Lublin, Zamość & the Southeast

Lublin grew on the trade route between Poland and Lithuania and Ruthenia, and in 1569 it hosted the Sejm that signed the Union of Lublin, turning the dynastic link between Poland and Lithuania into the single Commonwealth. The region's magnates built private towns: Chancellor Jan Zamoyski founded Zamość in 1580, commissioning the Italian architect Bernardo Morando to plan a fortified Renaissance city, which later resisted the Swedes in 1656. The Lubomirskis built their castle at Łańcut, and Sandomierz, one of the oldest towns in Poland, was the seat of a medieval duchy and province.

Jewish life flourished here for centuries: Lublin was a centre of Jewish learning, and the Hasidic courts of Leżajsk and Lublin drew followers from far away. After the Partitions, Lublin and Kielce fell to Russia and Subcarpathia to Austrian Galicia, where the Przemyśl fortress endured a long siege in 1914–15.

In the Second World War the Germans built the camps at Majdanek, on Lublin's edge, and at Bełżec and Sobibór, where most of the region's Jews and many from across Europe were murdered. After 1945, the communist state deported Ukrainian, Boyko and Lemko villagers from the Bieszczady, above all in Operation Vistula of 1947, leaving the mountains largely empty. Lublin's strikes of July 1980 came just before those in Gdańsk, and since 2022 the region has been a gateway for refugees and aid to Ukraine.

The south-east is among Poland's most religious and conservative regions, with full churches and strong support for national-conservative parties. Pilgrimages matter: to the Holy Cross monastery on Łysa Góra, to Leżajsk's Bernardine basilica and, for Hasidic Jews, to the tomb of Rabbi Elimelech in Leżajsk.

The eastern borderland keeps Orthodox and Greek Catholic heritage in wooden churches, or cerkwie, some of them UNESCO-listed, and small Ukrainian and Lemko communities still gather for festivals. Lublin sees itself as a meeting place of East and West, with the Catholic University of Lublin, where Karol Wojtyła taught ethics, a lively student population and festivals of street theatre and music.

Folk traditions include witch legends tied to Łysa Góra in the Holy Cross Mountains. The Bieszczady, largely emptied of their villages in 1947, have a reputation as a remote, free-spirited refuge celebrated in songs and stories. Sanok is the hometown of the painter Zdzisław Beksiński, whose dark, dreamlike works are shown there.

Lublin has about 330,000 people, Rzeszów about 195,000 and Kielce around 185,000; Zamość, Przemyśl, Krosno, Sanok, Chełm and Sandomierz are smaller. Rural population is high, and farms on the fertile Lublin upland grow wheat, sugar beet, fruit and hops.

Rzeszów has grown fast around the aviation industry of "Aviation Valley", with aircraft-engine and component makers, and around its airport, which has become a key hub for Western aid to Ukraine since 2022. Kielce has trade fairs and metalworking, and Lublin has universities, IT firms and the food industry.

Life is slower and cheaper than in Warsaw or Kraków, and many young people still leave for bigger cities. The war in Ukraine has brought refugees, soldiers and new economic ties, as well as the fear of living near the front; border crossings such as Medyka and Dorohusk are busy with lorries and travellers.

Lublin's signature is the cebularz, a flat wheat roll topped with onion and poppy seeds, protected by EU designation and sold in every bakery. Zamość and the eastern Lublin region share a taste for buckwheat, and pierogi biłgorajskie, filled with buckwheat groats, potato and curd cheese, come from the Biłgoraj area. Nałęczów, a spa town near Lublin, bottles mineral water, and hops are grown on the Lublin upland.

Subcarpathia's everyday bread was proziaki, soda flatbreads baked on a hot stove plate and eaten with garlic butter. In the Bieszczady, dishes of the Boyko and Lemko villages survive: fuczki, pancakes made with sauerkraut, and potato-based dumplings, served with sheep and goat cheeses from mountain farms.

The Holy Cross region adds soups made with sour rye starter and simple rural dishes of potato and cabbage.

Lublin's Old Town stretches from the Kraków Gate to the castle, whose Holy Trinity Chapel has frescoes of 1418; the underground cellar route and the Grodzka Gate, a museum of the lost Jewish town, sit nearby, and the State Museum at Majdanek preserves the camp. Zamość, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, keeps its Great Market Square, town hall, Armenian houses and bastions, with the Roztocze National Park's forests to the south.

In Subcarpathia, Rzeszów has an old market square and underground tourist route, and Łańcut Castle, 16 kilometres east, is one of Poland's best-preserved aristocratic residences. Przemyśl has its fortress ring and old town, Krasiczyn a Renaissance castle, and Sanok an open-air museum of rural buildings. Further south, Bieszczady National Park rises to Tarnica, with the grassy połoniny ridges and Solina Lake, and a narrow-gauge forest railway runs from Majdan.

In the Holy Cross region, Kielce has the Palace of the Kraków Bishops, and the Holy Cross Mountains have the monastery on Łysa Góra, Chęciny castle, the Paradise Cave and the prehistoric striped-flint mines at Krzemionki, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Sandomierz, on its hill above the Vistula, has the Opatów Gate, the Gothic cathedral and the Queen Jadwiga ravine.