The sunrises and sunsets

At the first half of the 19th century Bialystok’ economy started growing fast. German and Jewish manufacturers began to come here to set up textile facories, especially after 1831 - the year when customs border between Krolestwo Polskie (The Polish Kingdom) and the enormous part of former Polish and Lithuanian lands was established by tsarist government as a kind of repression for Polish independence uprising in 1830 - 1831 (November Uprising). It was the time of huge influx of German and Jewish textile manufacturers, highly qualified German workers. Bialystok became at that time one of the most important industrial towns in whole Russian Empire, it was even called “Manchester of the north”.

Many of the old textile factories were in so pitiful state that it was not possible to save and renovate them, some of them were just knocked down, onle a few survived and it is difficult to predict how long they will stay. some of them are now converted into the lofts and probably it is the only way to protect those old buildings, though there is a danger that they may lose its original character.

Below we took pictures of two almost untouched yet old plants and one being under way of converting.