Obi-Wan Kenobi Street (

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

: ''ulica Obi-Wana Kenobiego'') is a street in the town of Grabowiec in Toruń County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

. The street is named after

Obi-Wan Kenobi Obi-Wan Kenobi () is a fictional Character (arts), character in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. Within the Star Wars original trilogy, original trilogy, Obi-Wan is a Jedi Master as a supporting character and is portrayed by English actor Alec Guinn ...

, a fictional character in the ''

Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'' franchise.Council of the Commune Lubicz resolution No. XXVIII/373/04
(in Polish)An interview with Leszek Budkiewicz, who lives on the street, and who, being the Council member himself, managed to convince the Council to name the street after Obi-Wan Kenobi.

History

The street name was proposed by Leszek Budkiewicz, a member of the community council of

Gmina Lubicz __NOTOC__ Gmina Lubicz is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Toruń County, Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, in north-central Poland. Its seat is the village of Lubicz, which lies approximately east of Toruń. The gmina covers an area o ...

within which is located in Grabowiec. The proposition was accepted in resolution XXVIII/373/04 of 30 December 2004, and came into force 14 days later. Since then, the street name had attracted numerous ''

'' fans. In 2009, during Star Force, a ''Star Wars'' fans convention, many participants visited the street while wearing various ''Star Wars''-themed

cosplay Cosplay, a portmanteau of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, ...

s. The street was visited by the ''Star Wars'' actors

Gerald Home Gerald Home (18 October 1950 – 6 October 2021) was a British actor best known for playing Tessek-Squid Head and the Mon Calamari Officer Captain Verrack in '' Return of the Jedi''. Early life Home was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on ...

and Paul Blake in 2008. The street inspired propositions of naming streets in other cities of Poland after Obi-Wan Kenobi, including in:

Bielsko-Biała Bielsko-Biała (; cs, Bílsko-Bělá, german: Bielitz-Biala, szl, Bjylsko-Bjoło) is a city in southern Poland, with a population of approximately 168,319 as of December 2021, making it the 22nd largest city in Poland, and an area of . It is a ...

and

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

. In 2021, the street was rebuilt, with its surface being updated from dirt to concrete cube. The investment cost 580 thousand Polish złoty, of which 290 thousand was covered by the Local Government Roads Fund.

References

{{reflist Streets in Poland Toruń County Star Wars fandom