• 001 - the logo.jpg
  • 002 - Hiroshima sunset.jpg
  • 003 - Auschwitz-Birkenau ramp.jpg
  • 004 - Chernobyl contamination.jpg
  • 005 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 006 - Berlin Wall madness.jpg
  • 007 - Bulgaria - monument at the bottom of Buzludzhy park hill.jpg
  • 008 - Ijen crater.jpg
  • 009 - Aralsk, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 010 - Paris catacombs.jpg
  • 011 - Krakatoa.jpg
  • 012 - Ho Chi Minh mausoleum, Hanoi.jpg
  • 013 - Uyuni.jpg
  • 014 - DMZ Vietnam.jpg
  • 015 - Colditz Kopie.jpg
  • 016 - Glasgow Necropolis.jpg
  • 017 - Hashima ghost island.jpg
  • 018 - Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 019 - Arlington.jpg
  • 020 - Karosta prison.jpg
  • 021 - Kamikaze.jpg
  • 022 - Chacabuco ghost town.jpg
  • 023 - Eagle's Nest, Obersalzberg, Berchtesgaden.jpg
  • 024 - Kursk.jpg
  • 025 - Bran castle, Carpathia, Romania.jpg
  • 026 - Bestattungsmuseum Wien.jpg
  • 027 - Pripyat near Chernobyl.jpg
  • 028 - Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 029 - Pyramida Lenin.jpg
  • 030 - Falklands.jpg
  • 031 - Majdanek.jpg
  • 032 - Soufriere volcano, Montserrat.jpg
  • 033 - moai on Easter Island.jpg
  • 034 - Sidoarjo.jpg
  • 035 - Hötensleben.jpg
  • 036 - Natzweiler.jpg
  • 037 - Polygon, Semipalatinsk test site, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 038 - Srebrenica.jpg
  • 039 - Liepaja, Latvia.jpg
  • 040 - Vemork hydroelectric power plant building, Norway.jpg
  • 041 - Enola Gay.jpg
  • 042 - Pentagon 9-11 memorial.jpg
  • 043 - Robben Island prison, South Africa.jpg
  • 044 - Tollund man.jpg
  • 045 - Marienthal tunnel.jpg
  • 046 - Aso, Japan.jpg
  • 047 - Labrador battery Singapore.jpg
  • 048 - Artyom island, Absheron, Azerbaijan.jpg
  • 049 - Treblinka.jpg
  • 050 - Titan II silo.jpg
  • 051 - dosemetering doll, Chernobyl.jpg
  • 052 - Holocaust memorial, Berlin.jpg
  • 053 - Komodo dragon.jpg
  • 054 - cemeterio general, Santiago de Chile.jpg
  • 055 - Tuol Sleng, Phnom Phen, Cambodia.jpg
  • 056 - West Virginia penitentiary.jpg
  • 057 - ovens, Dachau.jpg
  • 058 - Derry, Northern Ireland.jpg
  • 059 - Bulgaria - Buzludzha - workers of all countries unite.jpg
  • 060 - Sachsenhausen.jpg
  • 061 - Tiraspol dom sovietov.jpg
  • 062 - modern-day Pompeii - Plymouth, Montserrat.jpg
  • 063 - Pico de Fogo.jpg
  • 064 - Trinity Day.jpg
  • 065 - Zwentendorf control room.jpg
  • 066 - Wolfschanze.jpg
  • 067 - Hiroshima by night.jpg
  • 068 - mass games, North Korea.jpg
  • 069 - Harrisburg.jpg
  • 070 - Nuremberg.jpg
  • 071 - Mostar.jpg
  • 072 - Tu-22, Riga aviation museum.jpg
  • 073 - Gallipoli, Lone Pine.jpg
  • 074 - Auschwitz-Birkenau - fence.jpg
  • 075 - Darvaza flaming gas crater.jpg
  • 076 - Atatürk Mausoleum, Ankara.jpg
  • 077 - Banda Aceh boats.jpg
  • 078 - AMARG.jpg
  • 079 - Chacabuco ruins.jpg
  • 080 - Bucharest.jpg
  • 081 - Bernauer Straße.jpg
  • 082 - Death Railway, Thailand.jpg
  • 083 - Mandor killing fields.jpg
  • 084 - Kozloduy.jpg
  • 085 - Jerusalem.jpg
  • 086 - Latin Bridge, Sarajevo.jpg
  • 087 - Panmunjom, DMZ, Korea.jpg
  • 088 - Ijen blue flames.jpg
  • 089 - Derry reconsilliation monument.jpg
  • 090 - Ebensee.jpg
  • 091 - Mödlareuth barbed wire.jpg
  • 092 - skull heaps in Sedlec ossuary, Czech Republic.jpg
  • 093 - Nikel.jpg
  • 094 - Fukushima-Daiichi NPP.jpg
  • 095 - Tital launch control centre.jpg
  • 096 - Dallas Dealy Plaza and Sixth Floor Museum.jpg
  • 097 - Auschwitz I.jpg
  • 098 - Stalin and Lenin, Tirana, Albania.jpg
  • 099 - Malta, Fort St Elmo.jpg
  • 100 - Peenemünde.jpg
  • 101 - Tarrafal.jpg
  • 102 - Kilmainham prison, Dublin.jpg
  • 103 - North Korea.jpg
  • 104 - Mittelbau-Dora.jpg
  • 105 - St Helena.jpg
  • 106 - Stutthof, Poland.jpg
  • 107 - Merapi destruction.jpg
  • 108 - Chueung Ek killing fields, Cambodia.jpg
  • 109 - Marienborn former GDR border.jpg
  • 110 - Mig and star, Kazakhstan.jpg
  • 111 - Nagasaki WWII tunnels.jpg
  • 112 - Hellfire Pass, Thailand.jpg
  • 113 - Kiev.jpg
  • 114 - Grutas Park, Lithuania.jpg
  • 115 - Zwentendorf reactor core.jpg
  • 116 - two occupations, Tallinn.jpg
  • 117 - Trunyan burial site.jpg
  • 118 - Ushuaia prison.jpg
  • 119 - Buchenwald.jpg
  • 120 - Marienthal with ghost.jpg
  • 121 - Murmansk harbour - with an aircraft carrier.jpg
  • 122 - Berlin Olympiastadion.JPG
  • 123 - Bastille Day, Paris.jpg
  • 124 - Spassk.jpg
  • 125 - Theresienstadt.jpg
  • 126 - B-52s.jpg
  • 127 - Bledug Kuwu.jpg
  • 128 - Friedhof der Namenlosen, Vienna.jpg
  • 129 - Auschwitz-Birkenau barracks.jpg
  • 130 - mummies, Bolivia.jpg
  • 131 - Barringer meteor crater.jpg
  • 132 - Murambi, Rwanda.jpg
  • 133 - NTS.jpg
  • 134 - Mauthausen Soviet monument.jpg
  • 135 - pullution, Kazakhstan.JPG
  • 136 - palm oil madness.jpg
  • 137 - Berlin socialist realism.jpg
  • 138 - Okawa school building ruin.jpg
  • 139 - Pawiak, Warsaw.jpg
  • 140 - flying death, military museum Dresden.JPG
  • 141 - KGB gear.JPG
  • 142 - KZ jacket.JPG
  • 143 - ex-USSR.JPG
  • 144 - Indonesia fruit bats.JPG
  • 145 - Alcatraz.JPG
  • 146 - Chernobyl Museum, Kiev, Ukraine.JPG
  • 147 - Halemaumau lava lake glow, Hawaii.JPG
  • 148 - Rosinenbomber at Tempelhof, Berlin.jpg
  • 149 - Verdun, France.JPG
  • 150 - hospital, Vukovar, Croatia.JPG
  • 151 - the original tomb of Napoleon, St Helena.JPG
  • 152 - Buchenwald, Germany.JPG
  • 153 - Bhopal.JPG
  • 154 - Groß-Rosen, Poland.jpg
  • 155 - at Monino, Russia.jpg
  • 156 - blinking Komodo.jpg
  • 157 - inside Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 158 - Mount St Helens, USA.JPG
  • 159 - Maly Trostenec, Minsk, Belarus.jpg
  • 160 - Vucedol skulls, Croatia.JPG
  • 161 - colourful WW1 shells.JPG
  • 162 - Zeljava airbase in Croatia.JPG
  • 163 - rusting wrecks, Chernobyl.JPG
  • 164 - San Bernadine alle Ossa, Milan, Italy.jpg
  • 165 - USS Arizona Memorial, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.JPG
  • 166 - Brest Fortress, Belarus.JPG
  • 167 - thousands of bats, Dom Rep.JPG
  • 168 - Hohenschönhausen, Berlin.JPG
  • 169 - Perm-36 gulag site.JPG
  • 170 - Jasenovac, Croatia.JPG
  • 171 - Beelitz Heilstätten.JPG
  • 172 - Kremlin, Moscow.jpg
  • 173 - old arms factory, Dubnica.JPG
  • 174 - Pervomaisc ICBM base, more  missiles, including an SS-18 Satan.jpg
  • 175 - Cellular Jail, Port Blair.jpg
  • 177 - control room, Chernobyl NPP.JPG
  • 178 - Podgorica, Montenegro, small arms and light weapons sculpture.jpg
  • 179 - Vught.jpg
  • 180 - Japanese cave East Timor.jpg
  • 181 - Ani.jpg
  • 182 - Indonesia wildfire.jpg
  • 183 - Chacabuco big sky.jpg
  • 184 - Bunker Valentin, Germany.JPG
  • 185 - Lest we Forget, Ypres.JPG
  • 186 - the logo again.jpg

Polish Army Museum

  
 2Stars10px  - darkometer rating: 2 -
  
Polish military museum 9b   tanks and planes The main military museum in Poland’s capital Warsaw, the inside of which is an old-fashioned, gloomy and largely monolingual affair and of little interest to the modern dark tourist; but the freely accessible open-air displays of planes, missiles, tanks and artillery are – at least for those so inclined – worth a look when in the area.
   
More background info: For the country’s role in WWII, see under Poland and Warsaw in general and in particular under Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk and Warsaw Uprising Museum.
   
  
What there is to see: As you step into the park-like area with open-air displays right next to the museum building you are greeted on the right by a sleek MiG-29 fighter jet with Polish Air Force markings. This is a type actually still in service. The specimen on display here could do with a bit of a polish but is still an impressive piece of Cold-War-era aviation beauty.
   
On the left is another Soviet-era fighter jet, of an older type (I believe a Sukhoi Su-20/22) contrasting sharply with a WWII-era Sherman tank from the USA. Next to this odd couple are a few small planes (probably trainers) and T-34 tanks, and south of this ensemble stands a small passenger jet marked “Republic of Poland”. Next to this is a medium transport plane and a row of artillery guns.
  
Turning right to the area behind the museum building, a couple of Soviet-era helicopters are on display, including the menacing-looking MiL Mi-24 attack helicopter, and the workhorse MiL Mi-8, the most-produced helicopter of all time.
  
Turning left you pass a row of vehicles that include two Cold-War-era missile launchers, at least one of them of the Scud-A type. Opposite these about half a dozen planes from the WWII-era are clustered together, one of them an Ilyushin Il-2, the most-produced military aircraft of all time.
  
The path then dips down a slope and passes a Soviet-era surface-to-air missile (SAM), some artillery pieces and various tanks and other military vehicles. Just beyond stands a specimen of the iconic MiG-21, the most widely produced supersonic jet plane ever.
  
So it is not a particularly large collection (for that see e.g. Monino), but it does feature a number of historically significant and iconic aircraft and missiles, but for fans of other military hardware it’s probably a bit disappointing. But it’s free, so who’s to complain.
  
For most people this will thus hardly be a destination in its own right, but it makes for a decent enough short add-on when in the area.
  
I can’t say much about the museum as such, i.e. about the indoor exhibitions in the main building, because I declined to go inside. That’s because I had read beforehand that it’s supposed to be a gloomy affair with little to no English, and it largely concentrates on eras outside of the usual scope of dark tourism. That said, it’s supposed to have a section about WWII and the Warsaw Uprising. But these topics are much better covered in the Museum of the Second World War (in Gdańsk) and the Warsaw Uprising Museum, respectively. Hence I saw no need to see the inside of this museum.
  
  
Location: Near the Centrum district of Warsaw south of the Old Town and about a mile (1.5 km) to the east from the Palace of Culture and Science and the main train station; address: Al. Jerozolimskie 3.
  
Google Maps locator: [52.2325, 21.02644]
  
  
Access and costs: a bit hidden from street view, but not hard to locate; open-air part free of charge; probably not worth paying the admission fee for the museum interior.
  
Details: To get to the museum you can walk it from anywhere within the Centrum district, or take a tram to Muzeum Narodowe. Indeed, the Polish Army Museum (“Muzeum Wojska Polskiego” in Polish) is the direct neighbour of the National Museum. To get to the open-air part keep walking east to reach the gate just past the museum buildings.
  
Admission: free, for the open-air part, but the inside of the museum costs ca. 20 PLN, ca. 5 euros, which sounds little but is probably too much for what you actually get to see.
  
Opening times: the inside of the museum is open from 9 or 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., either daily (as some sources claim) or more likely only from Wednesday to Sunday; the open-air part is presumably open at least during those times too, possibly longer, and perhaps even daily. I have not been able to ascertain that; but I very much doubt it will be open 24/7.
  
  
Time required: depends on your interest in the kind of objects displayed here. A real all-military-hardware freak could possibly spend an hour here, for less enthusiastic visitors something like 10 Minutes or so may suffice (my wife would say even one minute is too long).
  
  
Combinations with other dark destinations: in general see under Warsaw.
   
Just to the west of the museum’s neighbour, the National Museum, stands the building that used to be the HQ of the Polish Workers’ Party during the entire communist era. Its interior is not open to the public, but you can have a look at the facade and the courtyard and reflect on what a disturbing centre of political power this used to be until 1989/90.
  
A bit further to the west is the very biggest of all of Warsaw’s attractions, the iconic Palace of Culture and Science. Definitely worth a look, if not a guided tour of the inside.
  
  
Combinations with non-dark destinations: right next door, in an actually directly adjacent building, is the National Museum, which has mainly Polish and international paintings and sculptures, apparently some of them quite significant and valuable.
  
See also under Warsaw in general.
  
 
   
  • Polish military museum 1 - Soviet plane and US tankPolish military museum 1 - Soviet plane and US tank
  • Polish military museum 2 - Republic planePolish military museum 2 - Republic plane
  • Polish military museum 3 - MiG-29Polish military museum 3 - MiG-29
  • Polish military museum 4a - Mil-Mi 24Polish military museum 4a - Mil-Mi 24
  • Polish military museum 4b - Mil-Mi 8Polish military museum 4b - Mil-Mi 8
  • Polish military museum 5 - big gunsPolish military museum 5 - big guns
  • Polish military museum 6 - WWII planesPolish military museum 6 - WWII planes
  • Polish military museum 7 - missile launchersPolish military museum 7 - missile launchers
  • Polish military museum 8 - Soviet SAMPolish military museum 8 - Soviet SAM
  • Polish military museum 9a - tank and artilleryPolish military museum 9a - tank and artillery
  • Polish military museum 9b - tanks and planes Polish military museum 9b - tanks and planes
 
 
 
 
 
   

 

 

© dark-tourism.com, Peter Hohenhaus 2009-2023

Cookies make it easier for us to provide you with our services. With the usage of our services you permit us to use cookies.
More information Ok