The south Warsaw building complex, which was formerly owned by the Russian Federation, was seized by city bailiffs just weeks after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
At the time, the city’s mayor, Rafał Trzaskowski, pledged to use the building to rehome displaced Ukrainians, prompting a stinging rebuke from Russian diplomats.
Now, however, it has been announced that it will be subject to a 70 million złoty modernization before being handed over to house police officers, teachers and firemen, among others.
The building, planted on a 7,000 sq/m plot of land, was originally constructed in the late 1970s and built to a design authored by architects Piotr Sembrat and Janusz Nowak.
Hailed as one of Poland’s best examples of the brutalist style, the project’s unusual form—two separate cascading concrete towers joined together at the top—has been compared to falling blocks of Tetris.
For years, the mysterious complex was segregated from the outside world by a razor-topped fence mounted with security cameras. Sometimes described as being Poland’s first-ever gated community, features on the inside included an onsite kindergarten, sauna, cinema, hair salon, library, canteen and dentist.
Though officially home to Russian trade officials and embassy employees, rumors that this self-contained world was doubling as a center for Russian espionage operations soon emerged and earned the building the nickname of Szpiegowo (Spyville).
The collapse of Poland’s communist system in 1989 saw the compound vacated by its Russian residents, but this was not the end of Szpiegowo’s story.
The property became the subject of an ownership dispute between Russia and Poland, and while it officially lay empty, it remained closely guarded—on the gates, stern notices were hung, warning the public that what lay beyond was under the ownership of the Russian Embassy and strictly off-limits.
When it was briefly leased in 1998 to a Polish firm, investigators discovered many former communist Polish agents on the payroll. Just as bizarrely, urban explorers that made it beyond the perimeter would, on occasion, report witnessing surreptitious handovers or finding recently dated Russian-language newspapers and printed material.
In later years, Szpiegowo would fill another function entirely, housing a club called Sotka that was reportedly only open to Russian passport holders. According to some unverified accounts, this became a favored covert party spot for Russian mobsters until its closure around a decade ago.
Trailed by years of hearsay and gossip, news that this architectural landmark is to be repurposed but protected has been welcomed by those more accustomed to the shady goings-on that have defined its past.
