which, besides the body of the MIIWW, is also summed up by the building and exhibition of the ECS (European Solidarity Center, design: FORT).
The European Solidarity Center with an exhibition that summarizes well the role of the Tri-City and the Shipyard in the overthrow of communism, design: FORT
photo: Dominik Paszlinski
Sopot's naturally cultural resort, as defined in the city's strategy to take care of Sopot's nature and high culture, has remained true to certain standards and ideals, despite its excessive commercial success and the consequences associated with the fortunately seasonal problem of overtourism. If you don't like crowds, come to Sopot in the off-tourist season, turn down the side streets, and you'll find a good old-fashioned, intimate atmosphere.
The resort would not be an elite place without its Davos - so Sopot has its European Forum for New Ideas, passionately led by Henryka Bochniarz. For the rest of my life I will feel sentimental to both the place and the event - after all, it was here that Professor Jerzy Hausner and I announced the creation of Open Eyes Economy.
Resort-like, intellectual, tennis-playing, hippy, partying, cultural, snobbish, wealthy Sopot remains suspended between Gdynia and Gdansk, it is a kind of balance point between them, a connector and peacemaker, a place of contact. But this balance is not maintained - the larger Gdansk, sitting on its side of the seesaw, outweighs the smaller Gdynia, as if against its natural ambitions and character. The post-Germanness of the resort and the topography of the area, moreover, make it hold a closer bar with the former Danzig. That's why the two of them, Gdansk and Sopot, built their joint Ergo Arena arena (design: KIPP Projekt) on the border of the cities. They also often show together - cooperation is more intuitive in this field.
However, this incessant swing, on the other end of which Gdynia is swinging, is not a playground installation, but a very serious process shaping the power of the metropolis. What draws attention is a certain disruption of the known laws of physics: well, a younger and seemingly lighter Gdynia, like the famous flying bumblebee, does not know that it weighs less. Therefore, magically, this light Gdynia is able to swing quite effectively with the heavy Gdansk. It does just that like a bumblebee - this one doesn't know it's too heavy and has too small wings, so it flies as if against the laws of physics. Gdynia is young, dynamic, feisty, one of a kind, Gdynia still has that pre-war drive of its own and still plenty of unfired energy. My favorite Tri-City joke is the meme: "The Free City of Gdansk... and fast Gdynia."
So they are swinging these two cities on the G. And by swinging, they generate a lot of energy... This is consistent with my theory of the dynamic relationship of antagonisms - the most efficient engine is the one driven by two opposite poles kept in balance and dynamically swapping places.
For several years now, Tri-City cooperation with increasingly active participation of Gdynia has been growing better and better. For various reasons - one of them is certainly the regulations and access to funds for metropolitan development, another is the open discussion of the development of the entire urban complex, in which it is worth noting the increasing importance of Gdynia, in practice already joined: Wejherowo, Rumia, Reda, Bolszewo, Kosakowo, Gościcino... Counted in this way, Gdynia already has more than 400,000 inhabitants, so the swing really balances out.
