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Warsaw

BASIC FACTS
Establishment: 13th century
City rights: around 1300
Area: 516,9 sq. Km
Elevation: 100 m
Population: around 2 000 000
Unemployment rate: 3 %
Average wage: 4600 PLN
Official website: www.um.warszawa.pl

TRANSPOR & ACCOMODATION COSTS
Single public transport ticket - 1,20 PLN
Monthly ticket - 33 PLN
Taxi fares - 1,40-3 PLN
A single room monthly rent - 400-700 PLN
A single room flat rent - 1200 PLN
A double room flat rent - 1700 PLN

HISTORY
The first fortified settlements on the site of today's Warsaw were Bródno (9th/10th century) and Jazdów (12th/13th century). In the beginning of the 14th century Warsaw became one of the seats of the Dukes of Masovia, becoming the capital of Masovia in 1413 . In 1526 the city was incorporated into the Polish Crown. Due to its central location between the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth's capitals of Kraków and Vilnius, Warsaw became the capital of the Commonwealth and the Polish Crown in 1596, replacing Kraków. Warsaw remained the capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth until 1795, when it was annexed by the Kingdom of Prussia to become the capital of the province of South Prussia. Liberated by Napoleon's army in 1807, Warsaw was made the capital of the newly created Duchy of Warsaw. Following the Congress of Vienna of 1815, Warsaw became the centre of the Congress Poland, a constitutional monarchy under a personal union with Imperial Russia. The Royal University of Warsaw was established in 1816.

Warsaw flourished in the late nineteenth century under Mayor Sokrates Starynkiewicz (1875-92), a Russian-born general appointed by Tsar Alexander III. Under Starynkiewicz Warsaw saw its first water and sewer systems designed and built by the English engineer William Lindley and his son, William Heerlein Lindley, as well as the expansion and modernization of trams, street lighting and gas works.

Warsaw became the capital of the newly independent Poland in 1918. In the course of the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920, the huge Battle of Warsaw was fought on the Eastern outskirts of the city in which the capital was successfully defended and the Red Army defeated.

During the Second World War central Poland, including Warsaw, came under the rule of the General Government, a Nazi colonial administration. All higher education institutions were immediately closed and Warsaw's entire Jewish population - several hundred thousand, some 30% of the city - herded into the Warsaw Ghetto. When the order came to annihilate the Ghetto as part of Hitler's "final solution", Jewish fighters launched the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Despite being heavily outgunned and outnumbered, the Ghetto held out for almost a month. When the fighting ended, almost all survivors were massacred, only a few managed to escape or hide.

By July, 1944, the Red Army was deep into the Polish territory, pursuing the Germans toward Warsaw. Knowing that Stalin was hostile to the idea of an independent Poland, the Polish government-in-exile based in London gave orders to the underground Home Army (AK) to try to seize the control of Warsaw from the Nazis just before the Red Army arrives. Thus, on August 1, 1944, as the Soviet army was nearing the city very fast, the Home Army and the civilian population started the Warsaw Uprising. After 63 days the entire city was razed to the ground, and the Home Army defeated. After the war, the city resumed its role as the capital of Poland and the country's centre of political and economic life. Many of the historic streets, buildings, and churches were restored to their original form. In 1980, Warsaw's historic Old Town was inscribed onto UNESCO's World Heritage list.