At Lake Lucien we were a few years ago at a meeting of a befriended motorcycle club. Recently we were doing some cleaning on the disk and old photos from this trip fell into our hands. We remembered that we wanted to write about a certain place we had found ourselves there. Get to know an abandoned holiday resort on Lake Lucien in Miałkówek and get to know its sad end.
I went out for a while, I’ll be right back.
What was the first thing that came to our mind when we looked inside? The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Here, as well as there, the rooms looked as if people were supposed to come back there right away, they had to leave only for a moment. In some of the hotel rooms, there were still typical communist curtains hanging in the windows, on the walls colorful wallpapers with patterns also typical for that period, beds and night tables torned down by the time. At the reception desk, machines and telephones, partly already dismantled. On the tables, scattered memos, bills, and books. There was everything, but no people.
The resort on Lake Lucien – an architectural gem from the 1970s
The object was built by the Żyrardów Flax Industry Plant in the mid-1970s (some sources state the 1960s). It was to serve for the employees as a holiday resort for whole families. Unfortunately, like most textile factories at that time, the plant bankrupt in the 1990s. On an 8-hectare plot of land, three huge, circular residential buildings left. Each of them 4-story with 120 rooms with bathrooms. They were connected by glass corridors with a dining complex and conference rooms. There were also playgrounds, volleyball courts, a basketball court, a summer stables and a car park that could accommodate 150 cars. The whole complex, even in the state in which we saw it, made an amazing impression us. Something like a combination of communist architecture with almost futuristic glass corridors. A real architectural gem of those times and of today.
End of the resort in Miałkówek
When the Flax Factory in Żyrardów bankrupt in 1997, the facility was bought out by a private company. For another 10 years or so, it was prosperous. They rented rooms for the holidays. At one point the object simply stopped accepting new guests. Why? We have not found a specific statement from the owners, there are only guesses that it was because of the lack of central heating. There were electric stoves in every room that heated the rooms. This type of heating before 2000 was not yet as expensive as it is now. The maintenance of the resort ceased to be profitable, the owners stopped paying property tax and the facility was put up for auction. The current owner is the municipality of Gostynin, which at the time of the purchase was hoping to find an investor to help revitalize the resort. Unfortunately, to this day the facility is still unsecured and regularly plundered by thieves and vandals.
One of the most interesting URBEX facilities in Poland
Initially, the object attracted the interest of lovers of urban exploration. You can find a lot of materials from their sites, films, photos and descriptions on the web. The centre quickly became very well known in Poland, its location was no longer a secret. Its fame was followed by vandals, homeless people, smaller and bigger thieves. Some of them were leaving the centre with whole trucks filled with furniture and equipment stolen from the centre, even though, as the plaques tell us, the facility is guarded.
The resort on Lake Lucien – a few comments at the end
A visit to the resort on Lake Lucień is worthwhile combining with the picturesque route through the Gostynin-Wloclawek Landscape Park. Great corners on the roads, beautiful landscapes and some very nice objects worth seeing, such as our favorite “pocket” castle, which we have already written about. You can find a link to our tour here. As for the entrance to the abandoned resort, we had no problems with it. The gate was open, there was nobody on its territory, even though we wanted to ask for permission.
