Golędzinów

Jurydyka-type settlement – areas included grounds of the Praga III estate, the northern part of the Zoological Gardens, the areas of Starzyński route and partially Śliwice.

First mention of the Golędzinów village comes from 1387. It was established under the Chełmno charter. Golędzinów was a village with a tannery settlement, and famous for women of ill repute. In the 15th and 16th centuries it was a village belonging to knights and nobility neighbouring with the Praga township. After 1764 it came under the king’s jurisdiction when King Stanisław August Poniatowski acquired the Golędzinów village and lands. The king had planned for it to be a Jewish township, of which the grounds of the Jewish cemetery in Bródno (the old Golędzinów Fortress grounds) still remain today. King Stanisław August Poniatowski also gifted to the Evangelical Germans two blocks of land that were in the jurydyka under his jurisdiction for the building of an Evangelical church and cemetery. In 1770 the main part of Golędzinów together with Praga and Skaryszew were encircled by the Lubomirskie Wały, and in 1791 under the provisions of the 3 May Constitution (the towns charter) it was incorporated into Warsaw. Thirteen tanneries existed within King’s Golędzinów in 1792. The jurydyka-style settlement was substantially destroyed in 1794 during the storming and slaughter of Praga by General Suvorov’s army. Its original urban plan and dwellings had not been reconstructed. In the 19th century the Golędzinów grounds were partially designated for the building of Fort Śliwicki and were within the Citadel’s esplanade. In 1859 the tsar authorities did not keep their earlier promise and closed down the Golędzinów cemetery. It was located in an area where Praga II estate and the Zoological Gardens are today. Historic Golędzinów was a place where the most famous views of Warsaw’s left bank were created in the 17th and 18th centuries, of which the most impressive panorama by Canaletto topped the list.