Usedom

Description

NV Cruising Guide

Navigation

The access is via the buoyed access channel (target depth 2m) through Lake Usedom and is only recommended for people unfamiliar with the area during the day.

Berths

Guests lie on free spaces on the floating jetties with fingers or in free boxes in front of stern piles on the pier at a water depth of 2 - 2.5 m.

Surroundings

Modern sanitary facilities in the newly built harbor building, shopping facilities and restaurants are available in the town. A harbor restaurant is planned.

KLINES: The small jetties on the western and eastern shores of the approximately 40 m wide entrance to Lake Usedom are private fishing jetties. Guests go alongside or look for a mooring on the shore at a water depth of 2 m with a stern anchor. There are no sanitary facilities or supply options here.

NV Land Guide

Compared to the seaside resorts on the north coast of Usedom, the island capital of Usedom is more of a sleepy little town - and a lovely one at that. No grain or residential silos disturb the cohesive image of a town whose medieval structures have been preserved to this day. But only the structures. The merchants' houses of the Middle Ages are no longer standing. Wars and fires hit Usedom, which was declared a town in 1298, exceptionally hard.

The single-storey houses lined up in a row with their small stores around the mighty church have a typical small-town, bourgeois, cozy feel. There are all kinds of corner stores and a "snack bar" with an ice cream parlor next to the church. Directly opposite is the old half-timbered rectory in good condition and with a front door worth seeing. An attractively preserved town hall with a well-tended front garden and the small park by the town gate are just two examples of how Usedom's buildings survived the SED regime far better than those of other coastal towns.

St. Mary's Church was first mentioned in a document in 1336. However, the current church was built after the great town fire in 1475. The old gravestone set into the tower wall probably depicts the Pomeranian Duke Ratibor and his wife, the Polish Princess Pribislawa. The special feature of the tower bell, cast in 1639, is an inscription commemorating the death of the last Pomeranian duke, Duke Bogislaw XIV.

Because the city gates, once built for narrow carts, proved to be an obstacle to traffic, two of the three city gates were demolished: the Peene Gate and the Swin Gate. Only the Anklam town gate from the 14th century was preserved. Remains of the old town wall can still be seen here. Behind two-meter-thick walls, the gate houses the Heimatstube in the former rooms of the town prison, a small historical treasure trove, which is looked after by the museum director. On request, he will open the door to the massive west tower and explain what the historical pieces are all about and who had to "stew" behind the thick walls on bread and water. The prison in the tower was used for the last time shortly after the Second World War. Some Usedom farmers who were accused of collaborating with the National Socialists were briefly locked up in the dungeons.

The small museum contains finds from the Slavic period (11th and 12th centuries), when Usedom was the center of economic life on the island, as well as prehistoric artefacts. A 5000 - 6000 year old troch mill and a 2000 year old barracks roll are among the gems of the Heimatstube, from which the larger museums have (unfortunately) already drawn.

In the low, vaulted rooms of the gate, you learn that Usedom once bore the Slavic name Uznam and that the wooden palisades of a Slavic refuge castle stood on the castle rampart in the south-east of the small town. It was surrounded by swamp and is said to have had underground escape routes. A cross reminds us that Bishop Otto von Bamberg converted the noble Slavs to Christianity here (1128). A visit to the castle rampart is also recommended because of the impressive view of the Usedomer Winkel. The peninsula-shaped south-western tip of Usedom is ideal for a hiking excursion.

As more and more different classes and strata of the population emerged in the late Slavic period, the Slavic nobles also built their castles to protect themselves from their own people. In addition, Usedom's strategically favorable position and the town's role as an important trading center were particularly closely linked. Historians were initially unsure of the extent of the trade links and were therefore puzzled when grave goods of Roman origin were discovered: An iron sickle knife, a bronze fibula, a bronze sieve and a ladle were among them. The museum director knows that Usedom's soil still holds many secrets about the importance of the Slavic trading center, but that the means to get to the bottom of the past have so far been lacking.

In any case, Pentecost Day in 1128 was not a day of rejoicing in Usedom. The cross on the castle hill did not bring peace, but violence, because the people did not want to follow their princes. The pagan priests went into hiding and called for the missionaries to be killed in the name of Porevits, the five-faced god of light of the forests. It was not until 1147 that the resistance of the Slavs was finally broken during the second crusade, when the crusaders moved not only southwards but also north-eastwards. Usedom was burned to the ground twice.

By 1121, the Polish Grand Duke Boleslaw III Krzywousty, with Danish support, had succeeded in subjugating the Slavs of the Oder region in battles with heavy losses.

After the Slavic nobility had long resisted the religious dictates in bloody battles, their only choice was to be baptized and oppress their own people. The nobility acted in a realistic assessment of the hopeless situation vis-à-vis the German nobility, who together with the church had unleashed a smear campaign against the Slavs. It culminated in the claim that the Slavs were man-eaters.

It was the clergy in particular who painted a terrible picture of the Slavs as human beings. They were people with green skin, red faces and long hair. They were ruled by witches and demonic powers and the land was defended by dogs. Many atrocities accompanied the subjugation during the German expansion to the east. The Slavs who were unwilling to accept the new doctrine were declared outlaws. They had to leave their homes and farms, while the nobility saved and even extended their privileges by accepting Christianity.

The originally free peasants were left behind, with more and more of them falling into serfdom, in which the church on Usedorn initially played a significant role. Missionary activity was mainly a means of expanding power. And the Pomeranian dukes, concerned about their salvation, granted the monks more and more privileges. However, due to their unpopularity, the monks of the Premonstratensian Order found the ground in Usedom too hot. They left the "Grobe" monastery in the town and built their new center of power in Pudagla. The founders of the Cistercian nunnery in Krummin were no less squeamish when it came to appropriating land and collecting taxes. The churches on Usedom are almost exclusively evidence of "medieval wealth".

What the church had started on Usedom, the nobility continued after the Reformation and made the farmers their personal property for good with the "Farmer and Shepherd Ordinance". This did not change during the 30 Years' War, when Swedish King Gustav Adolf II. occupied Usedom in 1630. In the Peace of Osnabrück, Usedom fell to the Swedes until it finally became Prussian in 1720. Further wars repeatedly hampered the town's development, meaning that it was unable to return to its Slavic heyday. A further setback followed when the Swine was made navigable in 1740. The new shipping route made Swinemünde the largest settlement on the island of Usedom in the early 1800s. The town of Usedom was no longer competitive.

By the way, the pastors on Usedom did not fare as well economically as the monks. Their income consisted mainly of agricultural yields, which they had to earn themselves. There was no pension scheme. In order to secure the church land "for the family", a young pastor could choose from the daughters of his predecessor, who in return was provided for in old age. However, if the problem of pension provision was resolved early on, the successor could also marry the widow.

Back to the Heimatstube, which houses a number of other historical items. The collection includes an old bushel scale, a 1300-year-old plow, a butter swing, a grist barrel and everything that was used for preparing flax and weaving. The 200-year-old, hand-forged ship's lantern should be of particular interest to sports sailors. With three crosses, many of Usedom's fishermen signed a 200-year-old agreement to stop catching eels with the "eel rake". The document in the local history museum also states that the fish may no longer be disturbed during hibernation. Anyone who did so anyway had to expect severe penalties.

The "Legend of the Silent Fisherman", which tells of a terrible autumn storm that lasted so long that the families in the poor cottages were in dire straits, makes it clear just how much life in the town once depended on fishing. When a young fisherman's mother fell ill and he was unable to pay for the medicine, he went out despite the storm and was lucky enough to meet the mermaid who beckoned to him in the middle of the raging sea. As the woman with bright hair, green eyes and a scaled fish tail clapped her hands, the water calmed around him and he needed all his strength to pull his cast nets on board because they were overflowing with fish. Although his nets were old and brittle, they did not tear. The mermaid advised him before she disappeared: "Don't boast about your catch." And because the fisherman followed this advice, prosperity returned to his house and he could now think about marrying the girl of his dreams. The taciturn fisherman, however, had a boastful rival who wanted to put his adversary out of the running with an even bigger catch before the wedding. In fact, the mermaid appeared to him too, gave him an unprecedented catch and advised him: "Don't brag." As soon as he reached the harbor, however, he celebrated himself as a rich man who no one could hold a candle to. When he then opened the fish box, the fish were half decomposed.

Eels, as the saying goes, were once so plentiful in Lake Usedom, the river and the lagoon that you could scoop them into the boat with your bare hands. Whether this is an exaggeration or not, today's fish population is extremely meagre due to ecological neglect.

The Usedomer Winkel with its barely frequented side routes has already been mentioned as a hiking area in the southwest of the town. But nature also beckons to the north-east of Usedom with a special natural monument, the Suckow Sockeleiche (5km). A hiking trail leads north over the 28 m high "Weißer Berg" and from there northeast to the village of Suckow. At the end of the village, on the road to Rankwitz, lies the aforementioned oak tree. At a height of around 16 meters, the trunk has a circumference of 5.30 m! The branches of the wide-spreading crown reach almost to the ground. The oak is called Sockeleiche because its base consists of a burial mound interspersed with roots.

Marina Information

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Surroundings

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Washing machine

Restaurant

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Imbiss

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Grocery

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