All of you know Lublin as a wonderful, colorful and comfortable city, without the crowds and noise, where you can enjoy silence and calmness, museums and historic sites. But it is always interesting to know more about the place you live, study and work.  In this article we offer you some fascinating and unusual facts about Lublin that you may not know.

Did you know that…..?

1. The city’s name comes from the name Lublya, that has been reduced form of the Slavic name Lubomyr (it is only one of many versions);
2. The motto of Lublin is “The City of Inspiration”;
3. Lublin had been the capital of Poland twice, but only for a few months. Both times it had been associated with wars: first time after the World War I, and the second time at the end of World War II;
4. Before the Second World War, Lublin was a major center of the Jewish community in Poland. It was even called the Jewish Oxford;
5. Lublin is among the ten biggest Polish cities in terms of population, although it is twice smaller than Krakow , and 3.5 times smaller than Warsaw ;
6. Lublin is affectionately called “Little Krakow”;
7. Among the residents of Lublin more than 40% are young people up to 35 years (it is 140 000 people out of 350 000);
8. Lublin is the biggest university centre in eastern Poland with over 5,000 foreign students;
9. It is a city of culture with over 30 regular festivals every year;
10. Lublin is one of three Polish cities, which still have trolleybuses. The remaining two are Gdynia and Tyhy;
11. Today Lublin is very attractive for foreign investments and puts emphasis on the development of science. Here are the centers of accounting operations and manufacturer of aluminum systems, that are the best in Europe;
12. In 2014, the city was #1 in Poland in terms of the infrastructural investment value per capita;
13. Lublin has its own signature dish, which is called “Tsibulyazh.” This is wheat cake with poppy seeds and onions.
14. One of the highlights of the city is “Lublin heynal”.  It is a unique music, that sounds daily from the balcony of the New Town Hall. This tune has more than 400 years. Its author is unknown, but the names of the trumpeters who performed it obviously became legends and history. Daily at 12:00 o’clock resident of Lublin Onufry Kosharnyy goes to the balcony of the Town Hall and plays the heynal. Those ancient sounds tell to the city that life goes on, the story lives. Mr. Onufry Kosharnyy is 80 years old, and 17 of them he plays the heynal every day, without holidays.

All of you have already seen the monument of goat in the city center. People like to make appointments near that little fountain with the figure of a goat. You can see that goat almost everywhere here. But do you know why they depict it everywhere?

Once upon a time, when the Polish city of Lublin was quite small provincial town, there was battle with the nomads. Many citizens died in that cruel battle and a lot of orphaned children were left there. Kids managed to survive thanks to one devoted female goat that fed them with her milk. In gratitude for the salvation of those children residents of Lublin began to consider goat as a symbol of their town. They started to depict it on the coat of arms of Lublin with the grape vine. Once a painter, who was drawing Lublin’s coat of arms, made a mistake, and instead of female goat drew a male goat … bearded male goat. Since then, residents of Lublin have the custom to represent the emblem of the city as a goat, and Lublin became known as “Town of the goat”.

For centuries, the figure of “Lublin goat” has changed for several times, this cute animal climbed higher and higher on a grape vine and bit its branches. The oldest preserved image of “Lublin goat” printing refers to 1401. It shows a shaggy goat with long horns. During the Second World War and the Nazi occupation the Germans also used the coat of arms with the image of a goat. After the war, the arms with a goat decorated the internal passports of the residents and tickets for public transport.  In 2004 was held another correction of the emblem. Now the goat has four hooves (not three as before), the scutcheon is painted in three colors: white, red and green. Those are the colors of the city flag.

For several centuries, the goat on the arms walked along of many different changes, from the shaggy goat to the cute animal. Now it’s graceful, a little bit stubborn and rebellious little goat, which you can easily to fall in love with. The same we can say about the city.

Do you know some more interesting and unknown facts about Lublin? If yes, just feel free to share the information with us.

Irina Ilyashevych