"The Treasures of Krakow" in Baku

After presentations in Krakow, Bahrain, Sofia, Ostrava and Leipzig, the "The Treasures of Krakow" exhibition came to the capital of Azerbaijan. Until 3 July 2022, it can be seen in the courtyard of the "Virgin Tower" in the Old City of Baku.

Thanks to the efforts of the Polish Embassy in Baku, the exhibition The Treasures of Krakow was opened on 4 June 2022. The exhibition, presenting more than a thousand years of Krakow's history, was prepared by the International Cultural Centre in cooperation with the Krakow City Hall. It is part of a project co-financed by the City of Krakow under the same title and a visual complement to the publication "Thousand Treasures of Krakow. History and Art"(2018).

The opening ceremony was attended, among others, by Rafał Poborski, Ambassador of the Republic of Poland in Baku, representatives of the Polish-Azerbaijani Parliamentary Group and the Azerbaijani Friendship Group with Poland in the Parliament of Azerbaijan, representatives of the Polish community and the local artistic community. According to the estimates of the Polish Embassy in Baku, the "Treasures of Krakow" exhibition can be seen by up to several thousand people every day. This is due to the fact that the exhibition is located in one of the most beautiful and frequently visited tourist sites in the Azerbaijani capital.

"The Treasures of Krakow" is a story about the city - the seat of Polish kings, the former capital of the country, a treasury of works of art and national memorabilia inscribed in a unique architectural complex. One of the oldest European university centres, a city of poets, writers and artists, belonging to the most important metropolises of Central Europe in the Middle Ages. It is cosmopolitan, multicultural, open to inspirations from outside, and yet it remains the most Polish of Polish cities. The exhibition may therefore be the key to understanding the phenomenon of the extraordinary popularity that Krakow enjoys today.

The exhibition boards present 90 of the city's "treasures" - works of art and architecture, monuments and examples of intangible heritage - associated with Krakow, significant from the perspective of their culture-forming role, often of the rank of masterpieces. They make it possible to trace the history of the metropolis from the early Middle Ages, through the city's development at the time of Casimir the Great, the Jagiellonian dynasty and the Renaissance. They show the extent of the city's decline during the Swedish Deluge, the partitions and the German occupation during World War II.