A street in Warsaw recently named after a local communist-era producer of cheap wine will have to be renamed after the provincial governor decided that the alcoholic reference breaches national law by “not promoting abstinence”.
Warsowin Street, which is only a dozen or so metres long and has no buildings on it, received its name in November after an initiative of local residents to the district’s mayor was approved by Warsaw city hall. The national roads authority has since put up new street signs.
Takiej interwencji wojewody jeszcze w Warszawie nie było. Konstanty Radziwiłł unieważnił decyzję radnych o nadaniu nazwy ul. Warsowin na Okęciu. Miała przypominać wytwórnię marnej jakościhttps://t.co/uHUz1vzpth
— Wyborcza.pl Warszawa (@GazetaStoleczna) January 4, 2022
The street was named after a factory (pictured above) that produced low-quality fruit wines in the area in the 1960s and ’70s. It was part of the municipal food and wine plant, which also produced mead, vinegar and mustard at its facilities in Warsaw.
But the city council’s decision has now been reversed after a decision by the Konstanty Radziwiłł, governor of the Mazovia province in which Warsaw is located.
Radziwiłł, a government appointee, argued that the name change breaches a 1982 Polish law, the Act on Upbringing in Sobriety and Counteracting Alcoholism, which aims to “favour a change of morals in the direction” of sobriety.
Radziwiłł justified the decision by saying that granting the spirits producer the “distinction” of having a street named after its factory, “solely due to its location and subject of activity”, had “no educational value” and did not “promote abstinence”.
He also noted that the decision regarding Warsowin Street was inconsistent with Warsaw city hall’s programme “for the prevention and resolution of alcohol-related problems” adopted in 2020.
Krzysztof Brzózka, who is a former mayor of the Włochy district where the disputed street is located, as well as the current head of the State Agency for Solving Alcohol Problems (PARPA), called Radziwiłł’s argument “idiotic”.
Several other streets in the capital have names related to alcoholic beverages, including three central streets named after beer (Piwna), hops (Chmielna) and a brewery (Browarna).
To retain the name of Warsowin Street, the city council would now need to appeal the governor’s decision in court. But it is unlikely to “go on the warpath” over the issue, according to news website Wirtualna Polska.
Radziwiłł’s predecessor, Zdzisław Sipiera, also a member of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party, clashed with city hall over “decommunising” more than 50 street names in Warsaw harking back to the communist era.
Amongst some of the more contentious decisions was one to change the name of the central Aleja Armii Ludowej (Avenue of the People’s Army) to Lech Kaczyński Street, in honour of the PiS founder and late president.
Main image credit: Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
