| |
Posted on: 2008-09-30 07:27:40
Previous: Poland: Warsaw's Palace of Culture and the University Library Next: Well That Explains a Lot...
When I was in Warsaw last July, one of the places I went was the "Muzeum Wojska Polskiego" - or, the Polish Army Museum. The interior was closed for the day, but the park outside was full of planes, tanks, and other such equipment. I'm not a big fan of war or militarism in general, but I have to admit I have a certain fetish for military gear, especially airplanes. I've been to many museums in North America, but they all have the same Sherman tanks and F-86 Sabres. Since Poland had been on the other side of the Iron Curtain, its armed forces used mostly Russian equipment - so almost everything in this museum was new to me.
Here are some pictures and notes:
The first thing you see coming into the park is a MiG-29. What a great-looking plane! Presumably this one is broken or a mockup, since the MiG-29 is still a top-of-the-line fighter.
Here's another view of the MiG-29. Notice the patio umbrellas behind it - Warsaw loves its patios!
There is also a classic-but-a-little-rusty MiG-21 on display as well.
Anyone who remembers the first Gulf War in 1991 remembers the SCUD - the short-range ballistic missile launched by Iraq against Saudi Arabia and Israel. Iraq had bought them from Russia, who also supplied them to Poland. I remember the diagrams of the cool-looking launcher trucks on the news - and here was one of them, complete with a SCUD missile on top.
I'm not as much into tanks and other armoured vehicles (they did have a T-55 tank and I think a T-72) but I liked this amphibious troop carrier that reminded me a bit of the tourist buses/boats I see in Toronto and Halifax.
I was trying to find a good angle to get a picture of this line of massive naval guns when a little girl walked by wearing pink and clutching a McDonald's Happy Meal.
The most striking item at the museum was "Kubus" (the Bear) - a custom armoured car made from a Chevy truck by the Polish Home Army (in 13 days in an auto shop under continuous enemy fire) during the Warsaw Uprising. Behind it you can see a German Armoured Personnel Carrier that was captured and also used in the Warsaw Uprising. There is supposedly a mobile replica of Kubus that takes part in parades and reenactments.
I gather that the inside of the museum has a great collection of medieval and Napoleonic-era weaponry, armour, and banners - as well as, of course, Winged Hussars.
Previous: Poland: Warsaw's Palace of Culture and the University Library Next: Well That Explains a Lot...
|
Other Blog Posts:
- Nova Scotia and Auld Scotland - Edinburgh: Stratigraphic Culture - Edinburgh Without Expectations - EasyJet: Discount Class Conflict - Berlin: World Cup - World of Donairs - Berliner Ensemble - Berlin: Museums - Berlin: Ghosts of the Past, Visions of the Future - Flâneur in Berlin - Berlin: Finding the Best Wurst - Istanbul: Overwhelmed by History in the Hippodrome - Istanbul: That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea - Istanbul: The Topkapi Palace and Harem - Istanbul: Mosques - Istanbul's Basilica Cistern: Gorgeous, Creepy, Nerdy - Istanbul: Hagia Sophia - The Streets of Istanbul - II - The Streets of Istanbul - I - Munich Airport: Legoland mit Bier und NapCab - Heathrow Airport: You Are In A Maze Of Twisty Little Passages, All Different - Getting Ready to Travel - Quick Advice on Canadian Indie Music - My Favourite Roadside Sign - Well That Explains a Lot... - Poland: Gear from the Army Museum - Poland: Warsaw's Palace of Culture and the University Library - Poland: Warsaw - Poland: Winged Hussars - Poland - What's awesome about Toronto - Possibly the best sentence in the English language - QUOTE: We Shouldn't Have Music Anxiety - Now *that's* Santa Cruz - Small Town Newspaper Headline Dada - Great Quote from Seth Godin - McSweeney's: My Pet Peeves - Shindig! - Dresden Dolls / Die Mannequin / Friendly Rich at the Phoenix - In Store for 2008: Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth?! - Coffee Updates: Urbana and Far Coast - Canadian: Walking to Tim Horton's Through a Blizzard - Lighting as language - TSOT Ruby/Rails Project Night - IE is pants, pure and simple - Passport Canada's Secure Enterprise Software - DemoCampToronto16 - Faulty By Design - Buynlarge.com - brilliant! - Joey Starts at TSOT and Jeff goes 37Signals - How To Doom Your Own Industry - It's Sigmoidal, Stupid! - Quick Update on Secured OS X Mail - Alpha Geeks and Jedi Hooligans - Now Fake Steve is Getting Close To Home - Nice Rant on the Sanctity of Farming - They Must Have Been Reading This Blog - Well, so much for Reddit - Zipcar: My Other Car is a Mini Convertible Named Munster - XKCD Job Interview - John C. Dvorak Misses It - Protecting Your OS X Mail With Encrypted Volumes - Fake Steve Jobs hits it - My Favorite Bit From Herodotus - Enterprise Software - like on the spaceship, right? - So why, again, are you taking so long? - That sounds about right for Oberlin - Music, With Occasional City - How to do Google Maps-Style Scrolling Windows with JavaScript and DHTML - The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill - Want a Rails Job? - Quote of the Day - Witty and Vibrant, Sensitive and Cranky - Facebook, already - geez - The Bolivarian Republic of Wednesday and Pudge - Here are the real links for the previous post - Venezuela: How To Have A Good Party - It's a PHONE that runs UNIX! - Congratulations Pat & Chris! - About Venezuela: Traffic - Venezuela Stuff Coming Later - But While I'm Recovering... - My most popular posts are un-published! - ... that creepy ass botox-phenomenon - Prototype Library and JavaScript - Godin LG Hmb - my new guitar - Safari For Windows - What Apple Missed - Joel Corrects Himself In Mid-Post - Yorkville's Summer of Love with Gucci - Update: Coffee - RJS / AJAX Highlight Colouring in Rails - Looking Real Good! - Post-something Post on Big Bags - Disclaimer - Analgesic Code: Backtrack - Baby Steps With EMACS - Back in Santa Cruz - You know, I agree that we should worry about Global Warming... - Life Tip: Digitize Your Documents - Nifty OS X Finder Enhancement With Little AppleScripts - Toronto DemoCamp 12
All Blog Entries
 RSS Feed
|
