a boy backflipping along a bench on a sidewalk

40 years after Solidarity, Gdańsk's rebellious spirit still inspires Poland

The Baltic seaport is a city of grit, elegance, and memories of the labor strike that turned the nation toward democracy.

Dominik Lubecki practices flipping over a bench in Nowy Port, a working-class district where dockhands in 1946 launched one of the first communist-era strikes demanding better working conditions. When he’s not skateboarding or composing hip-hop, “Lulek” works as a volunteer with Gdańsk’s youth.
This story appears in the September 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine.
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