A monument from 1963 in the spa park in Kołobrzeg, designed by Wiktor Tołkin, commemorating Poland's wedding to the sea of 18 March 1945.
The Monument to Poland's Wedding to the Sea stands in the Stefan Żeromski spa park in Kołobrzeg, on the seaside boulevard between the lighthouse and the pier. It was unveiled on 3 November 1963. It commemorates the ceremony of the wedding to the sea of 18 March 1945, when Polish and Soviet troops entered the town.
The first act of Poland's wedding to the sea took place on 10 and 11 February 1920 in Puck. In March 1945 similar ceremonies were organised in Dziwnówek, Mrzeżyno and Kołobrzeg. The Kołobrzeg monument refers to the last of these.
The idea of building it appeared in 1958, when a fundraising drive was started and a competition announced. The author of the design is the architect and sculptor Wiktor Tołkin, known for the monuments at Majdanek, in Stutthof and at Pawiak in Warsaw. The mosaic was made by Władysław Jackiewicz. The monument was to stand on the site of the 1945 ceremony, but this was judged too close to the port, and it was built in the nearby park, about 300 metres further on.
It is dominated by a tower in the form of a stylised flag, held by a group of figures. According to the description in Pomeranica, the monument is from 15 to 20 metres high and is made of reinforced concrete, granite and mosaic. On the walls are mosaics and bas-reliefs showing Piast warriors and Polish soldiers of 1945. The opening under the drooping sheet of the flag symbolises a window on the world, that is the seaport. At the foot lie stone slabs with the names of the units that took the town in 1945.
The inscriptions on the monument say that the act of the wedding took place on this spot. The Wikipedia entry states that the monument stands about 300 metres from the original location, and Pomeranica that the ceremony took place on the terrace of Ujście Fort, next to the ruins of the German lighthouse. Both encyclopaedias thus agree that the inscription does not describe the exact position of the monument.
A minor renovation was carried out in 2014, and later it underwent a thorough restoration, during which losses were filled in, the structure was cleaned and impregnated, and the work also covered the surroundings and the characteristic steps. Among residents an urban legend circulates that passing through the opening while holding one's breath fulfils a wish made beforehand.
The boulevard leads from the lighthouse to the Kołobrzeg pier, both a few hundred metres away. A little further on lies the naval port, and in the town centre the town hall.
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