Pomerania Events

Pomerania’s calendar combines a medieval trade fair with the commemoration of two of the twentieth century’s turning points.

Saint Dominic’s Fair — late July to mid-August, Gdansk

Granted by papal bull in 1260 and held almost every year since, this is one of the oldest and largest open-air trading events in Europe. For three weeks several thousand stalls fill the streets of the historic centre — amber, antiques, crafts, books, food — alongside concerts, parades and street theatre, and the city receives several million visitors over the run. It is genuinely a fair rather than a festival with shops attached, and the amber trading in particular is serious. Accommodation is scarce and expensive for the duration.

1 September — Westerplatte

The anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War is marked at dawn at the peninsula where the first shots were fired, with a ceremony attended by veterans, officials and often foreign leaders. Sirens sound across the city at quarter to five.

31 August — the Gdansk Agreement

The anniversary of the 1980 accord that legalised Solidarity, commemorated at the shipyard gate and the monument to the workers killed in 1970.

Midsummer and the Kashubian calendar — June

Noc Swietojanska on the shortest night brings bonfires on the beaches and wreaths floated on the water, and in Kashubia it opens a summer of village festivals with their own music, embroidery competitions and the peculiar local sport of snuff-taking contests. Wejherowo’s calvary pilgrimages, which have run since the seventeenth century, draw Kashubian parishes through the summer months singing in their own language.

Through the year

Gdynia Film Festival in September, the main showcase of Polish cinema. Saint Martin’s goose on 11 November in Kashubia. Christmas market on the Gdansk Targ Weglowy through Advent.