A Walk to the Old Zoo on Zwierzyniecka Street

The Old Zoo at 19 Zwierzyniecka Street is about a five-minute walk from Bukowska 11A. The most straightforward route leads via Bukowska, Zeylanda, and Zwierzyniecka. The garden was founded in the 1870s, in Prussian Poznań. From 1919 it operated as a Polish institution. Today it is a listed historic park—and the oldest address in the history of Poznań’s zoo.

The beginnings of the garden are usually associated with 1871. According to the founding tradition, the Zoo started as a birthday prank by a group of bowlers who met in a restaurant near the former station of the Stargard–Poznań Railway. One member of the group was celebrating his fiftieth birthday. His friends brought him unusual “gifts”: a pig, a goat, a ram, a cat, a rabbit, a squirrel, a goose, a duck, a hen, a peacock, a monkey, and a trained bear. The animals were placed in the restaurant garden. From this private menagerie, the later zoological garden developed.

The first phase of the Zoo’s history belongs to the period of Prussian Poznań—Posen. The site was created by the former station, near Jeżyce, in an area shaped by the railway, the military, a restaurant, and bourgeois leisure. In 1874, the Zoological Garden Society was established. In the following years, the grounds of the old station and the adjacent garden were taken over and organised. The site was divided into a park-and-restaurant section and the animal enclosures proper.

Although the garden functioned within the German state and its administrative order, it was not, from the outset, an exclusively German institution. Germans, Poles, and Jews were active in its leadership and milieu. The sources mention, among others, Robert Jaeckel, Stanisław Zieliński, Dr Franciszek Chłapowski, Ludwik Frankiewicz, Mendel Cohn, Siegfried Pinkus, the Kronthal family, and the lawyer Dr M. Lewiński. Poles typically made up about one quarter to one third of the board. The Old Zoo thus illustrates well the realities of late nineteenth-century Poznań: the dominance of the German state, yet also the steady presence of Polish and Jewish circles in urban life.

Two figures were particularly significant: Robert Jaeckel and Stanisław Zieliński. Jaeckel, a German merchant, managed the garden from the 1880s and led it through a period of marked growth. Zieliński, associated with the Zoo from 1873, represented the Polish contribution to the institution’s functioning. Studies emphasise that their cooperation supported the Zoo’s organisational and spatial development. It is also noteworthy that, despite intensifying Germanisation, bilingual signage was maintained on the site—German and Polish.

In 1886, the former station grounds—about 5.24 hectares—were purchased from the railway treasury. In subsequent years, a pond with an island was created, as well as a colonnade offering shelter from rain, a bowling alley, a bandstand, a pavilion in the form of an antique temple, a fountain, and a viewpoint. Because the garden lay within an area subject to fortress restrictions, most structures were built of wood. In 1888, an aviary was constructed, and the half-timbered building of the former locomotive shed was adapted as an elephant house. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, an alpine garden (alpinarium), a monkey house, and a lion house were also built.

By the end of the nineteenth century, the Old Zoo was one of Poznań’s most popular places of recreation. It was not only a place for viewing animals. It was a park, a restaurant, an open-air concert venue, and a site of public entertainments. In the 1890s, it attracted on average about 250,000 visitors per year. Orchestras of the Poznań garrison performed here, including those of the 46th and 47th Infantry Regiments and the 6th Grenadier Regiment. In summer, concerts took place in the garden; in winter, in the restaurant hall.

From archival press reports we know that well-known ensembles also performed on Zwierzyniecka. In 1889, 1891, and 1898, the orchestra of Eduard Strauss gave concerts here. One performance, on 13 May 1891, drew about five thousand listeners. After the concert, the garden was illuminated. In 1900, 1913, and 1914, the orchestra of Johann Strauss III performed here. Fireworks and aeronautical shows were also organised. In 1900, the aeronaut Spiegel launched a balloon from the garden, and one of the flights ended in Chomęcice near Stęszew.

A separate—and difficult—chapter were the so-called ethnological exhibitions, organised in the restaurant section of the garden from 1879. Today they should be understood as part of European colonial culture rather than as a neutral curiosity. In Poznań, people from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas were presented as an “exotic” attraction for the public. In 1879, a group of Nubians arranged by the entrepreneur Reiche was shown, alongside camels, elephants, hippopotamuses, a giraffe, a female donkey, and a horse. In later years, there appeared, among others, Samoyeds, Sioux, Kalmyks, Zulus, Dahomey Amazons, Swahili, Sámi, Kyrgyz, Tatars, Sudanese, Samoans, and dervishes. Until 1914, at least a dozen such shows took place.

The best-documented visit is that of the Samoans in 1901. A group consisting of 8 men, 17 women, and one boy was watched by several thousand people daily, despite cold and rain. Schoolchildren came from Poznań and the surrounding area. The press also noted a visit by the Chief President (Oberpräsident) of the province, Dr Bittner, accompanied by his wife. This episode shows the garden’s connection to German colonial imagination. In 1900, Samoa came under German rule, and Poznań audiences watched performances in the context of contemporary imperial policy. It should be remembered, however, that similar spectacles were popular across Europe, and that Polish newspapers likewise often described them in the language of the period, without explicit critical distance.

The First World War halted the garden’s development. The number of animals, staff, and visitors declined. Money and fodder were scarce. In 1919, when the garden was taken over by the Polish authorities, 243 animals representing 75 species remained. From this point a distinctly Polish phase of the Zoo’s history begins.

In the 1920s, the garden was rebuilt. From 1 June 1919 it was managed by Dr Bolesław Cylkowski, and in 1922 Kazimierz Szczerkowski became director. In 1923, lions returned; among the newcomers were a Bengal tiger, leopards, hyenas, and a tapir. In 1924, a pair of European bison (żubr) was brought in. This had not only a display function but also a conservation dimension, since after the First World War the species stood on the brink of extinction. By the end of 1924, the Zoo had 521 animals in 181 species.

In 1929, during the General National Exhibition (Powszechna Wystawa Krajowa), the garden gained new facilities and a stronger promotional role. Before the Second World War it counted about 1,184 individuals belonging to roughly 300 species. It had become an important Polish natural-history and educational institution, operating nevertheless in the urban space inherited from the Prussian city of the late nineteenth century.

In September 1939, bombardments damaged some buildings and killed some animals. During the German occupation the garden continued to operate, but its situation was difficult. Kazimierz Szczerkowski initially remained director; later he was replaced by Dr R. Müller, a former director of the Königsberg zoo. The occupation authorities considered relocating the Zoo to Kasprowicz Park, but the plan was not implemented. In 1942, a fire in the large predators’ pavilion—linked with an air raid on nearby military facilities—killed lions and tigers. Towards the end of the war, some animals were shot as potentially dangerous. In 1945, about 175 animals remained. Even so, the garden was reopened to visitors as early as April 1945.

In 1974, on the centenary of the garden on Zwierzyniecka, the New Zoo was opened on Biała Góra, near Lake Malta. The main part of Poznań’s zoological collection was moved there, especially animals requiring larger enclosures and better spatial conditions. Initially, a complete transfer of the Old Zoo was considered, but in 1976 it was placed under conservation protection. The historic layout, greenery, and part of the former built fabric were preserved.

Today, the main part of Poznań’s Zoo operates by Malta, in the New Zoo opened in 1974. The Old Zoo on Zwierzyniecka has been retained as a historic park and the preserved terrain of the former garden. Among its features is the former Lion House, now home to the Museum of the Zoo’s History. It remains the oldest address of Poznań zoology—and a particularly interesting destination for a short walk from Bukowska 11A.