Katarzyna Lesisz and Michal Czerwonka, with their 10-month old son Gustaw, walk by the building complex at 100 Sobieskiego St. in Warsaw. The two towers were once luxury housing for Russian diplomats but they’ve been empty since the 1990s as Poland and Russia fought over ownership.Anna Liminowicz/The Globe and Mail
Every time Krzysztof Wrzos looks out the window of his home in an upscale Warsaw neighbourhood, he sees a bleak reminder of Poland’s communist past: A set of vacant apartment buildings, filthy from decades of neglect and covered with broken windows, crumbling walls and rusted railings.
“I got used to it and, okay, it’s not pretty but it’s just there,” Mr. Wrzos said as he stood in his front yard last week and gazed at the concrete carcasses.
The interlocking blocks, which climb 10 storeys high, were built in the 1970s and once served as luxury flats for Russian diplomats. They’ve stood empty since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the mid-1990s, and for years, Polish and Russian authorities have wrestled over who owns them.
Now, thanks to a sudden intervention by the City of Warsaw, the complex could once again serve as housing for hundreds of foreigners. But not Russians this time.
The city’s abrupt action has infuriated Russian officials, who view the seizure as a violation of diplomatic norms.Anna Liminowicz/The Globe and Mail
Last month, city officials seized the tower blocks and pledged to turn them over to Ukrainian refugees. They plan to renovate the apartments, and there has also been talk of putting a school and a Ukrainian community centre in the compound.
“It is extremely symbolic that we are closing this process now, in the era of Russian aggression,” Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski said during a news conference last month as workers cut a chain on the main entrance gate. “I am committed to ensuring that this building can serve our Ukrainian friends.”
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The city’s abrupt action has infuriated Russian officials, who view the seizure as a violation of diplomatic norms. “Polish representatives cut off the locks to the gate and ... have essentially occupied the facility,” Russia’s ambassador to Poland, Sergey Andreev, told Russian media.
Mr. Trzaskowski’s announcement was more than a symbolic gesture of support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. Housing for refugees is badly needed in Warsaw.
The capital has taken in more than 300,000 Ukrainians since Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, and many more are expected to arrive as the fighting continues. That influx of people has pushed up rents and sent vacancy rates plummeting.
The Soviet compound represents one of the few available sites that’s big enough to help address the housing crunch for refugees.
Private security guards watch over a building complex in Warsaw.Anna Liminowicz/The Globe and Mail
The buildings come with a colourful history. In its heyday, the complex at 100 Sobieskiego Street was more than just a fancy residence for Russian embassy staff. It also included a cinema, a store and a school. For years, there have been rumours that the buildings also contained secret rooms, safes full of cash and an arsenal of spying equipment. Locals nicknamed the compound Szpiegowo, or “spy nest.”
Mr. Wrzos has lived across from the blocks since 1996, when the last of the buildings’ residents moved out. He grew up in the neighbourhood and has heard all the stories.
“My grandparents remembered the old days, when the Russians were in that building and it was quite something,” he recalled. “The Russian birthday parties and so on, singing and drinking quite a lot.”
He’s convinced the complex does hold some secrets. Just before the city took control of the towers last month, Mr. Wrzos said, he heard strange noises from inside, like someone cutting through walls. A friend who lives nearby saw trucks pulling up to a side entrance and workers loading something into them.
“Maybe there were some documents or whatever,” Mr. Wrzos said. “There must have been something to the stories, because there are too many people talking about it.”
Mr. Wrzos has mixed feelings about the city’s plans for the site. He’s not thrilled that the property is being redeveloped. If it is turned into housing, he thinks Poles should get first crack.
“It’s an ugly building, but it’s quiet, there are no people inside, there is no noise and nobody is staring out the windows. I don’t think it’s going to be that way when the Ukrainians move in,” he said. “Everything is given to the Ukrainians. A lot of Polish people are homeless and the city didn’t care about the building for the last 20 years.”
“Just leave it the way it is,” he said. “Because the trees become green and I don’t see it.”
Residents in the neighbourhood say the complex has been a creepy eyesore for too long.Anna Liminowicz/The Globe and Mail
Mr. Wrzos’s neighbour, Helena Zachert, is less convinced that the buildings will end up as housing for refugees. She thinks the site, which is adjacent to a park, is far too valuable and that the city won’t be able to afford the renovation. Instead, she believes officials will sell it to a developer. The apartments “have to be rebuilt and then they’ll be sold as luxury flats,” she said with a shrug.
Others in the neighbourhood say the complex has been a creepy eyesore for too long. “It’s a little bit spooky,” said Katarzyna Lesisz as she walked by the site with her partner, Michal Czerwonka, and their 10-month-old son Gustaw. “It’s weird that in the centre of a city you have a building that you can’t do anything about.”
She welcomed the city’s decision to take over the buildings and move in Ukrainians. “It would be a great idea to make the buildings alive again,” she said.
This might not be the only Russian property to be taken over. There are five other buildings in Warsaw that used to belong to the Soviet Union, and another dozen across Poland, including a resort. Most have been tied up for years in legal wrangling over ownership, rental payments and other unpaid costs. Government records show that many of the properties were simply given to the Soviets decades ago, making retrieval difficult even if the buildings aren’t being used by Russia.
The Polish government has managed to end the lease on a vacation property north of Warsaw that the Russian government had been renting since 1994. The lakeside site includes two hotels, two villas, eight cottages, a health clinic and an administrative centre. Poland’s State Forestry Service said Russia had fallen behind on rental payments since the war started.
When asked if the service was worried about retaliation from Russia, spokesperson Michał Gzowski told local media: “We are not thinking about it. The most important thing is to follow the path of tough sanctions against the Russian Federation that our state is set on.”
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