Plac Kory i Poczta Główna, Opole — lot 360° z przewodnikiem

The first railway here opened towards Breslau, yet its trains stopped short in the suburb of Sczepanowitz, because no bridge yet crossed the Oder. The red-brick front of Dworzec PKP Opole Główne faces the square.

Architect Albrecht, who also designed the town hall tower, built Poczta Główna in 1854 as the first building on the station square, when the post office and station stood far outside the town. Its white facade faces us.

Trains soon ran between Breslau and Oppeln, and once a bridge spanned the river, the line reached the site of today's station, which then lay well outside the town in the middle of open fields.

In 1930 a monument to the postal officials who fell in the First World War went up beside the main post office, and a year later another building was added on today's Korfantego Street.

In 1891 architects from Breslau enlarged Poczta Główna with side wings, an entrance portal and a round stair tower with a dome-like frame of insulators, where the town's overhead telephone lines met. Its white wings face the square.

Maanam's lead singer won national fame with a revolutionary performance of Boskie Buenos and Żądza pieniądza at the Opole festival, and became a leading voice of Polish rock. Plac Olgi Kory Sipowicz spreads out ahead.

When the festival was run by the firm Brawo, known for record piracy and for promoting disco polo, several acts refused to take part, among them the band Armia and Ireneusz Dudek.

In June 2026, on the second day of that year's Opole festival, a monument to the singer Olga Jackowska was unveiled on this square by the main station. Plac Olgi Kory Sipowicz surrounds us.

At the very first festival, Jerzy Waldorff called Opole the capital of Polish song, and his words are still used as the city's motto. The roof sign of the Dworzec Autobusowy repeats them.

On the first anniversary of the singer's death, Paweł Althamer showed a hand-made sculpture in her memory, and at the Opole festival Ania Wyszkoni and Tulia sang the Maanam hit To tylko tango.

Since October 2022 the Związek Polaków w Niemczech, the Union of Poles in Germany, has been the patron of Dworzec PKP Opole Główne. Its first district, founded in Bytom, moved its seat to Opole under Kazimierz Malczewski.

At its first congress, in Berlin's Theater des Volkes, the Union of Poles in Germany adopted the Five Truths of the Poles, the ideological basis of its work, before some five thousand delegates.

During the workers' protests in Radom and Ursus, the authorities even weighed cancelling the festival, and its stars Jan Pietrzak and Olga Lipińska were summoned to warning talks at the communist party committee in Opole.

The Union of Poles in Germany had Stanisław Sierakowski as its first president and Jan Kaczmarek from Westphalia as chief manager, while the leading roles were played by Kaczmarek and Jan Baczewski of East Prussia.

In 1986 the festival's opening was moved to July 22 because of the football World Cup in Mexico, so that Poles would not face the choice between football and music.

Each year the militia made architect Florian Jesionowski sign that the walls and fences would not collapse. When hippies gathered at a festival, those caught had their hair cut and were sent away by train.

Communist censors vetted the festival, cabaret above all: lyrics were first approved by the GUKPPiW office in Warsaw, then local censors sat in on rehearsals, while the secret police ran an operation code-named Amfiteatr.

8K (7680×3840), 60 kl./s. Napisy otwarte po angielsku — trzy kopie dookoła, jedna przy opisywanym miejscu. Narracja: głos syntetyczny (EN).

Fakty przewodnika — ze źródeł:

• Wikipedia (pl): Krajowy Festiwal Piosenki Polskiej w Opolu
• Wikipedia (pl): Plac im. Olgi „Kory” Sipowicz w Opolu
• Wikipedia (pl): Poczta Główna w Opolu
• Wikipedia (pl): Opole Główne
• Wikipedia (pl): Kora (wokalistka)