Wrocław's Dwarves: How Many There Are, Where the Hunt Started and How to Find Them

Walk through Wrocław looking at the cathedrals and the gabled houses and you'll miss half the city. The other half is about knee height. Small bronze dwarves sit on doorsteps, climb lamp posts, sleep on benches, push wheelbarrows and hang off railings. Nobody agrees on exactly how many there are now. Estimates run from about 700 to more than 1,000, and new ones keep appearing.

They started as a protest. In the 1980s, under communist rule, the Orange Alternative movement painted cartoon dwarves over the patches of grey paint where the authorities had covered anti-government slogans on Wrocław's walls. The dwarves were absurd on purpose. Police chasing painted dwarves looked ridiculous, which was the whole idea.

The photo below is one of the modern bronzes on the cobbles, a bearded dwarf crouched by a wall with some bit of business in his hands, the stones around him polished by passing feet. Most are about this size. Some are smaller. Finding them is the game.

From protest to mascot

The first bronze, Papa Krasnal, went up in June 2001 on Świdnicka Street, where the Orange Alternative held its happenings, as a tribute to the movement. In 2005 the city commissioned five more from the sculptor Tomasz Moczek. Then businesses, institutions and private sponsors started ordering their own, and the dwarves multiplied.

Now they have jobs and back stories. One group of dwarves uses wheelchairs, crutches and canes, put up to raise awareness of accessibility. Hotels, shops and banks commission their own dwarves as house mascots.

How to hunt them

Start at the Rynek, the Market Square, and the streets around it. The densest clusters are in the old town, but they turn up across the city, including on Ostrów Tumski, the cathedral island. A dozen are easy to find in an hour. Fifty takes a day.

Get a map. The tourist information office sells a dwarf map, and there are apps and online maps that mark many of them. Kids treat it like a treasure hunt and so do most adults.

Look down, not up. That's the trick. They hide at the foot of doorways, beside drainpipes and on window ledges at hip height. Many are small enough to miss with your eyes on your phone.

Don't stand on them, don't climb them and don't try to take one home. They're bolted down, and the city takes its dwarves seriously.

Why it works

Most cities with a gimmick statue have one or two. Wrocław has hundreds, and they turned a pretty old town into a game that makes visitors slow down and walk the side streets. That's more than most tourism campaigns manage.

More on the city at knee height: The City at Knee Height: Walking With Wrocław's Dwarves on Travel Marketing.