Poland's Baltic Coast [antikvár]

One of several seagoing ferries regularly sailing to and from Ystad is now docking at Swinoujscie. Cars roll off and people spill on shore. For many this will be their first contact with Poland. They are greeted by what appears to be a typical industrial seacoast, much like hundreds of other ports, except perhaps for the unusual abundance of greenery. The Odra is a navigable waterway which originates beyond the Czechoslovak frontier. Its waters, sailed by barges carrying industrial goods and crops from Silesia, Great Poland and adjacent regions of the Germán Democratic Republic, flow into an extensive bay, separated from the sea by the islands of Uznam and Wolin. Between these two islands we find the broad mouth of Poland's busiest river. Stretching along the ancient forested shores of the bay is the growing complex of towns, port facilities and industrial plants of Poland's second largest maritime centre. Beside the ferry dock where cars bearing Scandinavian license plates are embarking on their first excursion to Poland, the landscape is dominated by the conveyors, cranes and cargo piers of the Port of Swinoujscie. These facilities serve scores of bulk-cargo ships as well as thousands of barges and freight trains. Through this port Polish coal makes its way into the world; here, too, raw materials are brought for the production of chemical fertilizers in the recently built and constantly expanding plánt at nearby Police, situated along the Szczecin-Swinoujscie waterway. One alsó finds here a foundry which turns the ore shipped in from afar into iron; there are alsó numerous chemical, metál and machine factories, as well as major frozen-food and fish-processing plants. But above all, this is the home ofthe Szczecin Shipyards which turn out modern, automated vessels for Poland, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany and other countries. All these facilities go to form an immense sea-oriented industrial complex. The expansion of industry and navigation is paralleled by the development of the úrban centres of Szczecin and Swinoujscie as well as smaller towns such as Kamién Pomorski, Goleniów, Trzebiez and Police. Much of Poland's success on the Baltic Sea and the prosperity of the inhabitants of this region is the result of what has been accomplished along the bay and the mouth of the Odra. Aside from industrial facilities and settlements these lands abound in mementoes of past glory and struggle. The ancient churches, castles and fortified towers of Szczecin and Kamién Pomorski recall the times of Slav princes, knights, explorers and pirates. The remnants of old, fortified settlements date from an even earlier epoch. And then there are the vast expanses of fields and forests... This is a landscape typical of an industrial-maritime country, more bountifully endowed by nature than is generally the case. Such is the first impression of most visitors who first arrive by ferry and set foot on Wolin Island on the bank of the busy Swina river. This is alsó the land that centuries ago gave birth to the greatest sea power on the Baltic. The site of today's Swinoujscie, Wolin and Kamién Pomorski was once the largest maritime centre of the ancient Slavs,