Designed to be a piece of Communist propaganda, Nowa Huta was built at an alarmingly fast rate towards the end of the 1940s. Claiming to “house the people” in a garden city, the neighborhood was constructed in the socialist realism style with wide boulevards, verdant public parks, and uniform apartment complexes.
Even though at its peak, Nowa Huta was home to more than 100,000 inhabitants, the city was never completed. Ironically, after the Iron Curtain fell, the area became one of the biggest suburban regions and is composed of newer prefab apartment blocks. Most tours of Krakow include a stop in Nowa Huta.
Nowa Huta can be accessed by car or the city’s well-designed tram network. Hop on tram #4 or #70 from Teatr Słowackiego (near Kraków’s main train station) for a 20-minute ride to the centrally located Plac Centralny stop.
The best time to visit Kraków is from March to May, and September to November when the weather is mild and most of the summertime’s tourists have gone.
Despite the suburban neighborhood’s socialist beginnings, Nowa Huta was also a major site for anti-communist activity and played a huge part in the Solidarity strikes of the 1980s; a period of labor unrest and economic crisis in Poland. During its communist period of control, the suburb also fought for the right to build a church, which was accomplished 28 years later with The Lord’s Ark (Kościół Arka Pana) in 1977.
