Mariacki Square in Szczecin

Mariacki Square is a small rectangular square in Szczecin's Old Town, joined on the east side with Farna Street. Until 1945 it was called Marienplatz. The name comes from St Mary's Church, which stood on this spot.

From church to grammar school

A square by the church was already mentioned in 1480. During a storm on 9 July 1789 lightning struck the church and caused a fire. The surviving walls were pulled down in 1829, and in 1830 construction began on their site of the building of the Mariacki Grammar School on the north side of the square. Today it houses the 9th General Secondary School named after the Heroes of Monte Cassino.

The house where Catherine II was born

On the southern frontage, at the corner with Farna Street, stands the building in which Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst, the later Empress Catherine II, was born. In the 1920s it housed the Landrat's office of Randow district, and since 1995 it has been a branch of an insurance company. The bombing of 6 January 1944 destroyed most of the buildings around the square, and on the site of tenement houses nos. 1-3 a school playing field was built, which reduced the square.

Practical information

• Location: the Old Town, about 200 m from the Castle of the Pomeranian Dukes; nearby also stands St James' Cathedral Basilica.
• The buildings around the square are in use (a school, offices, an Adventist church in tenement house no. 4), so this is a place for a short walk, without visits to interiors.