The first happening with LGBT people representation took place in Poland in 1998, when three masked people stood on the Castle Square. Nobody seven thought that a gay and lesbian openair festival could be organised in Warsaw.

Three years later, on the 1 st May 2001 300 people walked down the streets in the first parade. There were only one rainbow flag and everything was quickly organised. That's how we started.

From then every year Polish gay and lesbian people went on the streets to manifest their presence. Later the parade evoluqated and became a three days Queer Culture Festival.

In 2002 we were already 1000 walking down the Warsaw streets.

Due to the support of many more organisations and Polish senator, prof. Maria Szyszkowska, in 2003 we were 4000 lesbian, gay people and their friends and families. It was a great and joyful event.

Year after year, we were visited by guests from other Polish cities and countries. We had a visit of Joke Swiebel, member of the European Parliament, who supported our festival.

But in 2004 the Parade didn't took place. The mayor of Warsaw, Lech Kaczynski, didn't give an administrative bill to the event – as he declared - to protect the morality and religious convictions of the inhabitants. The responsibles of the parade protested but at least, an on place event was organised that gathered 2000 people.

After all those events the responsible for the parade – ILGCN Poland and two other important Polish organisations – Campaign Against Homophobia (KPH) and Lambda Warszawa decided to create a new structure for the organisation of the Equality Days – the Equality Foundation.

The Polish parade want to affirm the tradition of Christopher Street Day. The Equality Foundation is a member of Interpride and its European partner – EPOA; both of the organisations support the parades which took place all around the world. We are far away from the successes of the CSD in Berlin, but it was impossible to make 20 years in 5 years only;). We believe that one day the Warsaw parade will become one of the most important in the world.