The Kolobrzeski Skannen Morski museum is on a small site in the Kolobrzeg Port area, and is dominated by its two small warships:Fala is a Polish-built Large Patrol Craft. The signage called it a torpedo boat that was used for attacking submarines, but the English language signage throughout the museum was pretty ordinary, and there were no signs of torpedos, sonars, or ASW weapons on the boat, but she was equipped for minelaying. Wladyslawowo (I don’t know why the Polish think their names are hard for us to pronounce) is an Osa class missile boat. I’ve seen one of these before (at the Chinese Naval Museum in Qingdao), but this is the first time I’ve got onboard one. Both ships have been placed on blocks, with stairs providing access to the upper decks. Access was freely available throughout the ships, including into the below-deck machinery rooms/messdecks/living spaces. One thing both ships had in common was that access through the ship, and down the ladders, was really cramped – and that is coming from someone who normally works on a submarine! I can’t imagine trying to move around either ship with a breathing apparatus on or trying to carry anything anywhere.The ships seem to have been in place for about 15-20 years, and it is showing. The upper decks are badly weathered, and below decks are showing signs of wear and tear from continued, unsupervised public access. I’m not all that confident in the long term viability of these two museum ships unless they start doing some progressive maintenance – unless the plan is to treat them as a cash-cow, and simply replace them with newer ex-Navy ships in due course.In addition to the two ships, there are a few other artefacts around the site – the most notable being the foremast, a main gun mounting, and a number of items of upperdeck equipment from Burza – the interwar French-built destroyer which had previously been a museum ship in Gdynia before it was replaced by Blyskawica and scrapped. There is another military museum in Kolobrzeg. The Dzieje Oreza Polskiego is primarily an army museum. The have a fairly extensive collection containing all manner of artefacts in internal galleries, and then an equipment park. There is also a large, and sobering, memorial to the victims of Katyn here. They have a lot of stuff, and they really cram it in – all the galleries are packed full, and the tanks/guns outside are packed in hub-cap to hub-cap. Most of the equipment artefacts are post-war Soviet, and there is only a small naval section containing some items salvaged from the Destroyer Wicher and Minelayer Gryf, sunk early in WW2. In another section there is also a cartridge case from Panzerschiffe Lutzow. Most of the artefacts look to be in reasonable condition, except for the aircraft (SU-22, IL-28 and Iskra) which were quite weathered. Kolobrzeg was a moderately interesting visit – and worth it if you happen to be in the area – it seems to be quite a nice town, everywhere I went was within walking distance of each other (museums, hotel, train station), and you are unlikely to run into other tourists (or too many people who can speak English).
