20zł 100th Anniversary of the Port of Gdynia

On 14 September 2022, the National Bank of Poland is launching a silver coin with a face value of PLN 20, "100th anniversary of the Port of Gdynia".

Under the Treaty of Versailles, Poland received a narrow strip of coastline (approximately 140 km including the Hel Peninsula) and the right to use the port of Gdańsk. In practice, however, due to Gdańsk's special status as a Free City, the use of the existing port for Poland's military and commercial needs was not fully possible. In 1920, a few months after the ceremony of Poland's wedding with the sea, the Ministry of Military Affairs delegated Engineer Tadeusz Wenda to determine a convenient location for the construction of the future port. In June 1920. Tadeusz Wenda submitted a report on the inspection and observation of the coast. The favourable location of Gdynia, providing, among other things, shelter from the winds by the Hel Peninsula, the appropriate depth of water at the shore and the proximity of the railway station, all contributed to the choice of this particular site. After that, things moved rather quickly. Within two years (1921-1923), the Temporary War Port and the Fishermen's Shelter were built. At the same time, in 1921. Venda prepared a concept for a port proper with a capacity of 6 million tonnes. A year later, on 23 September 1922, the Sejm of the Republic of Poland passed an act on the construction of a port in Gdynia. Article 1 of the document reads: "The Government is authorised to make all necessary arrangements to carry out the construction of a seaport at Gdynia in Pomerania as a public utility port". The date of the resolution is taken as the formal beginning of the Port of Gdynia.

The obverse of the PLN 20 coin depicts a plan of the Port of Gdynia. The model used was a plan in the form of a coloured photocopy from the collection of the Gdynia City Museum made by Leon Wilbik based on a design by Tadeusz Wenda. The plan was probably drawn up around 1936. It shows the state of the port in that year, as well as the Industrial Canal (which was never built in the end), some of the port warehouses and quays and basins planned for the following years.

The reverse shows a bust of Tadeusz Wenda taken from a portrait photograph from 1918, which is kept in the collection of the Gdynia City Museum. Shown in the foreground are fragments of the portal of a gantry crane with an openwork structure, which was used in Venda's time and is still in use today. The cranes in the background are contemporary devices. The past meets the present of the port.