This article aims to point out the relationship between the Vistula, Poland’s largest river, and Praga, Skaryszew and (to some extent) Golędzinów, which, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, were towns in the vicinity of Warsaw. The focus of the analysis is primarily on the opportunities and constraints arising from their location on the Vistula.
Their location in the relatively narrowest part of the river near Warsaw enabled the operation of ferries and the construction of a bridge in the second half of the sixteenth century. The crossings and the bridge influenced the spatial development of Praga and Skaryszew, and the roads leading to the places where the river was crossed became the most important streets of both towns. On the banks in Skaryszew, in the first half of the seventeenth century, there were numerous granaries, influencing the space of the town. In Praga, one important structure connected with the Vistula was a salt warehouse. Considering Skaryszew, information has been preserved about the washing of the bank by the waters of the river; there is also information about floods, which, according to witnesses’ accounts, inundated the entire inhabited area on the right bank. It is known that the chapter of Płock, as the owner of Skaryszew, took steps to finance the repair and strengthening of the embankments and banks. The influence of the Vistula and the use of the riverside infrastructure left a strong mark on the fate of these urban centres, although they would probably not have been established if it had not been for the rising position of Warsaw: from the second half of the sixteenth century it became one of the most important centres of the Commonwealth.