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Two raftsmen walk along the sandy bank of the Vistula: the older one, in a fur hat, plays the violin; the younger one raises a hand holding a pipe. On the right, a woman in a white headscarf, people by a fire and a shelter. In the background, a wide river under clouds.

Audio exhibition · 9 stops

The Raftsmen

Down the Vistula to Gdańsk, 16th–20th century

Listen to the first stop

Where: On site or from home, in the app

Stops in this exhibition

The whole exhibition is in the Vernissio app, free.

  1. 1 Two raftsmen walk along the sandy bank of the Vistula: the older one, in a fur hat, plays the violin; the younger one raises a hand holding a pipe. On the right, a woman in a white headscarf, people by a fire and a shelter. In the background, a wide river under clouds.

    Raftsmen by the Vistula

    In 1881 the Gdańsk painter Wilhelm August Stryowski painted raftsmen resting by the Vistula. Floating goods downriver, known as flis, was one of the most important means of transport in Poland before the partitions. Most of the grain and timber travelled down the Vistula to Gdańsk. In the 19th century the number of raftsmen fell as the railways took over the goods.

  2. 2 Part of an old map in sepia tones. Rivers are thin, winding lines, towns are tiny drawings of towers, forests are clusters of little trees. The Vistula runs from the bottom of the map towards the top left corner, to Toruń and Grudziądz. At the bottom right, the San flows into it.

    From the San to Gdańsk

    Gerard Mercator's map of Poland and Silesia, published in Duisburg in 1585. It shows the San, which joins the Vistula near Sandomierz, and further on Warsaw, Płock and Toruń. Raftsmen from Ulanów, a town where the Tanew flows into the San, travelled down the San and the Vistula all the way to Gdańsk, carrying timber and grain. The map ends at Grudziądz. Gdańsk lies beyond its edge.

    In the app
  3. 3 A pen drawing on cream paper. By the bank, a wooden boat with a sail and three men; one of them pushes off with a long pole. On the left, a traveller with a sack on his back and a stick. Logs lie on the water; in the background, wooden cottages.

    The pilot goes first

    A vignette from a map of the Wilia (Neris) river, 1857, shows raftsmen by a boat and logs floating downstream. Ahead of the rafts, in a small canoe, went the rotman, or retman: the man who knew the river best. With shouts, and signals made with an oar or his cap, he showed the way through the current and warned of shallows. The rafts were steered with oars, which in Ulanów were called drygawki.

    In the app
  4. 4 A coloured woodcut. Huge blocks of ice pile up beneath the brick walls of Toruń. On the left, an overturned boat; on the right, the roof of a flooded house. Above the walls, townhouses and a tower under a cloudy sky.

    Toruń and the ice floes

    Toruń was one of the towns where raftsmen's guilds were founded at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries. In 1595 Klonowic called it “well built and rich in virtue”. The river could also be dangerous: a woodcut after a drawing by Hermann Penner shows an ice jam beneath the walls of Toruń when the Vistula flooded in 1879.

    In the app
  5. 5 A sunny day by the Vistula, with big white clouds. On the left, a woman in a red headscarf bends over pots at a smoking fire. Next to her, in a straw shelter, a bearded man smokes a pipe. Hens on the sand; further back, a sail and people by the water.

    The raftsmen's camp

    Stryowski's second painting shows a raftsmen's camp by the Vistula: a fire with pots, a shelter of poles and straw, hens on the sand and sails in the background. The raftsmen had their own dialect, customs and songs. Klonowic mentions a song about Saint Barbara that the rotman taught the young raftsmen. The raftsmen's brotherhood in Ulanów, founded in 1991, is named after Saint Barbara.

    In the app
  6. 6 The title page of an old print in an ornate frame. A large heading, FLIS, and below it, in old Polish: To jest spuszczanie statków Wisłą i inszymi rzekami do niej przypadającymi, Sebestyana Fabiana Klonowica (that is, floating vessels down the Vistula and the rivers that flow into it, by Sebastian Fabian Klonowic). At the bottom: Drukował Sebestyan Sternacki (printed by Sebastian Sternacki).

    The novice near Gniew

    Sebastian Fabian Klonowic's poem “Flis, to jest spuszczanie statków Wisłą” (“Rafting, that is, floating vessels down the Vistula”) was first published in 1595. It describes the journey to Gdańsk and the initiation of newcomers: below Gniew, at a river island the raftsmen called the Kitchen, the novices, known as fryce, were struck with a blunt wooden sabre. They were to remember that to the left the Vistula leads to Gdańsk, and to the right the Nogat leads to Elbląg. After that they were called brothers. The photograph shows the title page of an edition from 1603–1635.

    In the app
  7. 7 Part of a colourful painting. A winding river between green banks. On the water, long covered river boats, a small sailing boat and a large sailing ship with striped flags. At the bottom right, men around a cauldron over a fire, several of them lying on the grass. On the left, on a hill, people in dark cloaks.

    Gdańsk, journey's end

    A detail of the “Apotheosis of Gdańsk” by Isaac van den Blocke, 1608, a painting from the ceiling of the Red Room in the Main Town Hall. Boats loaded with goods sail on the river, raftsmen cook over a fire on the bank, and further on, sea-going sailing ships are waiting. Gdańsk was the largest port the rafts travelled to. Grain was the cargo most often floated downriver.

    In the app
  8. 8 A postcard reproducing a print. On the right, the huge, dark wooden mass of the Crane above the water, with a brick tower next to it. Townhouses line the quay, and ships are moored by the bank. In the foreground, calm water with reflections.

    The Crane on the Motława

    The Crane on the Motława is the largest and oldest surviving port crane of medieval Europe. It was built in its present form in 1442–1444. It was powered by people walking inside two pairs of treadwheels about six metres across. It lifted two tonnes to a height of 27 metres. It was used to load goods and to raise ships' masts. In Gdańsk, Klonowic admired the “intricate hoist” and the granaries.

    In the app
  9. 9 The yellowed title page of a book: Oryla Michała Haliniaka wspomnienia z podróży Wisłą do Gdańska. Spisał Dr. Karol Mátyás. Lwów, nakładem autora, 1906 (The raftsman Michał Haliniak's memories of a journey down the Vistula to Gdańsk. Written down by Dr Karol Mátyás. Lwów, published by the author, 1906).

    Walking home

    After selling the goods, the raftsmen walked home. According to accounts from Ulanów, a two-week quarantine awaited them when they got back. The ethnographer Karol Mátyás wrote down the memories of the raftsman Michał Haliniak of Rzeczyca Długa, who floated timber down the Vistula in 1901. The last rafting trip set out from Ulanów in 1968. In 2022 UNESCO added rafting to its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

    In the app

The whole exhibition is in the Vernissio app, free.

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