Visitors from Poland’s oldest city Kalisz have come to Preston to celebrate the 30th anniversary of being twinned with the city.

Kalisz, which lies 146 miles west of Poland’s capital city Warsaw, was twinned with Preston in 1989 and has since been involved in a number of projects to develop a partnership between the two cities.

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Since forming the relationship, Preston has helped Kalisz set up a thriving business incubation centre.

Students from Cardinal Newman College take part in a cultural exchange programme with young people from Kalisz and the Preston Academy of English has worked on language programmes with the city.

The visitors included Kalisz twinning town committee, Mayor and President of Kalisz Krystian Kinastowski, Vice-President Mateusz Podsadny and the Chancellor of the Stanisław Wojciechowski State University of Applied Sciences in Kalisz Kazimierz Matusia, who were give a tour of UCLan as well as taking part in other events around the city.

Mayor and President of Kalisz Krystian Kinastowski said: “Both cities are of a similar size and have a rich history so when Preston reached out to Kalisz 30 years ago to offer friendship through the town twinning programme, we were delighted to accept.

“We’ve developed a close relationship over the last three decades that has brought the two cities together to share business and culture and we are already looking ahead to the next 30 years.”

Read more: Preston and Recklinghausen celebrate 60 years of twinning

The UCLan visit involved a meeting with the UCLan Propeller Hub to allow the delegates to learn more about student and staff entrepreneurship and business support followed by a demonstration of work taking place in the UCLan robotics and computer laboratory by Professor of Computer Vision Bogdan Matuszewski.

UCLan Joint Institutional Lead Dr Lynne Livesey welcome the visitors to Campus. She said: “It was an honour and a pleasure to support the 30th anniversary of twinning with Kalisz in Poland and meet members of the twinning town committee.

“We are looking forward to developing closer links with the Stanisław Wojciechowski State University of Applied Sciences through research projects and student exchange ventures.”

Trisha Rollo, the Kalisz co-ordinator from Preston Twinning Partnership, said: “We’re delighted to mark this milestone anniversary by bringing our guests to Preston. We already have a fruitful relationship with Kalisz and we aim to build on it through several projects that are already in the pipeline. This includes a concert in Preston performed by the Kalisz Phillomonic Orchestra and an art exhibition involving local artists from both cities. This relationship is very much about sharing business, culture and education.”

The President of Kalisz, Krystian Kinastowski, and the Chancellor of the Stanisław Wojciechowski State University of Applied Sciences, Kazimierz Matusiak, have both expressed an interest in joining the UCLan Creative Communities Group.