Muzeum Szczecin w PRL
About the Museum
Social history and material culture of Szczecin in 1952–1989
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Museum History
The museum was founded by Justyna Machnik, a licensed city guide. It all began with a self-guided walking tour "Szczecin on the PRL Trail" along al. Wojska Polskiego and ul. Jagiellońska (premiere April 2018). A single-room exhibition complemented the tours, free for participants only (May 2019–November 2020).
A move to a larger space followed, along with months of organising and over a year of building the exhibition. The museum opened to visitors in March 2022.
Szczecin w PRL offers visual impulses, social history and material culture from 1952–1989. Multiple themed zones: Szczecin (places, culture, workplaces, music, food), home life, childhood, a party official's study, trade, crafts, sport and leisure.
Also on display: typography, design and interior trends of the era, everyday objects. The exhibition confronts the phenomenon of cult status and nostalgia. For the local community it is a kind of memory archive. Most exhibits were donated by residents of Szczecin.
Descriptions of objects, phenomena and places are available in three languages: Polish, English and German.
2018
PRL Walking Tour
2022
Museum opening
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About the Author
Justyna Machnik
Founder · City Guide
A native of Szczecin and licensed city guide. Projects: Usługi dla Ludności (documentation of old craft workshops — radio features, two exhibitions, articles, group visits, Szczecin Craftsmen's Map of the city centre), Szczecin on the PRL Trail (thematic walk and exhibition), Kamienice Szczecina (promoting the 'Extraordinary Szczecinians and their tenements' trail; 2013 concept of 11 plaque unveilings on building facades). From 2007–2012 journalist at Polish Radio Szczecin and Szczecin FM. Author of articles on Szczecin history and places (Korona 1912 Coffee Roastery, the Nieznani beat group, the Feather Cleaning Workshop, Stylish Lamps 1945).
In 2020 she published the 'OCHRONA' series on the 'Zwykłe Życie' portal, about workers at porter cabins and security posts — places that are at once the backstage and a strategic point of the city. Two-time finalist of the Gazeta Wyborcza readers' poll 'Szczupaki i kiełbie'.
In Szczecin she loves plane trees, granite paving slabs, mosaics, and faces carved on tenements — art nouveau women, composers, demons. She was a teenager when communism collapsed, placing her among those who remember and reminisce. She went to school in a uniform with a school badge on her sleeve, played elastic band games in the yard, and after the Wieczorynka cartoon she slept on a sofa bed.