Thursday 20 September 2012

Crooked Forest - well, a crooked forest.

       In the northwestern corner of Poland, close to the border with Germany and the village of Pniewo there is a special forest of strangely crooked pine trees. There are around 300 trees in the grove and all of them have this weird shape resembling a sickle in their lower trunks.
       However the purpose and even the method of raising the trees is such odd shape remain unknown. The trees were planted there in 1934,when  areas was still German territory. Then, probably after they have grown to the height  of around 8 m or in other words when they were 7-8 years old they have been held down to the ground in direction North without being broken by yet unknown method. At the time there was WW2 going on all around Europe and probably the people who made it somehow got lost in the war.
       Who put all this effort in the creation of this forest and why? Special shaped trees were often needed in  boat-building and the huge Odra river, as well as the Baltic port of Szczecin are are fairly close to the location - the river is just 1 km  away to the East. However the shape of the trees does not seem to be in any way related to traditional boats. Maybe it has got something to do with architecture? Probably we will never know.

Coordinates:53° 12′ 50″ N, 14° 28′ 30″ E
Google Maps:
https://maps.google.com/maps?ll=53.213889,14.475&spn=0.01,0.01&t=h&q=53.213889,14.475
Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crooked_Forest
Gryfino town website about the forest (in Polish):
http://www.gryfino.pl/WrotaGryfina/chapter_56734.asp

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