Fly!

This photo was taken on the main market square of the old town in Toruń (Poland). In medieval times, Toruń was a hanseatic trade centre and one of the five most important cities founded by the military order of the Teutonic knights in Prussia (others being Elbląg, Chełmno, Königsberg/Kaliningrad and Gdańsk which was founded much earlier, before the period of the crusades by Poles and Pomeranians and only came under Teutonic rule in the 14th C.). The founding of cities in the previously pagan, rural territory of eastern Baltic was a gradual process initiated by the crusaders in the early 13th C. with the founding of Riga around 1201 (Toruń was founded around 1233). It resulted in many major social, economic and ecological changes in theregions conquered by the crusaders, for instance it introduced to Prussia and Livonia some new, typically ‘urban’ species of animals which travelled east together with western settlers and merchants. Among these animals were for example domestic cats or pigeons which, as you can see, are still numerous in the old medieval towns of the Baltic
Ps.
The building in the background is the gothic town hall of Toruń. It dates mainly from the late 13th – 14th centuries although its upper stories were rebuilt in later years (the ground level still preserves beautiful gothic vaults)