Park Praski Bear Enclosure

Why is it significant?

You have just come off the bridge, the traffic is roaring along the avenue, and behind a fence and a moat on your left, a brown bear is lying on its back in the grass, scratching its stomach. Welcome to Praga, the right bank of Warsaw, where even the wildlife lives on the main road.

Key Facts

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You have just come off the bridge, the traffic is roaring along the avenue, and behind a fence and a moat on your left, a brown bear is lying on its back in the grass, scratching its stomach. Welcome to Praga, the right bank of Warsaw, where even the wildlife lives on the main road. The bear enclosure belongs to the Warsaw Zoo, whose grounds stretch north behind Park Praski, and for generations it has been the first sight of Praga for anyone crossing the river by tram. Locals give the bears the same mixture of affection and irony they give the whole district. Over the years more than one reckless visitor has ended up on the wrong side of the fence, and it was never the bear that needed rescuing. The park around it was laid out in the second half of the nineteenth century, when the first permanent bridge across the Vistula, the Kierbedź Bridge of 1864, finally tied Praga to the city. The bridge you just used stands on that bridge's old piers. The Germans blew it up in 1944, and it was rebuilt in 1949 under a new name, the Śląsko-Dąbrowski Bridge. Behind the trees, in a modest villa inside the zoo, lived the director Jan Żabiński and his wife Antonina. During the German occupation they hid Jews escaping from the ghetto in the empty animal houses and in their own home, around three hundred people over the years, by most accounts. Antonina had a signal for danger: she would sit at the piano and play an aria from Offenbach. Both were later recognised as Righteous Among the Nations. That story, a gentle zoo with a terrible secret, sets the tone for Praga. This side of the river looks rough at first and turns out to be full of hidden kindness, shrines, memory and stubborn local pride. Walk east along the avenue, al. Solidarności, until two tall brick spires rise on your right.