Seeing Double – The Toponymic Terror of Olsztyn & Olsztynek (Poland & Berlin #33)

Olsztyn and Olsztynek, I am still having trouble with the naming convention. One a city and the other a town, their names look and sound too much alike. It is exceedingly hard not to get them confused with one another. Interestingly, their German names are also somewhat similar. Olsztyn is Allenstein and Olsztynek is Hohenstein. The two places are the Siamese Twins of town names. They are joined at the hip and separated by only a suffix. A closer look reveals differences in population and economy. Olsztyn has a population 23 times the size of Olsztynek. The former is a regional economic center, the latter has much to recommend it for such a small town. A castle, museum, and some horrible 20th century history. Unfortunately, Olsztynek is an afterthought for all but its inhabitants and a handful of rabid history buffs. For me, Olsztynek will never be forgotten due to the confusion caused by the similarity of its name to Olsztyn.

Roundabout – Going In Circles

For anyone who does not speak a bit of Polish, the names Olsztyn and Olsztynek are difficult to distinguish from one another. I know this from experience. Each time I saw a road sign pointing the way to Olsztynek, all I could think of was Olsztyn. Each time I saw a road sign pointing the way to Olsztyn, all I could think of was Olsztynek. Me and my travel companion stayed in Olsztyn for several days. We went to and through Olsztynek twice, both on the same day. My impression of Olsztynek, with one notable exception, was not lasting. My impressions of Olsztyn will stay with me for years to come. There was a great deal of history and architecture to see in Olsztyn. There was one thing we wanted to see in Olstynek because it had almost completely vanished.

The fact that Olsztyn and Olsztynek are a mere 27 kilometers (17 miles) apart further served to muddle matters. The two places can seem much closer together than distance allows. On roundabouts, I did doubletakes as one and then the other would appear on directional signs for different turnoffs. This was like traveling in the twilight zone as multiple roads led back to the same place or so those place names made me believe. Olsztyn/Olsztynek on the roundabout was a form of circular road reasoning that threatened to bring us back to where we started. In an era of Google Maps and GPS systems without a large, hard copy of a map the confusion was chronic. Since I had been the one who planned this trip into provincial Poland, my travel companion assumed I knew where we were going. I did know where we were headed, in circles.

Location Services – Failure To Compute

There was a cure for this seemingly superficial travel typo before it led to madness. A road map. This artifact of the pre-digital age would alleviate confusion. I vowed to purchase one at the nearest petrol station. This just so happened to be in Olsztynek. Pulling in to the station I had visions of those wonderful racks filled with maps at Hungarian petrol stations. I have been compulsively purchasing maps of central and eastern European countries at those stations for years. I imagined something much the same would greet me when I walked inside the station in Olsztynek. I found myself leaving empty-handed. The station did not have any road maps on offer. How could I have been so stupid? Mapping is now the preserve of smart phones. Never mind the squinting while trying to locate Olsztyn, Olsztynek and the road between them on the same screen.

A lack of road maps at Polish petrol stations left me perplexed. There were still quite a few people who found them useful. Some prefer a single piece of antiquated technology rather than the latest and greatest technologies. I am one of those rare species who prefers both. Digital maps for directions, hard copies to gain the widest perspective possible. Maybe road maps are just a Hungarian thing in Eastern Europe, but I would like to think otherwise. One of the reasons I would later purchase an actual paper map was the whole Olsztyn/Olsztynek saga. There was only so much of this toponymic terror a grown man could tolerate.

Thankfully, maps were not the only way to distinguish between the two places. Visiting both was by far the best way to understand their differences. A closer look makes their differences more apparent as I would find out while looking for traces of the Battle of Tannenberg in and around each of them.?Olsztyn was the base I chose for me and my travel companion to visit the scattered remnants of the battle. It was not far from the center of the conflict. Olsztynek was even closer. 115 buildings in the town were either destroyed or damaged in the fighting. The Russians occupied Olsztyn and Olsztynek on August 27, 1914. Three days later, they had been dealt their most decisive defeat in the First World War. It would be thirty years before they would return.

The Unforgettable - A Missing Memorial

As the largest city in a remote frontier region pockmarked with lakes, covered in sandy soil and vast swathes of forest Olsztyn was an indispensable base that both armies coveted. This was particularly true for the Russians who were running low on food and supplies by the time they arrived there. At the time, Olsztyn had 33,000 inhabitants. It was the largest town in the region, it still is today. Olsztyn’s population has risen to 173,000. It is the economic, political and cultural nerve center. There are plenty of hotels, restaurants, and a small, atmospheric Old Town with many buildings of architectural.

By comparison, Olsztynek is a small town. It is dwarfed economically, culturally, and politically by Olsztyn. That did not matter to me or my travel companion. While our base was in Olsztyn, one of our top destinations on this trip – the Tannenberg Memorial - was in an outlying area of Olsztynek. Perhaps it is more appropriate to say that this destination used to be in an outlying area of Olsztynek. The Tannenberg Memorial has vanished, but there are still traces worth investigating This was what brought us on a short drive from Olsztyn to Olsztynek on an unforgettable Sunday morning.