Topics of coins
100th Anniversary of the Port of Gdynia
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Under the Treaty of Versailles, Poland was granted
a narrow strip of coastline (about 140 km including
the Hel Peninsula) and the right to use the port of
Gdańsk. In practice, however, due to the special status
of Gdańsk as a free city, it was not fully possible to
use the existing port for the military and commercial
needs of Poland. In 1920, a few months after Poland’s
Wedding to the Sea, the Ministry of Military Affairs
commissioned engineer Tadeusz Wenda to designate
a convenient location for the construction of the
future port.
In June 1920, Tadeusz Wenda submitted a report
on the inspection and observation of the Coast.
The convenient location of Gdynia, providing,
among others, the protection from winds by the
Hel Peninsula, sufficient depth of water at the shore
and the proximity of the railway station were the
reasons for choosing this particular place. Afterwards,
things moved on quite quickly. Within two years
(1921–1923), the Temporary Military Port and the
Fisherman Shelter were developed. At the same time,
in 1921 Wenda prepared the concept of the proper
port with a reloading capacity of 6 million tonnes.
A year later, on 23 September 1922 the Sejm of the
Republic of Poland passed the Act on the Construction
of the Port of Gdynia. Article 1 of the document
reads: “The Government shall be authorised to
make any necessary arrangements to carry out the
construction of the seaport at Gdynia in Pomerania
as a public utility port”. The date of passing of the
Act is recognised as the formal beginning of the Port
of Gdynia.
The obverse of the 20 złoty coin depicts a plan of the port
of Gdynia. The plan in the form of a coloured photocopy
from the collection of the Gdynia City Museum, made by
Leon Wilbik on the basis of Tadeusz Wenda’s design, was
used as a model. The plan was probably drawn up around
1936. It shows the status of the port in that year as well as
the Industrial Canal (which was ultimately never built),
some of the port warehouses as well as embankments
and basins which were planned for construction in the
subsequent years.
The reverse shows the bust of Tadeusz Wenda reproduced
from portrait photographs taken in 1918, which are
deposited in the collection of the Gdynia City Museum. The fragments of the portal of the openwork gantry
crane shown in the foreground were used in Wenda’s
times and are still in use today. The cranes in the
background are contemporary devices. At the port,
the past blends with the present.
dr Anna Śliwa