{"id":33,"date":"2008-07-01T09:47:15","date_gmt":"2008-07-01T13:47:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/?p=33"},"modified":"2014-06-10T13:30:36","modified_gmt":"2014-06-10T13:30:36","slug":"a-little-bit-about-mragowo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/a-little-bit-about-mragowo\/","title":{"rendered":"A Little Bit About Mr\u0105gowo"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of our readers is going to Poland this summer, and that in itself is nothing unusual, tons of people visit Poland every year. But not very many of them go to Mr\u0105gowo<\/a><\/strong>. In fact, I was rather surprised to hear that anyone from abroad would actually know where Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong> is. Because I\u2019d bet that even most Poles wouldn\u2019t be able to tell you much about the place, either. Pity, as Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong> is definitely worth more than just a passing glance.<\/p>\n

One thing that for most Poles is probably synonymous with Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong> is country music. Yep. American style country. Hats, cowboy boots and all. People, who may not be able to point the town on a map, can tell you the place is famous for a big the country music shindig. And they\u2019re right.<\/p>\n

The country music festival, called Piknik<\/strong> Country (piknik<\/strong> = picnic) is indeed a very fine event. I know, because once upon a time I used to go there quite religiously. Back in the olden days, when I was a high school student and when on-line ticket sales didn\u2019t exist, I would make a yearly trek from Tr\u00f3jmiasto<\/strong> to Olsztyn<\/strong> to purchase concert passes for me and my friends. Oh, the memories. It was definitely fun. I bought my first Akubra style hat at the festival, it cost me a fortune, too. But\u2026 we were supposed to talk about Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong>, not about me. Let\u2019s get back to the topic.<\/p>\n

Remember when I mentioned that some places in Poland have had three<\/a>, or sometimes more, different names? Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong> is one of them. Because it\u2019s located in the area that used to be known as East Prussia, way back when the town was called Sensburg<\/strong>. It\u2019s a pretty old town, too. The Teutonic Knights, as they tended to do at that time, built themselves a fortress there back in the 14th century. The settlement evolved and nobody paid it much attention until 1871 when during the unification of Germany, it found itself in the German Empire. Then it returned to its usual state of obscurity.<\/p>\n

All that changed after WW2. The town\u2019s German population was expelled and the name was changed to \u017b\u0105d\u017abork<\/strong>. Then in 1947, it was changed once again, this time to its current version of Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong>. And how did the Polish authorities come up with that? They did some historical digging around and found a nice, respectable guy they liked. Krzysztof Celestyn Mrongowiusz<\/strong> (Christoph Coelestin Mrongovius 1764-1855) was his name and he was a famous linguist known for preserving Polish language and culture.<\/p>\n

So, the names went like this: Sensburg<\/strong> \u2013 \u017b\u0105d\u017abork<\/strong> \u2013 and now Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But enough of this historical stuff. Tourists don\u2019t visit Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong> to ponder its name changes, they go there to do stuff. Outdoorsy, nature type active stuff. And as the town\u2019s official website proclaims, it\u2019s \u201cThe City of Active People\u201d. And it just happens to be absolutely right on.<\/p>\n

Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong>\u2019s fantastic location in the Warmia-Mazury lake district makes it, and not just only in a cute slogan, the summer capital of the region. The town is surrounded by more lakes than you can plop your kayak in. Some of the larger lakes are Czos<\/strong>, Juno<\/strong>, Juksty<\/strong>, Sal\u0119t<\/strong> and W\u0105giel<\/strong>, and people flock there for canoeing, sailing, hiking, cycling, horseback riding, and naturally \u2013 fishing. You can\u2019t spend your summer in the lake district and not poke your stick in the water. You never know what you may catch!<\/p>\n

Of course any visit to Mr\u0105gowo<\/strong> would not, and could not, be complete without country music. This year\u2019s Piknik<\/strong> Country (it\u2019s the 27 edition by the way, so by Polish standards it\u2019s been around practically forever) is scheduled to take place on July 25-27. And I so wish I could be there! I need to buy me a new Aussie style hat.<\/p>\n

Useful words:<\/p>\n

piknik<\/strong> (masculine, plural: pikniki<\/strong>) = picnic
\njezioro<\/strong> (neuter, plural: jeziora<\/strong>) = lake
\nlato<\/strong> (neuter, plural: lata<\/strong>) = summer
\nwakacje<\/a><\/strong> (neuter, plural only) = vacation\/s, holidays, the word normally implies summer holidays.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

One of our readers is going to Poland this summer, and that in itself is nothing unusual, tons of people visit Poland every year. But not very many of them go to Mr\u0105gowo. In fact, I was rather surprised to hear that anyone from abroad would actually know where Mr\u0105gowo is. Because I\u2019d bet that…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":34,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[306823,3187,306831,306828,2612],"class_list":["post-33","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-culture","tag-festivals","tag-history","tag-music","tag-vacation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5393,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions\/5393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/polish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}