The person who built a new city

Polish journalist Paulina Segen - about how the murdered mayor of Gdansk Pavel Adamovich was

On the evening of January 13, a man with a knife attacked the mayor of Polish Gdansk Pavel Adamovich and mortally wounded him. The attacker said that the attack is his revenge of the Civil Platform party, the co -founder of which was Adamovich. In memory of the mayor of Gdansk, tens of thousands of people entered the streets of Polish cities. At the request of Medusa, the journalist Gazeta Wyborcza Paulina Segen tells who the mayor of Gdansk was, for which he was loved and who hated him.

Pavel Adamovich was the mayor of the city - by the Polish standards of a large, but not the most significant in Europe. But he was the mayor of special, here Gdansk during his rule - since 1998 - became special. Typically, the heads of local self -government set a simple goal: to ensure the well -being of the population. Pavel Adamovich also cared about this, over the last two decades, Gdansk turned from a province into one of the richest cities in Poland, where investors come and tourists from all over the world come. But his ambitions were more.

Pavel Adamovich proceeded from the fact that the city is not a place on the map, not a set of streets and squares, places of work and public transport networks. For Adamovich, the city was a community - cultural, spiritual, value. Therefore, he made every effort to build a city narrative, where everyone, regardless of origin, religion, sexual orientation felt part of the Gdan community. Therefore, Catholics and not Catholics, Muslims and Jews in jointly mourn him; The people born here are migrants and just those who were here: both the inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries, and our neighbors Kaliningraders.

These days, everyone who knew the mayor speaks of his openness. Maybe it sounds corny - an open person. But this was really a person who for everyone retained a smile, who always listened with interest, was always ready to communicate, who was fond of new ideas and was not afraid to accept challenges.

Pavel Adamovich was cruelly killed, in front of the eyes of people gathered in the Gdan Old City for the final concert of the "Big Orchestra of Festive Assistance." Every year, for 27 years, the Fund under this name has been organizing in one of the first January Sundays a rally of raising funds for Polish medicine. Basically, a specialized equipment for hospitals is purchased at the funds raised by the “Big Oractrom”.

A couple of years ago, in Poland, no one thought about the correctness of this action. But for the conservatives from the current government, the fund and its head, the charismatic and liberal Yurek Ovsyak became enemies. In the state media, which turned into abuse of no worse than Russian, the campaign to discredit the oatmeal and its fund unleashed. In social networks, persecution was carried out against them. After the murder of Adamovich, Ovsyak resigned.

Pavel Adamovich freely moved around Gdansk and easily came to any event - he never had a guard. Polish state television was not shy about telling the haters of the liberals who exactly is their enemy.

Pavel Adamovich, co -founder of the “Civil Platform” and Donald Tusk friend, is the embodiment of the liberal. He defined himself as a Christian democrat, The New York Times called him the mayor with his left views. Pavel Adamovich not only allowed to organize a gay parade in Gdansk when all the Polish cities refused him, but he himself also went to him. The conservative party of Yaroslav Kachinsky won the elections thanks to the Ksenophobic slogans, and Gdansk Adamovich developed a model for the integration of migrants together with public organizations. Pavel Adamovich believed that Gdansk, in which the Second World War began and in which the movement “solidarity” began - this is actually a city of freedom and solidarity.

Perhaps the biggest feature of Pavel Adamovich as a Polish politician was his attitude to Russia. From Gdansk to Kaliningrad only 150 kilometers. The mayor of Gdansk always advocated friendship and good neighborliness, emphasized that despite any political situation, a dialogue needed.

In Kaliningrad, they remember that he always spoke out against the decision of the Polish government to terminate the visa -free regime with the Kaliningrad region. Many Russians know that he annually laid flowers in March in the grave of Soviet soldiers who fell in battles for the Gdansk, while the Polish authorities dismantle Soviet monuments throughout the country .

Over the past terrible days, I have not seen a single Russian media that would not talk about the mayor of Gdansk with sorrow, sympathy and respect. It is unfortunate that Polish state television failed to restrain himself and even in such a situation sows hatred.

There is such a rule in Poland: people are random around large tragedies. The murder of Pavel Adamovich - and there is such a tragedy; People cry how they cried after the collapse of the presidential aircraft with Lech Kachinsky and as after the death of the Pope John Paul II.

Paulina Segen, Gazeta Wyborcza, Gdansk