The Lost Urzecze

The Olęders were innovators and skillful drainage engineers reclaiming wastelands on the banks of the Vistula river n Warsaw, who arrived here from the Netherlands in the 17th century. They were living in Urzecze - a region lost to human memory, in perfect symbiosis with nature, only a few kilometers from the city centre. The Olęders used fertile alluvial soils the Vistula river brought along with floods. Theirfields yielded spectacular crops: delicious vegetables, fruit, cereal with abundant sheaves and grains. Today you will not meet them anymore during a walk or bike trip. Their traditional farms no longer exist here. They abandoned them in 1945 before the Red Army’s offensive, never to return to Urzecze again…