Truskavets. Poland in miniature

- Aj, how happy you are! It only bounces to me a rotten egg ...

Such a conversation, conducted by two ordinary patients, was recorded in 1928 by Jan Tadeusz Wróblewski. He was a first-class joker and satirist, but in this particular case he swore to be one hundred percent authentic. After all, he was not in a cabaret or on vacation, but - on a reporter's mission.

Terrible journey, poor accommodation

The editors of "Lowiczanin" sent him to the other end of Poland, to the town of Truskavets, a few kilometers from Drohobycz. The fifty-year-old with a cut feather was supposed to finally decide what is also so special in the town, which suddenly became one of the most important health resorts in Central Europe.

It was certainly not about convenient access. We pass a large piece of Polish soil on a fast train to reach Truskavets from Warsaw after thirteen hours. A lot of time, a lot of money is needed - recalled another reporter, Aniela Chmielińska. Comfort could not be decisive either, because it was simply out of the question at the end of the twenties.

Truskavets was the most famous Polish resort in the interwar period (author:Nick Kropivnickiy, license:CC BY-SA 4.0).

The journalist warned that the trains to Truskavets were constantly overcrowded. The unmerciful crowd also reigned in the place. It was difficult to catch a cab at the station, and in the spa itself - to rent any accommodation.

I have been in Truskavets for four days (...). The congress here is such that a dozen or so people come back a day without being able to find a room. I wanted to do the same, but where was I supposed to go back? - told in 1927 the famous actress and director of the Lublin theater, Stanisław Wysocka. - I agreed to take a room with a lady to look for something. It took four days to search, four nights sleepless, because this lady (...) turned out to be a snoring trumpet of Jericho. I was already in ashen despair, until today I found myself in a tiny cubicle - but my own.

Much bad could also be said about the location of Truskavets. Irena Krzywicka, who spent her honeymoon in Eastern Lesser Poland, remembered it from a poor cottage, mean food, screaming poverty and the syphilis epidemic. Admittedly, the place of a (not very) romantic getaway was Yaremche, not Truskavets, but from the perspective of a Varsovian it did not matter. The entire region around Lviv and Stanisławów appeared to be a deep, inaccessible province.

Dangerous neighborhood…

Jan Tadeusz Wróblewski added that this is an area of ​​constant boiling over the national background. Ukrainians demanded real autonomy and even their own statehood. Groups of extreme nationalists were ready to use weapons in the name of these ideals. In the opinion of the journalist, the conflict must have finally escalated to new "haidamak terms". And it really happened - in three years the victim of the famous attack organized in Truskawiec, the Sanacja politician and member of the parliament, Tadeusz Hołówko, will fall victim.

Tadeusz Hołówko (first from the right) was killed in an attack in Truskavets in 1931 (source:public domain).

Finally, even the landscapes gave reasons to complain. Half-jokingly, Anna Chmielińska said: We see in Truskawiec what rheumatism causes, how much it distorts people, how it distorts, how it gives lines, especially legs, ugly. These are not legs anymore, but logs:rather like billiard legs .

… but what water!

There were a lot of contraindications. And yet - Truskavets was bursting at the seams. Two reasons were enough to make it a spa Mecca. The first was water. Not one but a whole range of springs with healing properties have been discovered in the city.

The water flowing out of each of them was attributed to different but always miraculous properties. First of all, mention should be made of the famous and nowhere to be found »Naftusia«, which is unique in terms of its chemical composition, unmatched in kidney and urinary tract diseases - explained in 1938 the daily Ilustrowana Republika.

Healing water pump room in Truskavets, present appearance (author:Andrew Butko, license:CC BY-SA 3.0).

Truskavets also boasted about "Bronisława" treating diseases of the throat and nose, "Zofia" recommended in liver ailments and constipation, and finally "Józia" - described as highly radioactive . Advertisements of the resort left no doubt:two weeks in Truskavets and you will get rid of every, even the most stubborn ailment!

No wonder that Jan Tadeusz Wróblewski jokingly warned readers against too effective spas. For example, rubbing strawberry water into the eyelids could result in a shocking "look at the eyes". And, for example, noticing that my wife has found a lover in this idyllic, tourist scenery ...

Who hasn't been here!

There would be no Truskavets without water. But the company seemed to be more important than the kerosene-smelling cloudy liquid. Who came to Truskavets? It would be easier to say who did not come, because the town near Drohobycz quickly became Poland in miniature.

After the May coup, the deposed president, Stanisław Wojciechowski, cured there. After a hard stay in the Brest Fortress and several years of exile in Czechoslovakia, Wincenty Witos was treated with "naphtha". Józef Piłsudski used to travel to Truskavets, and for weeks his ministers and associates:Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski, Stanisław Tsar ...

Truskavets medicinal water drinkers:Stanisław Tsar, Wincenty Witos, Józef Piłsudski, Kazimierz Sosnkowski, Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski (source:public domain).

For Bruno Schulz, the spa town was one of his greatest literary inspirations. Zofia Nałkowska experienced one of her romances here. Jan Kiepura was strolling along the beautiful green promenades with his fiancée and future Miss Polonia, Zofia Batycka.

Ordinary Poles, priests and simple Jews walked the same paths. Even foreigners used to say that Truskavets is better than Karlsbad . And maybe it was. Because it was here, and not in Warsaw, Kraków or Poznań, that it was easiest to learn what the Second Republic of Poland actually is.

Willa Goplana in Truskavets (author:Gagan777, license:CC BY-SA 4.0).

Smell of sulfur, taste of money

The health resort in Truskavets already existed in the 19th century, although no one had any particular hopes for the local waters. The town's infrastructure changed hands. First, it belonged to the Austrian authorities, then to a company of Jewish businessmen, and finally - to a cooperative of Polish aristocrats headed by Prince Adam Sapieha.

Successive owners earned their money on the extraction of ozokerite (earth wax) rather than on the patients. The latter were from a few hundred to no more than two thousand a year. It was only in 1911, when Rajmund Jarosz took over the management of Truskawiec, that the spa really came to life. In the mid-1930s, there were over 220 hotels, villas and guesthouses visited by nearly twenty thousand people a year.

Rajmund Jarosz (on the right) with Ignacy Daszyński (on the left) in Truskawiec (source:public domain).

Special spa waterworks and "bathrooms" were created, in which patients had up to six hundred baths a day. The greatest pride of the interwar Truskavets, however, was the enormous salt and sulfur pool on the Measurements. It was 6,400 square meters in area, and according to one of the guides, the area was charming corners of a sea beach.

Thanks to Jarosz, Truskavets has become one of the most exclusive and at the same time the most affordable resorts in Europe. He himself, on the other hand, from a penniless man endowed with a vision, became one of the great croeses of the interwar period.

Bibliography:

The article is based on information from Stanisław Niciea's book Kresowa Atlantyda (vol. 2, MS Publishing House 2013) and from the memoirs of Irena Krzywicka ( Confessions of a scandalous person , Czytelnik 2013), and above all - based on materials from the interwar press (including "Łowiczanin", "Ilustrowana Republika", "Advocate", "Dziennik Łódzki", "Mirrored Daily Kuryer", "Czas").