Кутно: Тарихы мен географиясы

City in Łódź Voivodeship, Poland

Kutno is a city located in central Poland with 42,704 inhabitants (2021)

July and August are the hottest months with average highs of December and January are the coldest with average highs of and lows of July has the most rainfall with an average of 73mm and January has the least with 30mm.

There are indications that the origin of the town may have taken place in the 12th century. The first mention of it was found in a document concerning an endowment of Łęczyca prepositure published due to a consecration of the collegiate church in Łęczyca in the year 1161. According to the local folklore, both the town and the parish came into being in 1250, although official documentation to that effect is lacking. Most probably, the town began to be settled some time between the 12th and the 14th centuries; its name appeared for the first time in a document from the year 1301. The document had been published for his son Ziemysław by Leszek, Przemysł, and Kazimierz – duke of Kuyavia in the presence of three estate dignitaries as well as other people gathered during a convention in Włocławek. References to Kutno concern the appearance of rector Michał from the church in Kutno on the list of witnesses. In 1386, Siemowit IV, Duke of Masovia had given to Andrzej de Kutno the privilege of freeing Kutno and Sieciechów villages from all charges and burdens excluding two coins (grosz) out of every crop fee. The role of the provincial courts was transferred to the Duke. In 1386, the village of Kutno was given trade and town rights, and 46 years later, in 1432 a municipal town charter. The first records that define Kutno as a town appeared in 1444. Kutno was historically famous for its rose fair which after 1989 changed its name into The Festival of Roses/The Rose Festival.

1 July 1504: Mikołaj of Kutno gained the right to hold the St. Wawrzyniec fair, improving the development of the town's trade. In 1701, the Kucieński family gave up Kutno to Anna Zamojska. The Zamoyski family fought amongst themselves for the property for a long time. The town fell into debt but the situation had normalized when Andrzej Hieronim Zamoyski became the owner of Kutno. During that time Kutno was a town of prosperity and development. A route connecting Warsaw with Poznań and Dresden ran through the town in the 18th century and King Augustus III of Poland often traveled that route. The town's prestige increased after King Augustus III of Poland ordered the construction of the Postal Palace and consequently, the Saxon Palace was built. It was constructed between 1750 and 1753, after a royal track leading from Dresden to Warsaw had been built. The palace was decorated with rich interiors according to John M Walter's plans. In 1753, Kutno was completely burned, resulting in the loss of the town records along with the settlement grant. After the fire, the King's Lord Councillor Andrzej Zamoyski left Kutno in order to obtain another settlement grant, however, the town suffered another fire due to one of many army march passes in 1774 and easygoing attitude of soldiers. In 1775, Andrzej Zamoyski sold Kutno to Stanisław Kostka Gadomski – governor of Łęczyca province. Under his reign, Kutno became one of the biggest settlements in central Poland. The Second Partition of Poland occurred in 1793. Kutno had been completely under Prussian control and became part of the newly created province of South Prussia. The whole province of Kutno became part of the Łęczyca department, then after the Third Partition, it became part of the Warsaw department. On 4 January 1807, Napoleon Bonaparte passed through Kutno. In 1807, under the Treaties of Tilsit, Kutno became part of the Duchy of Warsaw. An 1808 fire, most likely set by Napoleon's army, destroyed 180 houses. In 1809 Kutno was visited by Jan Henryk Dąbrowski. After 1815, the area was incorporated into the Congress Kingdom of Poland. In 1826, the first town map was published due to the planned rebuilding of the town. In 1826, Fryderyk Chopin travelled through the town. In 1840, a chapel was built which later became the Museum of the Battle of the Bzura river. Built in the Neo Renaissance style and rotunda shape and crowned with a dome, it is part of the Wiosny Ludów park. It formerly served as a mausoleum for the Rzątkowski and Mniewski families. Another fire destroyed nearly all of the houses on Królewska St. Only two buildings remained – nowadays Crocantino and MDM. In 1844, the first hospital in Kutno was opened, sponsored by Kutno's former owner Feliks Mniewski. A City Hall was built in 1845 in classicistic style. The building, located in the Marshal Piłsudski square, currently serves as the Regional Museum, in which one can see mementos and records from the history of Kutno. In 1862, the Warsaw – Bydgoszcz railway line opened, leading Kutno to become an important railway junction and a trade and industry center. Directly before and during the period of the January Uprising, Kutno was the seat of the head of the Gostynin province. During the January Uprising, clashes between Polish insurgents and Russian troops took place in Kutno on July 1–2 and August 8, 1863. In 1867, Kutno district was formed. This state endured until World War I outbreak. In 1886, on the place of the former Gothic church, the St. Lawrence Church (designed in a neo Gothic style by Konstantyn Wojciechowski) was built. On 5 January 1904, the Polish writer Henryk Sienkiewicz, a Nobel prize laureate, stayed in the Town Theatre, which was the seat of the Fire Brigade at that time. Income from his lecture was given to the poor children of Kutno. After his speech, a ball was held, to which only men were allowed, while women could watch it only from open windows. The famous Jewish writer(Polish Jews) Szalom Asz was born in Kutno in 1880. In his collection of short stories "Miasteczko" ("The Town"), he described the situation of Jewish people from this town – Kutno. Every two years, the town holds the Szalom Asz Festival, which includes a literary contest about his works. In the 19th c. Kutno was a center of a sizeable Jewish community. In 1900, 10,356 Jews lived there. From 15 to 16 October 1914, the Battle of Kutno took place between the Russian and the German. The Russians lost the battle, and the loss of Kutno provided the Germans with a direct access to Warsaw. In 1915, a local parish priest Franciszek Pruski was executed by a firing squad. A plaque commemoratinf this event has been placed in the St. John the Baptist church. Many Kutno inhabitants took part in the Polish Bolshevik War. They also fought in the Siberian Division. After the war, hundreds of 15 year old boys enlisted in the Army Mining Corps, today known as the miner–soldiers. From April 1919 to January 1921, a future French president Charles de Gaulle stayed in Kutno, as an instructor with the French military mission under general Louis Faury. On 5 March 1938, Kutno received its blazon, which depicts two rampant wild boars on the yellow background, leaning against a green bulrush.

The Battle of the Bzura river took place from 9 to 12 September 1939 during the German invasion of Poland, which started World War II. On 9 September the Poznań Army (Armia Poznań) operational group, led by General Edmund Knoll Kownacki, attacked the German 8th Army led by General Johannes Blaskowitz. On 11 September Poland's Pomorze Army reinforced the Polish troops in battle. At first, the Polish assault was successful but the Germans reinforced their troops on 12 September and started to counterattack. General Tadeusz Kutrzeba ordered Knoll to retreat beyond the Bzura river. Kutno remained outside the battle area. Despite the ultimate defeat of Polish army, the Battle of the Bzura river made the Germans change their strategy and regroup and also delayed the capitulation of Warsaw. On 16 September 1939, the German Wehrmacht moved into Kutno, bombarding trains, the railway station, and houses throughout the district. At the junction of what is now Kochanowski Street and Maja Street, a German saboteur laid down a target for the bombers bombing the railway station. The area was annexed directly to Germany, and administratively became part of the Third Reich's Reichsgau Wartheland, within the district/county (kreis) of Kutno. In December 1939 expulsions began in accordance with Nazi Germany's racial and ethnic policies, which aimed to make the town population purely German. People were forced to leave their houses early in the morning with only an hour's notice and could take only of baggage and a small amount of money. Expulsion was very often carried out with violence. People were transported by trucks or wagons and then in sealed trains. The trip was up to eight days long, in terrible conditions. Poles from Kutno were also among the victims of a massacre carried out by the German police in February 1940 near Gostynin (see Nazi crimes against the Polish nation). On 14 April 1940, during the AB Aktion, most of the Polish teachers from the Kutno district were arrested. Only a few survived having had left their houses earlier or having been prewarned. At least 173 Poles from Kutno and the county were murdered by the Soviets in the Katyn massacre in April–May 1940 or died in Soviet camps. Subsequently, the Germans created a ghetto in Kutno on 15 June 1940. The entire area of a former sugar factory ("Hortensja" or "Konstancja" according to various sources) was surrounded by barbed wire. On the first day, the Poles were forbidden to leave their houses, while the Jews were forced to take all their belongings and proceed to the factory. The German soldiers and SS members beat the Jews standing in the street. Eight thousand people were transferred to the area of the factory, within five buildings. On the first day, crowded and without any first aid facilities, a few people died. The only food they had was a small amount of potatoes and bread. Prices of extra food were very high. For instance, one kilogram of potatoes cost 40 Pfennig in the ghetto, while it was 5 Pfennig in the rest of the town. However, a true nightmare started in winter, when there was not enough firewood, so that the Jews had to burn furniture or scaffolding. In the following year, 1941, due to overcrowding of resettled people and transport difficulties, a concentration camp was established at 7 Przemysłowa St. Due to terrible conditions in the camp, about 10 persons died of dysentery every day. On 9 June 1941, at present day Wolności Square, three Poles, Kalikst Perkowski, Wilhelm Czernecki and Piotr Sanda, were publicly executed in punishment for smuggling food to Warsaw. Their deaths were intended to be a lesson and the presence of locals at the execution was compulsory; even the families of the executed were there. On 19 March 1942, the ghetto was closed. All Jews, in alphabetical order, were deported to Koło and then to the Chełmno extermination camp. The 6,000 Jewish inhabitants of Kutno were killed there, while elder people who had been ghetto administrators were killed in Kutno itself. Additionally, a forced labor camp operated in the area from January 1942 until January 1945. In 1943, 31 members of the Polish resistance were sentenced by the Germans in Dresden, 24 of them to death and executed there. On 19 January 1945, the Red Army arrived in Kutno, ending the German occupation, and the town was restored to Poland, although with a Soviet installed communist regime, which remained in power until the Fall of Communism in the end of the 1980s.

Cultural institutions resumed activity during first years after the liberation. Firstly, posts that had existed before 1939 were reopened. In June 1945 the Kutno District Public Library was opened. Thanks to donations by the public and the regaining of books that had been kept during the War, the library's collection grew rapidly. The public library was and still is fulfilling its important role in broadening culture. Because of developed railway and road trails, Kutno has been attractive for investors. Among the many branches of industry in Kutno, the most important was the electronics industry. In 1957 Radio Components Company Miflex opened, and would eventually employ over three thousand people. The Company is one of the important distributors of capacitors, anti interference filters. At the Marshal Piłsudski square Polish – Soviet brotherhood was constructed, depicting two persons: Red Army soldier and People's Army of Poland soldier shaking hands with each other. After the monument had been constructed incidents such as vandalism and defacing it with paint by local high school students occurred. They were part of the group called "Bloody Hawk" ("Krwawy Jastrząb"). In 1968 Kazimierz Jóźwiak, who was a choreographer and manager as well as director of the Kutno House of Culture founded the "Song and Dance of Kutno`s Land Band" ("Zespół Pieśni i Tańca Ziemi Kutnowskiej"). In 1971, the former Town Hall at the Marshal Piłsudski square Kutno Regional Museum was reopened. In 1975, the city was adjoined to the Płock Voivodeship and would remain so for the next 23 years. Annually, since September 1975, the Kutno Rose Festival takes place at the Kutno House of Culture, which has long been a center of cultural events in Kutno.

As a result of decisions made in the 1970s, industry investments began being located in the eastern part of Kutno Sklęczki now Kutno Agro Industrial Park. The decisive factor was access to the A2 motorway and the presence of a system of sidings connected with the E20 railway. KAIP began in 1996 during construction of the National Center for Food Processing and Distribution. Construction was led by the Urban Institute and the U. S. Agency for International Development and was opened in 1998. KAIP is constructed on 370 hectares, and now has over 60 businesses of local and foreign capital operate within its boundaries. Nearly 6,000 people are employed here. The food industry, packaging, plastics processing, manufacturing of agricultural equipment, and pharmaceuticals are the dominant branches. 111 hectares were set aside as part of the Special Economic Zone of Łódź.

In 2000, the Town Council created the Łódź Special Economic Zone in Kutno Agro Industrial park. It was originally 23 hectares and had four zones: Odlewnicza St. (4.24ha), Sklęczkowska St. (6.48 ha), Stalowa I and II (7.87ha and 4.49ha). The Sub zone has been broadened in the following years: 2002, 2005, twice in 2007 and in 2010. According to data from the end of January 2010, the whole area of Kutno sub zone is 111 hectares. Capital investments of companies operating only in the Kutno sub zone have exceeded the value of 1 billion PLN over the last 10 years.

Wiosny Ludów Park – is the oldest and simultaneously biggest park in Kutno (area 17,1ha). Once it was a palace garden by the Gierałty's Palace and came into being during the years 1775 to 1791. Park is separated in two parts, first one is a symmetric garden that is similar to the shape of French garden. The other one is landscape English garden, which came into being during the years 1826 to 1840. In the western edge of the park stands chapel in the memory of Mniewscy family (owners of Kutno from the 19th century). Romuald Traugutt City Park – placed in the central part of town on the area of 4,2ha. Has been founded during Poland's twenty years of independence after World War I as a place where one can reSt. Park is placed on terrain with diverse heights which gives him interesting landscape composition with pond being placed on the lowest part. At first, it was just an industrial pond nowadays it is adapted to leisure functions. Most of the cultural events in Kutno take place there. Stefan Żeromski's public library and Kutno House of Culture are placed in there. City park by the Ochnia river – is the newest park in Kutno. Groundworks ended there in 2003 year. Park's small woodiness gives it a modern image. Football and Basketball pitches located in the neighborhood create opportunity to practice sports.

The Rose Festival – a cultural event organized by Kutno House of Culture. It was held for the first time from 20 to 21 September 1975 as Kutno's Roses Fair. Main element of this event is exhibition of roses that comes from different Kutno growers along with performances of music bands (mostly folk bands), exhibition of the local artist and trade stalls. Since 1990 name of the festival has been changed to The Rose Festival (Święto Róży) along with its theme. Exhibition of roses has been extended with arts and set design arrangements. Kutno Station – Nationalwide Competition of Honorable Songs of Kutno District Governor – Jeremi Przybora. For the first time, took place in 2005. Szalom Asz Festival – A nationwide contest that is held once every two years. Jewish music, photographic exhibitions and film screenings also are immanent part of the festival.

Kutno is the seat of the European Little League Baseball Center. In 1984, Juan Echevarria Motola, a Cuban living in Kutno, started teaching baseball to groups of young people. Therefore, a baseball section of "Stal Kutno" club was created. It is the biggest youth center of baseball in Europe. The European Baseball Championship is hosted annually in various age categories. The complex consists of two lighted stadiums that have enough space to hold up to two thousand spectators named for Edward Piszka and Stan Musial. The complex also includes three training fields and a dormitory for over 200 players. Sports club City Stadium in Kutno on Tadeusz Kościuszki St. is named by Henryk Reyman.

Kutno cooperates with various cities and regions in Europe. For instance with Bat Yam city in Israel (Szalom Asz festival connects both towns). Thanks to Commune Association of Kutno Region town maintains relationship with the English county Northumberland.

Kutno is an important communication junction in Central Europe. Two main roads lead through town: national road No. 92 (former road No. 2) connecting Miedzichowo near Nowy Tomyśl with Łowicz and Warsaw; national road No. 60 connecting Kutno with Płock and Ostrów Mazowiecka national road which is the transit corridor for trucks, leading from the Baltic states to Germany. Both roads leading through town are bypassed which helps transport though country and to reduce traffic in the town. Fourteen kilometers from Kutno is Krośniewice. This is where the junction of roads nr 91 and 92 is situated. Beside country roads through Kutno leads a system of Province and District roads connecting town with Łódź and other nearby towns. The A1 motorway which opened to traffic in November 2012 has greatly improved the importance of the town in road transportation. Kutno is served by two exits from the A1 motorway (Kutno North, from the town and Kutno East, from the town).

Kutno is served by the Kutno railway station. Kutno has been an important railway hub in Poland since the 19th Century. The railways enjoyed its greatest development in the 1920s and 1930s. The history of rail in Kutno dates from 1861. Intensive railway development started during the interwar period. Between 1922 and 1926, the connection linking Kutno with Poznań (thereby construction of Warsaw Poznań railway) was completed and Łódź with Płock was finished. During the postwar period, the current platform and underground passage was constructed. One can now travel by train from Kutno to most of the big cities in Poland (Warsaw, Łódź, Bydgoszcz, Szczecin, Poznań, Wrocław, Katowice, Kraków, Lublin) and also to various tourism centers (Kołobrzeg, Krynica Zdrój, Hel, Zakopane).

According to a widespread story, Kutno was supposed to have been founded by Count Piotr from Kutna Hora, who had escaped in 997 with the brother of Bishop Wojciech from Bohemia to Poland. Kutno, the town, was founded as an heirloom of a family estate. J. Łukawski, the publisher of Liber beneficiorum by J. Ławski, placed a footnote on page 478, with the following account: "When Piotr of Kutno came to Poland in the year 997, he founded Kutno in memory of his manor house in the Bohemia. The parish church was founded along with the settlement. Piotr's ancestors designated themselves as the Counts of Kutno and later assumed the name of Kucieńscy". However, this story is not considered to be reliable and is rejected by most historians due to its doubtful origin. It is treated as an 18th century legend or possibly a varnished version of the origins some "noble" families. The geographic dictionary of Polish Kingdom, commonly known as "Kąty", gives the impression that Kutno could have been named "Kątno" originally. The source of this legend is likely because of the similarities between names Kutno and Kutná Hora. First references to Kutná Hora were made in 1289, whereas about Kutno itself was not noted until 1301. In addition, in the 10th century Poles were not founding towns, as an equivalent. Instead, they had strongholds which were changed in the 13th century. The title of Count being used in Bohemia since 1627.