Exploring An Old Fortress

January 08, 2022

Yesterday was another urban exploring day. I found a smiley on the map of Warsaw and I decided to check it out. It was about 6 km from our apartment, so it should’ve taken me a bit more then an hour of walk. And it did.

I took road 580 West, I almost walked till Wola Park where we usually do our grocery shopping — till now we only walked there once, but now I realized what a luxury is to drive there; it’s only an hour of walk to get there. I said almost got to the grocery store, it’s because I had to turn North. In a few ten minutes I arrived to a place that was quite familiar. It was a market that we visited almost three months ago. At that time I thought that market was the end of the city. Further North we some butchered wooden weekend houseish things with small gardens. It was most certainly not the most touristy part of Warsaw. And I was supposed to go straight thru it. I walked past Butcherland and a highway and I’ve ended up on a street with barbed fences on both sides. Thankfully it was only a few minutes walk on that street, soon I arrived to a typical gated-society. Huge beautiful apartment blocks, nice cars in front of them, all surrounded by huge walls. From here I only had to walk literally two minutes till I got to the spot. As it turned out what I saw as a smile on the map was a fort built around 1890. It was surrounded by water, the buildings were covered with soil. It really looked like a hilly pound instead of a fort.

I walked thru the water — on a bridge — and climbed the first hill. When I got on the top of it I realized it was not a hill, it was a building undercover and I was standing right next to its chimney. I walked down and walked around the front of the building. I could look inside, and there were huge rooms, fireplaces, and huge graffitis. As I walked a bit further I found a a door. By this time an elder British couple arrived, and based on eye-contact-trust we entered the building — you know what I mean by eye-contact-trust, when you both know you’re about to do some sketchy shit and agree on having each others back without saying a word.

So we entered the building, and walked thru every single room of it. The first room was quite empty except the fireplace, the second one was a bit more interesting, there was a chair and a bed next to the fireplace. Someone was definitely sleeping there. And the funniest thing is that room was the cleanest of all. Right next to the bed — it wasn’t really a bed it was like 3 yoga matrices on top of each other — was also a dustpan. It made me wonder what if we used these old buildings to accommodate homeless people — until they take care of their place. Would it work? Maybe. The only reason against it was if they didn’t take care of the building it could end up in ruins a bit earlier than if it was empty.