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… 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… 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… 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…