The cover from Gdansk is decorated with the city’s coat of arms, dating all the way back to the early fifteenth century. The city has had a checkered past — caught between the interests of various super powers — and was also often referred to by its German name, Danzig. For shorter periods of time, Gdansk had the status of a so-called free town, but eventually the Hitler German invasion in 1939 put an end to the last city-state of Gdansk.
During the Soviet dominance of Poland after World War II, the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk was the hotbed of one of the Cold War’s most crucial Soviet-critical movements. The shipyard, which also made the city’s manhole covers, became the home of the trade union Solidarność (Solidarity); its leader, Lech Walesa, became the president of Poland in 1990, after the Berlin Wall came down.
