Bydgoszcz from above — guided 360° films with captions
11 films · 61 min in total · 8K 60 fps · every word on screen
Author: Andrii ShramkoWhat you will see in the films
Each place has its own film — choose one to watch it.
- Bydgoszcz Venice and Mill IslandA dye works where clothes were washed in petrol, footbridges over the Brda and the red Rother Mills.
- Mill Island by night and Opera NovaThe Three Graces above the Brda, the granaries and the Old Port after dark — a river route that once led all the way to Berlin.
- The Bydgoszcz Canal and Lock IVThe lock's wooden gates and an avenue of poplars. This is where Okole got its German name: Schleusenau.
- The Old Canal and the Planty parkA canal dug in a single year — a low flight over the water, along trees planted by the townspeople.
- Okole, the Brda and Queen Jadwiga BridgeA district that came through the war undamaged, and Hala Astoria, named after a New York hotel.
- Castle Hill and Długa StreetCasimir the Great's castle stood here — its bricks ended up in the houses on Długa Street.
- Freedom Square and the ArcherWho paid for the statue that became the city's symbol, and who rebuilt the Deluge fountain.
- Gdańska StreetOn the façade of the Pod Orłem Hotel, the architect hid his own face.
Films
Each film is one guided flight. The guide speaks English (a synthetic voice) and every word is on screen, so you can also watch with the sound off.
360°Open captionsThe Island That Kept Working
Houses standing in the water, the red-brick Rother Mills and a dye works that washed clothes in petrol.
360°Open captionsThe Suburb Named for a Lock
Wooden lock gates, poplars along the water and a district named after a canal lock.
360°Open captionsThe Long Wait for the Tram
Townhouses of the old Prinzenstrasse, bends of the Brda and a district that came through the war undamaged.
360°Open captionsCastle Hill, Remade and Renamed
A church on the site of a royal castle, and Długa Street, whose townhouses were built with its bricks.
360°Open captionsThe Street That Outlived Its Rulers
A banker's yellow villa, the Deluge Fountain and the townhouses around Freedom Square, seen from above.
360°Open captionsWho Runs the Square
A market run by its own traders, two churches and a square where horses were once sold.
360°Open captionsWhat Prussia Left
A bridge with lamps on tall posts, the red-brick railway headquarters and the street that leads in from the station.
360°Open captionsThe Market That Stayed
The huge Hotel Brda block, a market the city never moved, and a street of railwaymen, clerks and teachers.
360°Open captionsBuilt by Bakers and Barbers
Art Nouveau façades on Gdańska Street, a nuns' church with gun slits and a hotel with a red dome.
360°Open captionsThe River Road to Berlin
Bydgoszcz by night: Opera Nova lit up, Mill Island, the Rother Mills and the old granaries on the Brda.
360°Open captionsThe Canal Dug in a Year
A flight low over the old canal, past brick locks and the trees of the Planty park in Okole.
How to watch
On a phone: swipe across the picture or turn the phone itself — it works best in the YouTube app.
On a computer: drag the picture with the mouse to look around.
In a VR headset: open the film in DeoVR or YouTube VR.
Why visit Bydgoszcz
Bydgoszcz grew up on the water. In 1579, one in six ships sailing down to Gdańsk came from here. Barges were still bringing grain to the Rother Mills on Mill Island in the nineteen-eighties, and the granaries on the Brda stored grain for more than a century and a half.Mill Island, Bydgoszcz — Polish WikipediaRother Mills — Polish Wikipedia
The Bydgoszcz Canal was dug in a single year — from the spring of 1773 to June 1774 — by 8,000 labourers. Today the Planty park runs along the Old Canal, and most of the trees planted here by the town's beautification society are still standing. Lock IV has wooden gates.Bydgoszcz Canal — Polish Wikipedia
Okole came through the Second World War undamaged, and its Łokietka Street is the former Prinzenstrasse. In the Old Town, the tenement houses on Długa Street are built partly of bricks from the ruins of Casimir the Great's castle.Okole, Bydgoszcz — Polish Wikipedia
Gdańska Street is lined with tenement houses from the turn of the century, some of them Art Nouveau. They were built for the craftsmen and merchants of old Bromberg — a soap-maker, a hotelier, a baker, a barber — and on the façade of the Pod Orłem Hotel the architect Święcicki hid his own self-portrait among the allegorical heads. A little further on, in Freedom Square, stands the Archer (Łuczniczka): the statue was paid for by the banker Lewin Louis Aronsohn.Gdańska Street, Bydgoszcz — Polish Wikipedia
The best place to start a walk is Mill Island with its footbridges over the Brda; then go along Długa and Gdańska Streets and through the Planty by the canal. In the films you see these places from above first — together with the stories of particular buildings.
Films about Bydgoszcz have been watched 2,500+ times on YouTube and DeoVR. YouTube + DeoVR, public counters, as of 29 October 2026. Only the films of this series about Bydgoszcz.
How we count
We add up the public view counters of YouTube and DeoVR — views are events, so they can be summed. We never add up subscribers or the number of films, because the same film is on both platforms. Hours watched are shown only when a platform has reported them, never worked out from film lengths. Facebook is not included. Numbers are rounded down and refreshed once a month.
- YouTube: 500+ (views of the films about Bydgoszcz, 29 October 2026)
- DeoVR: 2,000+ (views of the films about Bydgoszcz, 29 October 2026)
YouTube + DeoVR, public counters, as of 29 October 2026
Questions
Is there a 360° video tour of Bydgoszcz with subtitles?
Yes — 11 films. Each one has captions burned into the picture: every word of the guide is on screen, in three places around you, so you can watch without sound. The captions and the narration are in English.
What does Bydgoszcz look like from above?
From above you can see best that this is a city built on water: the Brda with Mill Island and the Rother Mills, the Bydgoszcz Canal with its locks, Okole and, in the centre, Freedom Square and Gdańska Street. Each of these places has its own film here.
Where can I watch a virtual tour of Bydgoszcz in VR?
In the DeoVR app or in YouTube VR — every film has a DeoVR link. On a phone, the YouTube app is enough: turn the phone or swipe across the picture.
What is there to see in Bydgoszcz?
Mill Island with Bydgoszcz Venice and the granaries on the Brda, the Planty along the Old Bydgoszcz Canal, Długa and Gdańska Streets, Freedom Square with the Archer and — if you want to see the city's everyday life — the market on Piastowski Square.
Who films Bydgoszcz with a 360° drone?
Andrii Shramko, an engineer and filmmaker who lives in Bydgoszcz. The series is his independent initiative — not a city hall publication.
Andrii Shramko
Engineer and filmmaker, living in Bydgoszcz. I have been filming 360° in motion since 2015.
What you can check
- My 3D scan illustrates the NVIDIA Omniverse documentation, credited to Andrii Shramko
- World Labs: my scene “Poland”, 106 million splats — the largest in their Spark 2.0 article
- “Touching the Sky” — a VR film by Red Bull × Meta, 2025 (making-of on Red Bull TV)
- Immersive Warsaw 2026: speaker, “The Camera Doesn't Exist Yet”, 5 November 2026, Kinoteka
- Lublin's Old Town as a 3D scene: 259 million splats, 13 levels of detail — the largest scene on my profile
- ShramkoGSFPV: a drone simulator in the browser, flying over real 3D scans — open source
I almost always work with a team — that is why I write “we”. We will agree how to work together when we meet.